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

Matt

Rating: really liked it
I didn't know what to expect going into this book. Was I part of the intended audience? Would it be more about political ideology than biblical reflection? Well, as evidenced by my five stars, I was thoroughly impressed. One need not agree with McCaulley’s every statement (I didn’t) to acknowledge and appreciate what he’s accomplished in this work. With biblical-theological skill he brings textual insights to bear that are often illuminating and moving.

Social location is not everything in reading our Bibles, of course, but it’s not nothing either. McCaulley showed me things in the text that, frankly, I’ve never had reason to notice. He is a remarkable writer who defies easy categorization—a conservative Anglican who, self-admittedly, can often feel like a cultural outsider among white evangelicals and a theological outsider among black progressives. (And just patronized by white progressives.)

Overall this book deepened by gratitude for the miracle of the black church, forged and sustained in the fires of suffering. The irrepressible courage and biblical fidelity which marks so much of black church history is a blazing testimony to God’s love for the downtrodden. (For more on this, see my brief review of Mary Beth Swetnam Mathews’s “Doctrine and Race: African American Evangelicals and Fundamentalism between the Wars.”) Above all, McCaulley’s book made me more amazed by the subversive beauty of Scripture—the searching Word of a liberating God.

Raymond

Rating: really liked it
How does the Black American experience fit into the Bible? At first glance it may not seem like it does. American history has shown that the Bible has been used to promote slavery, segregation, and Black inferiority. To some Black Americans, reading the Bible may seem like an exercise in despair and subjugation. Dr. Esau McCaulley says a resounding NO, reading the Bible can be an exercise in hope, we just need to know how to read and interpret it correctly. McCaulley’s new book Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation As An Exercise in Hope covers how the Bible addresses topics such as policing, being a political witness, the Black identity, and slavery.

McCaulley begins his book by explaining that the Black church tradition is known for: advocating justice, affirming that Black people have worth, and promoting a “multi ethnic” body of believers. He spotlights how Black Christianity has always challenged White Slaveholder Christianity, from the days of slavery to our current moment. McCaulley states that American culture may deny dignity and hope to Black Christians, however they are able to find these two truths in the Bible.

This book is coming out at just the right time in our political moment when issues of policing and systemic racism are front and center. One chapter deals with policing and how it is addressed in the New Testament. McCaulley draws clear parallels between how Christians interacted with the Roman guards and how Black people interact with police today. He also writes about the importance of Black Christians being involved in politics by calling out injustices and the evil policies implemented by governments and leaders.

One of his strongest chapters (Chapter 5) deals with the Bible and Black identity. It was definitely written to respond to hoteps, even though McCaulley does not use that term. He challenges the assertion by Black Secularists that Blacks shouldn’t be Christian because they were only introduced to the religion because of slavery. McCaulley challenges that notion by highlighting African people who are mentioned in the Bible (specifically Simon the Cyrene and the Ethiopian Eunuch) as well as during the early history of the Church when the Gospel was introduced to Ethiopia and Nubia.

He closes his book by addressing the Bible and slavery, answering questions such as whether God intended for slavery to happen in America or was it a by-product of the Fall? He provides a fascinating argument about how Black Christians read those verses of the Bible that tended to condone slavery and provides a strong Biblical rationale for why American slavery was not ordained by God, however, freedom is and that is good news!

Reading While Black would be a great book to study in Black Churches for adults and teenagers. I personally wish this book had been around, or a young adult version of it, when I was a teenager. There were times, when I was in school, when I read about how the Bible was used to promote racism and I never knew how to reconcile the faith I was raised in with the one that promoted the oppression of my ancestors. McCaulley’s book teaches Black Christians how to do that work and also provides an excellent history on how Black religious leaders and scholars of the past interpreted the Bible to give them hope and freedom.

Thanks to NetGalley, IVP Academic, and Esau McCaulley for a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review. This book will be released on September 1, 2020.

Review first published in Ballasts for the Mind: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-m...

Carmen Imes

Rating: really liked it
Esau McCaulley is professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, an ordained Anglican priest, and a fellow board member of the Institute for Biblical Research. I'm guessing that he wrote Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope (IVP, 2020) with Black readers in mind. But this white girl found it both helpful and inspiring.

I used to think that making space at the table for people of color was a matter of equality or justice, and that's part of it. People of color are made in the image of God and they should get a chance to speak. In theory, I imagined that reading the Bible with people from other cultural backgrounds would also be enriching. But I had no idea what I was missing!

Over the past 5 years or so I've been reading more widely and adding books to my own library and to my college's as fast as I can. I'm convinced now that when we only listen to people who look like we do, we're missing out on a ton of insight. I'm discovering a rich world of biblical reflection by African, African-American, Latinx, Asian, Asian-American, First Nations, and Islander believers.

Reading While Black fills an important gap in my library as well as in my understanding. Ironically, much of what is published by minority authors reflects the politics of the ivory tower -- critical of Scripture -- at times representing a departure from the faith tradition. (There are probably a variety of reasons for this, but I suspect that university presses are simply well ahead of faith-based publishers in seeking out authors of color.) As a result, it's much harder to find published works that represent the views of the majority of churches in the global south, churches which are by-and-large conservative.

In Reading While Black, Esau seeks to recover the resources of the Black church tradition that arises from the pulpit and the pew rather than from the ivory tower. He models a faith-filled reading of the biblical text that remains engaged with politics and justice but does not neglect the call to holy living.

Each of his chapters tackles an issue about which the Scriptures have something profound to say -- a theology of policing, the political witness of the church, the pursuit of justice, black identity, black anger, and slavery. He issues a prophetic call back to the Scriptures and to a life of faithfulness. His is not a call to "make the best of" systemic injustice, nor does he seek a violent overthrow. Esau engages tough questions with verve, urging active but peaceful resistance to injustice.

Many are wondering what to do when the protests have ended. How can we keep listening? My official endorsement of the book reads:

How can the church today effectively address the racial tensions that plague our nation? Esau has convinced me that the Black Church tradition holds the key -- maintaining fidelity to the Scriptures while fully engaging in the struggle for justice. This book is an excellent starting point for those who want to listen and learn a new way forward. Esau's prophetic voice is rooted in Scripture and full of hope. Highly recommended!

Matthew Colvin

Rating: really liked it
Hermeneutically dangerous. McCaulley may protest that he is not pushing Critical Race Theory, but this book gives the lie to that claim. His postmodern epistemology is evident throughout, and it will undermine orthodoxy. He rightly critiques racist theologians of the past, but fails to state clearly that their error was that they were objectively wrong about the Bible, not that they failed to include enough black voices – as though truth were a matter of combining all our biases and stirring them together. In the same way, McCaulley’s failure to condemn liberal theologians who deny the gospel but happen to share his skin color makes him a Trojan horse for evangelical Anglicanism. His promotion of irresponsible myths, such as the idea that Simon of Cyrene or Rufus and Alexander were black (they were almost certainly of typical Mediterranean or Roman African complexion) reveals ressentiment. This is the man who tweeted, “What does it mean that most of our English Bibles were translated with very few Black or other Christians of color or women involved?” – to which I reply, “It means that you have been blessed to receive the Bible from people who were not black” – not least, the Jewish males who wrote the Bible in the first place.

Jared Wilson

Rating: really liked it
Excellent. The chapter surveying the biblical teaching on slavery is especially worth the read.

Andrew K

Rating: really liked it
My goodness. Where do I begin? Reading While Black has given me the much-needed reminder of the necessity of listening to, learning from, and amplifying diverse voices in theological method. This is not a book that I will read once only to discard it to my bookshelf. No – this is a book that I will be reading and re-reading in the coming years.

Esau McCaulley is an ordained Anglican priest and a professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. In Reading While Black he explores the message of hope found in the Black ecclesial tradition. He does not seek to innovate, nor bring a fresh reading to various texts, but rather remind others of the home that is the Black ecclesial tradition. Writing with popular audiences in mind, he gives practical guidance for laypeople to gain a deeper engagement with the breadth of Scripture.

Reading While Black brings a joyous reminder of the powerful truth of the character of God. It offers clear, robust exegesis of texts that far too often have been colonized, offering a more holistic reading of passages such as Romans 13 and 1 Timothy 2.

Dr. McCaulley maintains an unwavering faithfulness to Scripture while calling the Church to a better understanding of policing, political engagement, Black anger, Black identity, and slavery.

This book has encouraged me to treasure God's self-revelation in Scripture, challenged me to listen and learn from the various traditions of the global Church, and reminded me of the hope that I have in the coming Kingdom.

Neil R. Coulter

Rating: really liked it
Esau McCaulley opens this book with the assertion that Black ecclesial interpretation “got somethin’ to say” about the Bible. By the end of the book, I totally agreed. McCaulley looks at a number of questions about the Black experience in the US, present and past—policing, politics, justice, identity, anger, and slavery—and asks what the Bible says to these situations. Some quick points that I will be contemplating for quite a while:

**The twelve tribes of Israel were never a racially or ethnically “pure” group. Jacob accepts Joseph’s two sons and so incorporates African blood into the family right from the start. God’s promise to reach all the world through Jacob’s family thus starts happening at the very beginning.

**The Bible sometimes speaks from the standpoint of God’s creational intent—the way the world is meant to be—and other times speaks to what God allows because of human sinfulness. McCaulley points out how Jesus responds to the Pharisees’ questioning about divorce (Matthew 19) not by expounding upon Deuteronomy, as the Pharisees had intended, but by returning to Genesis, to God’s original intention for the world. In the same way, the Bible speaks to proper relations between masters and slaves, but that doesn’t mean God’s intention was that there be slavery; rather, those passages are making allowances for the way Roman society functioned, with the intention that slavery be eradicated.

**Through and through, the Bible takes seriously the rage of the oppressed against the oppressor. The Psalms give voice to that just anger, and the Hebrews are reminded that they (we) were all once slaves, having been rescued by God from Egypt. Slavery is our heritage as God’s people, and the anger and bitterness are real. But God’s purpose all along has been the redemption of all people through the family he chose—and in the New Testament we see the astounding quality of that promise when it means loving the oppressor and the enemy, even when they clearly don’t deserve it. But the Bible also balances this with the assertion that there will be a final reckoning. God’s justice doesn’t mean ignoring all the injustice of human society.

**Where the Bible seems to stop short of encouraging all-out rebellion against the evils of politics, government, and systemic injustice, it’s not overlooking those evils nor telling us to just put up with it. Rather, the lesson we learn is that God knows the right time and way to overthrow injustice, and he will do it; we will always want to revolt and try to rid the world of evil, and sometimes that’s the right thing and other times it’s not the time or method just yet. The Bible teaches us to want the right things and to wait for God’s timing.

I loved McCaulley’s perspective on many parts of the Bible that I thought I knew pretty well. I still have a lot to learn, and the learning is a thrill. My only criticism of Reading While Black is that I wanted it to go more in-depth (only 184 pages??). But for now, I’ll be content with this book and eagerly await what McCaulley writes next.

Sunni C. | vanreads

Rating: really liked it
Reading While Black takes a look at African American interpretations of the bible and how they differ from conventional interpretations from white churches in America. I would clarify that these interpretations are not so different that they diverge from biblical canon. Instead, it focuses on the idea that Christianity is about freeing the oppressed and unity for all races and ethnic backgrounds. There are many examples of this in the bible (ie. Moses leading the slaves to freedom, and the unification of Jews and Gentiles). He also points out that one of the places Christianity originated from is North Africa.

With that in mind, I really enjoyed reading about interpreting the bible through a different perspective. As an Asian American who grew up in white evangelical churches, it can be really isolating when biblical norms seems to tie into white culture. Over time, I've been trying to expand my knowledge on how the bible is interpreted by different groups of people. Reading about Black Christian culture and its biblical interpretations has been really enlightening and incredibly important. I find that it helps us develop a more holistic view of the bible that's not homogenous to an individual culture or perspective. Reading While Black is an important book that gives us a window into the Black Christian identity, and shows us that God's redemptive grace is for the oppressed, and standing against injustice is in fact a biblical thing to do. I encourage people from a traditional western Christian background to read this book in order to understand the bible from a different lens.

Thank you NetGalley for letting me read and review this book.

Visit my Instagram @vanreads for more of my reviews.

Claude

Rating: really liked it
Full review:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/re...

To appreciate what Reading While Black offers, one needs to catch the basic contours of this ongoing conversation about God’s eternal Word and black people’s earthly concerns. McCaulley satisfyingly situates the discourse both for those who’ve been, and also for those who’ve just started, listening.

Broadly speaking, when it comes to this conversation some progressives, black and otherwise, have offered a hermeneutic of revision, believing the Bible will be good news to the black experience insofar as we revise it to be so. On the other side of the conversation, some evangelicals have unwittingly—and ignorantly—offered us a hermeneutic of irrelevance, suggesting the Bible says next to nothing about the black experience by virtue of anemic application for justice. Recounting his own wandering through both sides of the conversation, McCaulley urges us to refuse this binary.

TheBookWarren

Rating: really liked it
4.75 Stars — Wow. A riveting, gut-punch of a read, I just could NOT put this down, such was the ferocity & starkness of the content and especially the prose.

Best not to giveaway too much, but for me this is a life-awakening piece of literature that paints a vaguely familiar picture but does so with a completely customised and unique set of brushes. A topic so relevant yet so bereft of genuine published content, despite the recent vein of excellently written, poignant literature on race & the truth about white-privilege and the still reticent views of the white majority, that racism is ‘a thing of the past’....

Never before have I been so lost when it comes to cogitating the bible, as my perspective has been given a genuine and much required shake-up.

Suzannah

Rating: really liked it
This book was spectacular on a multitude of different levels. I've always been fascinated to hear what people of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds get out of reading Scripture - if we all come to the Bible with our own sets of presuppositions, then it makes sense that whatever tradition we grew up in has blind spots, that we have things to learn from other traditions than our own. In READING WHILE BLACK, New Testament professor Esau McCaulley sets out to encapsulate the specific emphases the orthodox Black American church of his upbringing takes from its reading of Scripture. The result is well worth reading.

There are so many good things in this book. I grew up in a politically conservative and white context where certain hard conversations simply were not had, and certain delicate questions were not asked. This book is the first place I've ever heard, for instance, a genuine discussion of what Psalm 137 is all about, including the raw bits. As I have tried to start having those conversations and asking those questions myself of more recent years, I've often bemoaned the paucity of examples by older, wiser siblings in Christ who have walked this path and asked these questions before me. Given this lack, McCaulley's book is a breath of fresh air - committed to orthodox Christianity, but not afraid to have those difficult conversations either.

This brings me to one of the main things I think this book (and by extension, the entire tradition of Black American Christianity) has to say to white Christians. So many of my friends seem to have had traumatic experiences in abusive families and churches, including a plentiful helping of spiritual abuse; now they are going through the painful process of questioning everything and battling to hear God's voice past the voices of those who have quoted Scripture to justify their abuse. But this is an experience the entire Black church in the US has lived its entire history. Black people have been targeted by unjust systems for hundreds of years, and all too often they've had Bible quoted at them to justify this abuse. In response to this systemic spiritual abuse, the Black church has developed an orthodox and profound theology of liberation. I feel like a guppy even pointing this out: it feels like it should have been so obvious. But, the Black church has been working through this for centuries. Maybe it's time we started learning from them.

Related, I've always had a strong interest in questions of justice and injustice and what the Bible has to say to them. As part of the broader Reformed church, I was constantly being taught from the pulpit to obey governing authorities without question unless they absolutely required me to sin, and reminded that my Christian life and witness should remain thoroughly internal, with nothing to say to broader matters of social justice. As the child of my parents, however, I was raised to question authorities, use my conscience, and expect my faith to have a transformative effect on the world around me. READING WHILE BLACK may actually be the very first time I have come across a spirited defence of the social and political ramifications of Christian faith, and an exegesis of Romans 13 that recognises the revolutionary nature of Paul's description of magistrates as the servants or ministers of God, that doesn't come from within my own very small fringe element of white Calvinists. McCaulley says many of the things Rushdoony and North (and McDurmon) have been saying for decades, with a slightly different perspective and emphasis, in a tradition which has, apparently, been saying all these things for centuries already - and with far, far higher stakes and far more skin in the game.

White Christians have so much to learn from the Black church in America - this book is a great place to start. While there were places where I wished McCaulley had gone a lot further (dare to dream the total abolition of police, my friend!) I hope it becomes very widely-read.

Bob

Rating: really liked it
Summary: A study of biblical interpretation in the traditional Black church that emphasizes the conversation between the biblical text and the Black experience and how this sustains hope in the face of despair.

Esau McCaulley describes his journey from southern roots to white evangelicalism and progressive scholarship and back to the Black church tradition. He recognized that both evangelical and progressive traditions didn’t offer the wherewithal to deal with the Black experience of slavery and racism and to sustain hope amid despair. McCaulley found this by going back to the Black church, both its biblically rooted resistance to slavery and injustice, and its message of hope of liberation, not merely spiritual but in terms of bodily status.

McCaulley offers this description of biblical interpretation how one reads the Bible while Black:

--unapologetically canonical and theological.
--socially located, in that it clearly arises out of the particular context of Black Americans.
--willing to listen to the ways in which the Scriptures themselves respond to and redirect Black issues and concerns.
--willing to exercise patience with the text trusting that a careful and sympathetic reading of the text brings a blessing.
--willing to listen to and enter into dialogue with Black and white critiques of the Bible in the hopes of achieving a better reading of the text.

The next six chapters address issues facing the black community and how the tradition of Black church reading of scripture addresses each. The issues are: policing, political witness, the pursuit of justice, Black identity, Black anger, and slavery. The treatments are not exhaustive but are meant to point toward the resources of biblical interpretation open to the Black community. The concluding chapter centers on hope, which is the outcome of engaging the biblical text and looking for answers to these pressing issues. A “bonus track” goes further into the ecclesial, or church-centered aspect of this approach to biblical interpretation.

I will not go through McCaulley’s discussion of the six issues but focus on the first as an example of the approach he commends. First he begins with context, and his own experience of being stopped by police while at a gas station, as he was driving friends to a party. He then turns to Romans 13:1-2, often weaponized against the Black community. He observes how we often look at the instructions for citizens without considering the powers subject to God, and why, in Paul’s context the recipients of his letter are subjected to an evil empire by God. What the passage raises is a form of theodicy. McCaulley reads this passage canonically, setting Rome alongside Pharaoh (cf. Romans 9:17) in which God is glorified through his judgment upon wicked kings. If Moses was not sinful in his resistance to Pharaoh, then submission to authorities does not preclude calling evil by its name. Furthermore, verses 3 and 4 of Romans 13 speak to the just use of authority, to reward good and punish evil, and not the reverse. Policing that treats citizens otherwise ought to be reformed. It should not engender fear in those who do right, no matter the color of their skin. McCaulley observes then that how Paul deals with the evil Roman empire is not to refer to their evil but to talk about how just rule is exercised in a way that assures rather than arouses fear in the lives of the governed who do what is right.

I look at this and ask the question of how often have I heard the text taught in this way in the white church? Yet the implications for how those with police powers ought exercise them, as well as the obligation of submission, are both in the text. Both Pharaoh and Rome are in Romans. Yet where has this connection been made that speaks of how God judges evil empires and glorifies himself? Those whose social location is in the Black church in America see these realities in the text more readily than many of us.

I cannot read while Black. I read from a social location that makes me more aware of some aspects of scripture while missing others. What I’ve come to recognize as I’ve grown older is how much I’ve been blind to in scripture. I can only understand the whole counsel of God with the whole church. While I cannot read while Black, I can read with the Black church, to listen to their readings, always searching the text to see if these things are so. And what I find in many instances is that they are, and I had not had eyes to see. Open my eyes, Lord!

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

7jane

Rating: really liked it
This book is about black African-American views of Biblical interpretation, with a connection to history (slavery times onwards) and present struggles, “an exercise in hope”. A life between hope and despair. The Christian groups mentioned here are all Protestant, no mention of the Catholic, or even perhaps Orthodox ones, but all no doubt will find useful things here, and explanations/surprises and food for thought. And you’re not black but still curious, you will still find things here that you might not have thought before (and not just about the black experiences; for example how the Roman rule must have been felt by the parents of John the Baptist, who dealt with faith questions from the people they served as a priestly family, in their life.

The author is an Anglican priest, column writer, and an assistant professor. He has arranged each chapters subjects very well, with good conclusion for each chapter. The reading group discussion guide at the end might make each chapters subject even clearer (there’s also a scripture index). There are seven chapters, a conclusion, and a bonus chapter with more talk on the black exegetical tradition (incl. the importance of literacy, having your own churches, getting the chance to do academic study only from mid-20th c. onwards, on black women’s POV, and on patience not to go on rejection mode just because of one passage but to search more).

The author puts a little of his own experiences at the start on each chapter, then goes deep into Bible texts to talk about each subject (he does say that he made an effort not to be too thorough so as to make this book more readable to everyone; and this book is absolutely not too thick. Subjects include having a case for police reform, political witness of the church, on justice questions, identity, black anger and disappointment, and slavery. It is clear that what parts of the Bible white people have used against black people and slaves don’t stand on firm ground. There are plenty of parts in the Bible that could work against their twisting things to their own benefit, some of them subtle but easy to realise if you think about it, and look in more than just one place (fe. with Paul, when he talks to Philemon about Onesimus, or to Corinthians about purchasing your own freedom). The slaves quickly found plenty of hope and support in the Bible, even when they couldn’t (yet) read it (Exodus is a quite obvious one, and easy to find and read about).

Although this is not a thick book – and that’s good – there is much packed in there, without loading the pages too full. It is a good book for the people the author aimed this book to mainly write to, but even others who don’t always even live in America will find plenty to think about, things to realise, maybe even further reading demanding attention. A very good book on the subject of Black Biblical interpretation, where hope can be find in it, and no doubt, much needed non-white POV.

David

Rating: really liked it
Absolutely brilliant.

McCaulley presents here the hope and history of “black ecclesial interpretation.” This is the tradition of reading and preaching found in the black churches since the earliest days of America. One of the challenges McCaulley puts forth in the beginning is the pull from one side to leave the Bible and Christianity behind, seeing the whole religion as white European and not good at all for Black people. McCaulley argues in one chapter that there have been Africans in the people of God from the beginning (literally, Genesis) and throughout the early church. Christianity and the Bible belong to Black people.

Honestly, those of us who are white Christians need to take a step back from assuming we have the right answers to all elements of theology. McCaulley’s book ought to be must-reading for white pastors and teachers.

McCaulley talks about the way white Europeans set the tones for Biblical interpretation. This leads to liberals/modernists who deconstruct the Bible and fundamentalists who take it as is. McCaulley shows the Black church has never felt the need to go with this either/or. Nor has the Black church felt the need to separate salvation from liberation. The same God who saved souls also liberates slaves.

I think the best chapters in the book were the first couple where he discussed policing and government. In these chapters, McCaulley brought forth points and connections I had never made before. Well, to be honest, connections I had never made before when thinking about faith and politics in Romans 13. He points out that most books on morals and ethics by white Christians don’t even really discuss policing (He mentions Richard Hays’ book on New Testament ethics which I have read). His work on this area is thoughtful and eye-opening.

Overall, this is a fantastic book. Highly recommended.

Jim

Rating: really liked it
If nothing else, this was a great opportunity for me to see Biblical interpretation through another person’s eyes as they ask the questions necessary to read the Bible in their own unique situations. It highlights for me how my own background has shaped my biblical worldview. And that this study of black interpretation comes from a conservative, biblically-sound Bible scholar (and on top of that a student of one of my heroes, NT Wright) made this something I was eager to jump into.

The opportunity to see the Bible through another’s eyes was reason enough, but this book was also just full of interesting biblical insights, some of which I would have never noticed outside of someone else’s lens. An example from chapter two:

I have always been wary of the term “Under God.” To me it’s a reminder of how the American church has bought into the historical myth of a “Christian nation” and how it’s hurt the church’s mission. So I’ve always kind of ignored the term. But black interpreters of scripture have never had that luxury. Over the course of American history they have had to wrestle with what it means that God is sovereign in the affairs of nations, and how Romans says he sets up governments for his own purposes. It’s now apparent to me that in my denial of Christian nationalism I have also thrown out the idea of Christ’s sovereignty over government.

That’s just one example. Seeing the Bible through this perspective was enlightening in other areas as well - Mary’s prayer in Luke 1, the baptisms of John, the witness of Simon and Rufus, and an interesting take on what I already thought were revolutionary writings in Philemon. I have been studying Revelation 7 for years, but I still missed a jaw-dropping fact about identity that McCaulley saw because of how his background affects the way he approaches the Bible.

So I’m giving this five stars even though it is not a perfect book. Sometimes his arguments are stretches, and theologically there is nothing here that is groundbreaking. But theology wasn’t really his mission. In the introduction he sets up his goal:

“We are thrust into the middle of a battle between white progressives and white evangelicals, feeling alienated in different ways from both. When we turn our eyes to our African American progressive sisters and brothers, we nod our head in agreement on many issues. Other times we experience a strange feeling of dissonance, one of being at home and away from home. Therefore, we receive criticism from all sides for being something different, a fourth thing. I am calling this fourth thing Black ecclesial theology and its method Black ecclesial interpretation. I am not proposing a new idea or method but attempting to articulate and apply a practice that already exists.”

Note: As other reviewers have mentioned, the audiobook is not great. I made it about a third of the way through and switched to the paperback and I’m glad I did because I was also missing out on the footnotes.