What made you want to write a book about the story of the Exodus? I had a conversation with a justice advocate. We were teaching a class together and the way I was talking about slavery made him question me. He said, “When you think of the Israelites as slaves in Egypt, what are you picturing?” I’m thinking of The Prince of Egypt – they’re all working and singing in beautiful harmonies. He said, “What kind of slaves own their own home, have the best land in all of Egypt, have their own livestock and have a representative that threatens the king?”
All my pictures of this oppressed people began unravelling. I started realising that although the Israelites were oppressed, the person who calls them slaves was God! There are hints in the text of a deeper version of slavery. It has a lot to do with dominant values systems, success and glory.
I realised I’d read that text with a Disney view and missed this deep, beautiful truth that God has intended his people to be free. And what looks like opulence and success is actually a form of oppression.
I realised I’d read that text with a Disney view and missed this deep, beautiful truth that God has intended his people to be free. And what looks like opulence and success is actually a form of oppression.
How can Christians read the story differently?
It’s a healthy idea to read through the Exodus story and think you might be Egypt, rather than always identifying with the Israelites. Would we listen to a prophet from the oppressed who came to us and said ‘God said let my people go’? Would we do it? Would we bend or would we need to be broken?
What can enslave us as Christians today?
Anything that causes us to forget the sacredness that is part of our DNA enslaves us. The Israelites were on an external journey out of Egypt. But then it became internal – they had to get Egypt out of them.
Not only do we have to get out of oppression but we have to get oppression out of us.
External slavery is connected to internal oppression. Kids are dying from the slave master of extreme poverty. But in this part of the world the biggest killer is obesity – poverty inverted. It feels like there’s a thread which connects our internal oppression – we can’t get enough, eat enough, consume enough – with this extreme poverty that’s an external oppression.
Or take Human Trafficking, where girls are sold into sex slavery. You have a whole generation in the West… enslaved to pornography. If we’re really going to get to freedom as a people, we’ve got to make those connections between internal and external. Freedom is going to come from the inside out.
Danielle Strickland was speaking to Sam Hailes.
The Ultimate Exodus: Finding freedom from what enslaves you (Lion Hudson) is out now
