Onesimus Our Brother: Reading Religion, Race, and Slavery in Philemon

Noel and Johnson make the point that Philemon is as important a letter from an African-American perspective as Romans or Galatians have proven to be in Eurocentric interpretation. Here they gather critical essays by a constellation of African-American scholars, highlighting the latest in interpretive methods and troubling scholarly waters, interacting with the legacies of Hegel, Freud, Habermas, Ricoeur, and James C. Scott as well as the historical experience of African American communities. Onesimus Our Brother opens surprising new vistas on Paul’s shortest and, in some ways, most troubling letter.
About the Author
Matthew V. Johnson is Senior Pastor of the Good Shepherd Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and co-editor of The Passion of the Lord: African American Reflections (Fortress Press, 2005)
James A. Noel is the H. Eugene Farlough California Professor of African American Christianity at San Francisco The Passion of the Lord: African American Reflections (Fortress Press, 2005), and contributor to True to Our Native Land (Fortress Press, 2007). He is also convener and founder of the Graduate Theological Union's Black Church/Africana Studies Certificate Program.
Demetrius K. Williams teaches in the Theology Department at Marquette University and is the author of An End to This Strife: The Politics of Gender in African American Churches (2004).