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236 reviews for:
Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope
Esau McCaulley
4.44 AVERAGE
236 reviews for:
Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope
Esau McCaulley
4.44 AVERAGE
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I am probably not the target audience for this book. I see it as an important addition to an ongoing conversation about Christianity, power, race, justice, etc. in the United States but certain sections and arguments are stronger than others. I appreciate how McCaulley seems to be trying to find a middle ground in some ways, to enable Christians who are talking past each other see something they hadn't seen before, but this title is too academic in some ways and not enough in others (there are strong statements without accompanying footnotes or documentation).
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A great view of the black experience of reading the Bible. As a white person, this was very eye opening to me.
It took me a while to finish it because it is so through, so thoughtful and just brimming with wisdom. Probably the best work about Biblical interpretation I have ever read.
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
You get McCaulley’s personal experiences, a history of the black church, some applied theology, and - my favorite - a history of Africans and African influence in the Bible and early church history.
There is a reason that McCaulley's "Reading While Black" won the 2021 "The Beautiful Orthodoxy" CT Book Award. This book is a MUST read.
McCaulley teaches so much that many in the church will find challenging and need to wrestle with. I liked how he presented the text as an answer to some dedicated questions, and brought to light Scripture as the answer. While the intended audience is focused on Black Christians, I found his exegesis of Scripture and answer to his questions enlightening and helpful to my understanding as I seek to become a better advocate and ally.
There were a very, very small number of things about the text that I did not like, but there is far more that was educational and really, really great.
I highly recommend this as a read for anyone desiring to learn more about God's Justice and what the Kingdom really looks like.
McCaulley teaches so much that many in the church will find challenging and need to wrestle with. I liked how he presented the text as an answer to some dedicated questions, and brought to light Scripture as the answer. While the intended audience is focused on Black Christians, I found his exegesis of Scripture and answer to his questions enlightening and helpful to my understanding as I seek to become a better advocate and ally.
There were a very, very small number of things about the text that I did not like, but there is far more that was educational and really, really great.
I highly recommend this as a read for anyone desiring to learn more about God's Justice and what the Kingdom really looks like.
Does the Bible have something to say about the Black experience in America? To injustice, to inequality, to inequity, to police brutality, to racism, to protests? Yes.
Esau McCaulley, an ordained Anglican priest and a professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, undertakes a rigorous exegesis of scripture to show the reader that yes, in fact the Bible has plenty to say about those current, and not so current issues. And McCaulley does this through the lens of the Black ecclesial interpretation.
Skeptical? Read the book.
Some of my favorite quotes.
"There are uses of Scripture that utter a false testimony about God. This is what we see in Satan’s use of Scripture in the wilderness. The problem isn’t that the Scriptures that Satan quoted were untrue, but when made to do the work that he wanted them to do, they distorted the biblical witness. This is my claim about the slave master exegesis of the antebellum South. The slave master arrangement of biblical material bore false witness about God. This remains true of quotations of the Bible in our own day that challenge our commitment to the refugee, the poor, and the disinherited.”
“Protest is not unbiblical; it is a manifestation of our analysis of the human condition in light of God’s own word and vision for the future.”
“Peacemaking, then, cannot be separated from truth telling. The church’s witness does not involve simply denouncing the excesses of both sides and making moral equivalencies. It involves calling injustice by its name. If the church is going to be on the side of peace in the United States, then there has to be an honest accounting of what this country has done and continues to do to Black and Brown people. Moderation or the middle ground is not always the loci of righteousness.”
“God’s vision for his people is not for the elimination of ethnicity to form a colorblind uniformity of sanctified blandness. Instead God sees the creation of a community of different cultures united by faith in his Son as a manifestation of the expansive nature of his grace. This expansiveness is unfulfilled unless the differences are seen and celebrated, not as ends unto themselves, but as particular manifestations of the power of the Spirit to bring forth the same holiness among different peoples and cultures for the glory of God.”
Esau McCaulley, an ordained Anglican priest and a professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, undertakes a rigorous exegesis of scripture to show the reader that yes, in fact the Bible has plenty to say about those current, and not so current issues. And McCaulley does this through the lens of the Black ecclesial interpretation.
Skeptical? Read the book.
Some of my favorite quotes.
"There are uses of Scripture that utter a false testimony about God. This is what we see in Satan’s use of Scripture in the wilderness. The problem isn’t that the Scriptures that Satan quoted were untrue, but when made to do the work that he wanted them to do, they distorted the biblical witness. This is my claim about the slave master exegesis of the antebellum South. The slave master arrangement of biblical material bore false witness about God. This remains true of quotations of the Bible in our own day that challenge our commitment to the refugee, the poor, and the disinherited.”
“Protest is not unbiblical; it is a manifestation of our analysis of the human condition in light of God’s own word and vision for the future.”
“Peacemaking, then, cannot be separated from truth telling. The church’s witness does not involve simply denouncing the excesses of both sides and making moral equivalencies. It involves calling injustice by its name. If the church is going to be on the side of peace in the United States, then there has to be an honest accounting of what this country has done and continues to do to Black and Brown people. Moderation or the middle ground is not always the loci of righteousness.”
“God’s vision for his people is not for the elimination of ethnicity to form a colorblind uniformity of sanctified blandness. Instead God sees the creation of a community of different cultures united by faith in his Son as a manifestation of the expansive nature of his grace. This expansiveness is unfulfilled unless the differences are seen and celebrated, not as ends unto themselves, but as particular manifestations of the power of the Spirit to bring forth the same holiness among different peoples and cultures for the glory of God.”
Deeply informative with textual arguments found throughout Scripture on topics such as policing, slavery, race in God’s kingdom, and more. Eye-opening and exhorting as he discussed the role of “double apologists” that many Black Christians have had to assume.
Note: I listened to it and because of the denser study-like nature of the book, I’d recommend reading it with your eyes, so as not to lose some of the details which I’ve surely done.
Note: I listened to it and because of the denser study-like nature of the book, I’d recommend reading it with your eyes, so as not to lose some of the details which I’ve surely done.