Breaking the chains.

M. Christopher Boyer 5/16/2010 1 This is one of those wonderful and beloved old stories that many of us learned in our earliest days in Sunday School, at least in part. The image of Paul and Silas, bravely and joyfully singing hymns while chained in a dreadful dungeon, awaiting who knows what kind of awful fate, is one that has inspired artists and songwriters over the ages. You can’t for example, sing about “That Old-Time Religion” without noting that it was “good for Paul and Silas and it’s good enough for me.” Groups as diverse as those bluegrass stalwarts, The Stanley Brothers, to Phish, inheritors of the Grateful Dead’s mantle as the jam band aficionados are most likely to travel the country to hear, have recorded the old folk song named for this duo. The image of their broken chains also fills our art, our hymnody, and serves as a useful metaphor for preachers of all stripes.