Reading the Bible Responsibly in a Polarized Church & World – Part 8
Opening Prayer
You are above us O God, you are within. You are in all things, yet contained by no thing. Teach us to seek you in all that has life, that we may see you as the Light of life. Teach us to search for you in our own depths, that we may find you in every living soul.
- John Philip Newell, Sounds of the Eternal – A Celtic Psalter, p. 2.
Reading the Bible Responsibly in a Polarized Church & World:
The Bible’s content in many ways engages its readers – puzzling, angering, challenging, and inspiring them. How has the Bible historically been used, including with the issue of slavery? Can readers navigate the use of biblical texts that are quoted across the political spectrum? What principles exist for interpreting these texts that support conflicting viewpoints? Together, we will explore a way forward: reading the Bible with each other, guided by the rule of love.
The Bible and Racism in the United States (cont’d)
“White enslavers had reason to fear a biblically literate enslaved population. One of the Bible’s cores stories is the liberation of the Israelite slaves from Egypt and their arrival in a land promised them by God. The leader of one enslaved revolt of 1800, Gabriel Prosser, appealed to Leviticus as biblical testimony of the revolt’s rightness and success. Denmark Vesey’s rebellion in 1822, was in part inspired by the Exodus story. In particular, Vesey and others appealed to Exodus 21:16, to justify armed uprising against enslavers; ‘Whoever kidnaps a person, whether that person has been sold or is still in possession, shall be put to death.’ In addition to the legislative attempts to prevent the enslaved from having access to the Bible, White slaveowners arranged for White preachers to come to plantations and preach on ‘acceptable’ biblical texts – mainly from the Pauline letters stressing the obedience of servants.”
“Naturally, the Bible that the enslaved encountered was the KJV and to this day it remains the translation of choice for many Black Christians in the United States. Consequently, the KJV’s vocabulary, cadences, and phrases have formed and played a large part in Black American theology, literature, poetry, and music. As [author] Alice Ogden Bellis notes, ‘Blacks revere the KJV for the same reason many Roman Catholics still are fond of the Latin/Vulgate Bible: the poetry and antiquitous tone associated with a spirituality of earlier times, even another world. That some of the text is ‘mysterious,’ i.e., not fully understood, is what makes it special, instantly beckoning one to prayer and active dialogue with God.’”
“Proslavery Christians looked to the Bible for support of both slavery as an institution in general and of the enslavement of Africans in particular. There was no shortage of evidence for slavery as a practice in the Bible. Sarah had a slave woman named Hagar who runs away from Sarah and is ordered by God to return (Gen. 16:9). Numerous laws given to Moses by God in the Torah, including the Ten Commandments, deal with the capture, release, punishment, and general treatment of slaves (Exodus 20-21); Deuteronomy 15). Two New Testament letters bearing the Apostle Paul’s name (Paul most likely did not write Ephesians or Colossians) directly tell slaves to obey their masters (Ephesians 6:5-8; Colossians 3:22-25) and demonstrate that some of the early Christians owned slaves. Paul himself sent a runaway slave back to his owner, as recounted in the New Testament letter to Philemon. The cultural background of the Bible – both the Old and New Testaments – assumed slavery as a social ‘fact’ of life. Proslavery Bible readers claimed they were reading the Bible literally and in its ‘plain sense.’”
“What was more difficult for proslavery Christians was finding biblical support for the enslavement of Africans. Slavery based on race is not found in the Bible and only began to appear in Christianity around 1500. In the Hebrew Bible, there are different rules for the treatment of Israelite and non-Israelite slaves, but there was no idea of biological ‘race’ in antiquity. It’s a product of Western European and North American thought in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Consequently, proslavery Bible readers turned to one of the Bible’s more arcane stories to justify African slavery, the drunkenness of Noah in Genesis chapter 9.”
[Reading from Genesis 9:18-27]
(Thomas M. Bolin, An Inspired Word in Season – Reading the Bible Responsibly in a Polarized World, 2025.)
For this week: For reflection: Do you recall hearing or reading this Bible passage, which follows the Noah’s Ark story?
An invitation to our virtual participants: Discussion and comments are very much encouraged and welcomed. Online discussions can be held in the comments section in the upcoming post on Social Media for this week’s Deacon’s Reflection which is part of adult formation at St. Francis Episcopal Church.
Some Suggested Study Resources:
- The New Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV, with the Apocrypha; 5 th edition.
- The Harper Collins Study Bible, NRSV, Fully Revised and Updated (Including Apocryphal Deuterocanonical Books); Society of Biblical Literature; (e-book).
- The Jewish Annotated New Testament, NRSV, 2 nd edition, Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors; Oxford University Press.
Closing Prayer – Prayer of Blessing
Before us in the planned shape of this day, we look for unexpected surgings of new life. Around us in the people whom we know and love, we look for unopened gifts of promise. Within us in the familiar sanctuary of our own soul, we look for the shinings of the everlasting light. Before us, around us, within us, we look for your life-giving mystery, O God, before us, around us, within us.
May the light of God illumine the heart of my soul.
May the flame of Christ kindle me to love.
May the fire of the Spirit free me to live this day, tonight, and forever. Amen.
- John Philip Newell, Sounds of the Eternal – A Celtic Psalter, p. 5.
“Reading the Bible Responsibly in a Polarized Church & World,” Deacon Joe Dzugan, St. Francis Episcopal Church,
2026.
