Modern interpretations of the season of penitence before Easter have transformed its traditional institutions of suffering or denial.

Today, many a Catholic priest and Protestant minister urge their flocks to rethink the idea of giving up something for Lent. Instead, they counsel Christians to think of what they can add to their lives - in a spirit of service to God and their fellow humans.

Thus, more and more Christians think of spending Lent - which begins this week with Ash Wednesday - preparing for Easter by working at a homeless shelter, volunteering as a tutor, taking on added responsibilities at church.

Salem native tackles major topic

While there are more high-profile subjects for Christians to be concerned about this Lenten season - war, the economy - I'd suggest some attention to the more mundane concerns of race relations in the church.

The Rev. Brad Braxton, a Salem native, has written a book that takes on that subject.

Oh, that's not its title, and, in a technical sense, his topic is much more narrow than that. "No Longer Slaves: Galatians and the African American Experience" is published by the Liturgical Press of Collegeville, Minn. It sells for $15.95 and can be ordered at local bookstores.

Braxton is one of Salem's most distinguished sons. A graduate of Salem High School, he won a Jefferson Scholarship to the University of Virginia. He graduated in 1991, the same year he was ordained by First Baptist Church of Salem, where his father was pastor for 33 years.

Braxton won a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford University in England. "No Longer Slaves" is an expansion of the thesis he completed there in 1993. He came home to earn his Ph.D. from Emory University in Atlanta.

For five years, he served as pastor of a 600-member nondenominational congregation in Baltimore. Today he is the Jessie Ball duPont assistant professor of homiletics (preaching) and biblical studies at Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, N.C.

An accessible, provocative book

While Braxton's book did expand and modify his thesis for a wider audience, it cannot be denied that some of it reads like a master's thesis - particularly technical arguments about methods of biblical interpretation.

But when he gets into his exegesis of Galatians in the second half of the book, it becomes accessible and provocative. That includes his interpretation of the Apostle Paul's meaning when he wrote that, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

Braxton's ultimate argument is that the Christian church can - and should - be unified, but that does not mean that it must be homogenized. Distinctive, and different, cultures can coexist in its household without one being inferior to another, he says. The dominant - read "white" - Christian culture has no inherent superiority to the theology created by the Africans who were forcibly brought here 200 years ago, he argues.

Like the Apostle Paul, he contends, those slaves rooted their belief in experience, mingled it with pre-existing faith and tested it in the trials of life.

It may be a white audience that Braxton would most like to influence. One does not have to have African ancestors or agree with all of Braxton's conclusions - some of them may be shocking and heretical to some readers, in fact - to find the book enlightening.

Its reading would be a good Lenten discipline for those who would like to see better understanding between black and white Christians.