Have you ever experienced synergy? When you get together with others who are like you but also different, and yet you share a common purpose? I hope so! I certainly feel this way when we worship together on Sundays.
Recently, I experienced synergy on a large scale, at the annual combined meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in San Diego. From November 22-26, I got together with almost 7,000 other religious scholars from around the world. For five days, we attended panel discussions, paper presentations, reports on major ongoing committee projects, and networking receptions. With over 1,000 events to choose from, I focused on presentations that would inform my own dissertation project on Philemon.
Paul writes this short letter to a Christian slaveholder, asking him to exercise leniency and kindness in receiving Onesimus back into his home. Scholars search for answers to questions that this biblical text raises, especially: is Paul asking Philemon to grant Onesimus legal freedom? This leads to a bigger question: why do the writers of the New Testament fail to advocate for wide scale abolition, when we clearly see the equality of all as an essential Christian ethic today?
In my academic quest for answers, I was encouraged to find others at SBL who agree that Paul used the phrase “a prisoner of Christ Jesus” in Philemon 1:1 as a way of identifying compassionately with the enslaved and captive Onesimus. Perhaps Paul is advocating obliquely for the legal freedom of Onesimus, but even more than that, that Philemon treat him as a beloved child of God.
Feel free to ask me more about Philemon, or about other projects and presentations from the recent SBLAAR annual meeting – I’d love to share more! revhilldeborah@gmail.com
by the Rev. Deborah Hill
835 SW Polk St.