Reading while Black : African American biblical interpretation as an exercise in hope / Esau McCaulley.

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Christian Book Award® program

Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Finalist

Outreach Resources of the Year

Christianity Today Book Award

The Gospel Coalition Book Award

Emerging Public Intellectual Award

Growing up in the American South, Esau McCaulley knew firsthand the ongoing struggle between despair and hope that marks the lives of some in the African American context. A key element in the fight for hope, he discovered, has long been the practice of Bible reading and interpretation that comes out of traditional Black churches. This ecclesial tradition is often disregarded or viewed with suspicion by much of the wider church and academy, but it has something vital to say.

Reading While Black is a personal and scholarly testament to the power and hope of Black biblical interpretation. At a time in which some within the African American community are questioning the place of the Christian faith in the struggle for justice, New Testament scholar McCaulley argues that reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition is invaluable for connecting with a rich faith history and addressing the urgent issues of our times. He advocates for a model of interpretation that involves an ongoing conversation between the collective Black experience and the Bible, in which the particular questions coming out of Black communities are given pride of place and the Bible is given space to respond by affirming, challenging, and, at times, reshaping Black concerns. McCaulley demonstrates this model with studies on how Scripture speaks to topics often overlooked by white interpreters, such as ethnicity, political protest, policing, and slavery.

Ultimately McCaulley calls the church to a dynamic theological engagement with Scripture, in which Christians of diverse backgrounds dialogue with their own social location as well as the cultures of others. Reading While Black moves the conversation forward.

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Booklist Review

An assistant professor at Wheaton College, McCaulley, who is himself Black, writes cogently about reading the Bible as context for a number of issues both social and theological affecting the Black community today. He writes, for example, about "The New Testament and a Theology of Policing," "The Bible and the Pursuit of Justice," and "The Bible and Black Anger." He also examines the struggle between Black nihilism and Black hope and the ways in which the Bible addresses the hope of Black people. His goal, he states, is to demonstrate and embody the Black ecclesial, interpretive model. Given the current urgent focus on systemic racism in America, his cogent and insightful chapters on policing, justice, and Black anger will probably be the most resonant with general readers, although his discussions of other topics--the political witness of the church, the Bible and Black identity, and the freeing of slaves--are equally instructive and relevant. Altogether, his book is an exercise in hope that speaks powerfully to readers of every race and ethnicity.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Esau McCaulley (PhD, St. Andrews) is assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, a priest in the Anglican Church in North America, and a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. His publications include Sharing in the Son's Inheritance and numerous articles in outlets such as Christianity Today and the Washington Post.