Reviews

Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley

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jtrogers1992's review

5.0

This book helped me fill in some major gaps in Christian thought and I would recommend it to anybody who has questions about what Christianity and the Bible say about race, justice, policing and identity. As someone who is, sadly, only marginally familiar with black Christian interpretation I found this book to be a great resource! I’ll be thinking on this one often going forward

kstephensreads's review

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5.0

This book is thought-provoking and insightful. I’m so grateful for McCaulley’s careful handling of this topic!

coveredbychristine's review

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5.0

“God’s terrible power to judge makes me long for everyone to take advantage of God’s offer of forgiveness. Christian eschatology breeds compassion.”

Esau McCuaulley has written the book we need today. I have been moved and challenged by every page of Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope and would highly recommend this book.
McCaulley’s scholarship is sound, the interweaving of personal narrative is natural and important. He powerfully presents a “Jesus hermeneutic” of reading Scripture through the eyes of minority, vulnerable and oppressed eyes.

dkatreads's review

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4.0

An exercise in hope indeed. This wasn’t what I expected. The issues discussed are so deeply rooted in the Black ecclesial experience, and yet, as McCaulley points out, there’s such little scholarly interpretation, that it honestly surprised me how basic he had to go (which is, in reality, a reflection of the whiteness of Biblical scholarship).

He remains so faithful to historic understandings of the Biblical metanarrative, and yet is unafraid to challenge dominant white exegesis. This approach makes McCaulley unique. I believe it’s also what made this book so popular—it’s challenging, but not invalidating, to most conservative readers. It’s a sweet spot that’s much needed in today’s discourse. And McCaulley writes with both a scholar’s voice and a preacher’s tone. He’s unapologetically himself. It’s refreshing, even if it’s a bit of whiplash for the reader.

I appreciate this book. I also know that I can’t appreciate it in the same way the communion of Black Christians can (and do). I’d highly recommend it.

readordie68's review

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4.0

A frequently compelling introduction to an essential conversation. McCaulley writes with a winsome tone of compassionate steel. I found particularly striking the first chapter, which introduces what McCaulley terms the Black ecclesial tradition, and the sixth, where he examines the resonances between Black anger and the Biblical narrative.

bngambill's review

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4.0

This book is so good. As a white church lady, I desperately needed it. I seek to learn more about perspectives I will never be able to gain by being someone I am not, but I can learn through books like Esau's. I listened to the audiobook and now want to buy the physical copy to have on my shelf to come back to in the future. Thankful for this book and others like it.