No Longer Slaves

No Longer Slaves brings the ancient New Testament message into conversation with African American culture. Twenty centuries after Paul penned Galatians, American culture in general and American Christianity in particular continue to struggle with the problem of race relations. Our challenges are not identical to those faced by Paul and the Galatians. Yet, when one reads Galatians through the lens of African American experience, striking similarities emerge. In No Longer Slaves, Brad Braxton helps us see that race relations is a central issue in Galatians. Paul believes that Christ came in order to unite Jews and Gentiles. The church was intended to be amulti-ethnic community in which persons of different backgrounds co-existed harmoniously. Any effort to compel Gentiles to live as Jews is an invalidation of the freedom of the Gospel. Galatians offers us a portrait of an early Christian leader and community sorting out complex social issues. No Longer Slaves explores the concept of liberation in African American experience. It entails a discussion of American slavery. Rather than depicting African Americans simply as victims of the crimes of slavery and segregation, Braxton describes the creative cultural and religious responses of African Americans to their oppression. He employs a type of reader-response theory that considers the experiences of the reading community as a lens through which texts are read. His discussion of methodology exposes the reader to some of the issues in the current debate without becoming burdensome to the non-specialist. The remainder of the book is an interpretation of Paul's letter to the Galatians. Although Braxton takes seriously the original context of Galatians and his exegesis engages the Greek text, he offers a contemporary theological reading that privileges the history, experiences, and concerns of African Americans. Those who are concerned about the connection between Christianity and ethnicity will find this interpretation intriguing and challenging. Chapters in Liberation and African American Experience are Introduction," *Liberation: Rationales and Definitions, - *Blackness: Biology and Ideology, - and *African American Biblical Interpretation. - Chapters in A Reading Strategy for Liberation are *Reader-Response Criticism and Black and Womanist Theologies, - *The Bible and Authority in Reader-Response Criticism, - and *The African American (Christian) Interpretive Community. - Chapters in Galatians and African American Experience are *Introduction, - *Historical Overview, - Interpretations, - and *Conclusion. - Includes a bibliography. Brad Ronnell Braxton, PhD, is the Jessie Ball DuPont Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Biblical Studies at Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is an ordained Baptist minister and for five years served as Senior Pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church in Baltimore, Maryland. "

This book, based on addresses preached at the Evangelical Movement of Wales Conference at Aberystwyth in 2005, deals with these chapters and this vital subject. Godliness, we are told, is contrary to the selfish spirit that moves the world, the flesh and the devil, in that it seeks to do everything for the glory of Christ. Stuart Olyott shows us that godliness is a moral and not a mystical quality; it is the fruit of union with Christ; it results in glad obedience to a new master and, although this will result in loss and suffering in this life, it anticipates the future glory of heaven which awaits every believer. An essential read for all who wish to live godly lives in Christ Jesus.

Three essays present an introduction and history of the emancipation of the slaves during the Civil War.

The Slave Bible was published in 1807. It was commissioned on behalf of the Society for the Conversion of Negro Slaves in England. The Bible was to be used by missionaries and slave owners to teach slaves about the Christian faith and to evangelize slaves. The Bible was used to teach some slaves to read, but the goal first and foremost was to tend to the spiritual needs of the slaves in the way the missionaries and slave owners saw fit.

ECPA Top Shelf Book Cover Award Belonging has never come easy to me. Growing up, there was my mutated national identity to deal with—my not-quite-American, not-quite-Indonesian soul, restless in both countries. Later, when I came out as a celibate gay Christian, I found I didn't fit into the church as easily as I used to. I've often wondered what it means to belong to others even when I can't manage to blend in with them. The way Jesus tells it, if we give up on belonging in order to follow him, we'll find ourselves belonging anyway. We might not belong the way other people do, with normal homes and normal families and normal ways of fitting in. But we'll belong in a way that's a hundred times better. We'll be fully in place because we know we are out of place. We'll belong like aliens. Maybe you're caught in the same tension as me, wanting to fit somewhere even as you're permanently out of place. Maybe you feel like an alien. If so, let's be aliens together.

Eden Eden Eden is Pierre Guyotat's legendary novel of atrocity and obscenity. It is a masterpiece of literary innovation, which is taught on numerous university courses. In Guyotat's native France, the novel is highly esteemed, being hailed as 'a new landmark and starting-point for new writing' by the renowned philosopher Roland Barthes, who also writes the novel's preface. Introduced by Stephen Barber, the Eden Eden Eden is one of the most graphic accounts of queer sex ever written, and will therefore cross over into this market.