An Exercise in Hope

“Reading while Black was an attempt… to speak directly to the community that raised me using the Bible as a source of hope… trying to make sense of what it means to be Christian in America.”

“I have a bias for joy,” proclaimed Dr Esau McCaulley with a conspiratorial grin. We were talking about what it looks to parent his four children in a frightening world. How do you tell a child about a pandemic sweeping across the globe? When do you explain to your young black son that he will experience prejudice in his life? That he must be cautious in his interactions with police officers? These are heavy things, and yet McCaulley still smiles. Life is full of peril and adulthood is long, he explains. He wants his children to experience the joy of childhood. In his New York Times column, he writes:

I am making deposit after deposit of Black joy and faith in the hope that it will be with them when the inevitable struggle comes. I do so because that is what my mother did for me.

I Skyped Dr. McCaulley to chat with him about his new book Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope (Intervarsity Press, 2020).

Dr McCaulley wrote the book he needed when he was twenty two. He told me that he considers Reading While Black a “fulfilment of a trust”: “I was given this gift as a kid of the faith of African Americans who despite all the things they’ve experienced, believe in God.” The book addresses all the things McCaulley wrestled with as a young African American christian: black identity, justice and injustice, anger, and perhaps most of all, hope. The beating heart of McCaulley’s book is the miraculous, unquenchable work God has done in and through the African American church.

“I was trying to put my finger on what God is doing in and through African American churches.”

And that is just what he has done, with skill, honesty, and the friendly, immovable confidence of someone who knows their hope is hidden in Christ. I enjoyed every minute of our conversation, from why we read hero stories when times were tough, to the history of bible reading and its revolutionary effects in slave communities in America, to the way that African American biblical interpretation saved anthropology, to the power of scripture to both speak to and unite our unique experiences, to the triumphant joy of Kirk Franklin’s gospel music.  

I hope you will give this episode a listen, say a prayer for the ongoing work of the Spirit in the African American Church.

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

By McCaulley, Esau



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Today’s Conversation Partner: Esau McCaulley

The Rev. Canon Esau McCaulley, PhD is a New Testament scholar and an Anglican Priest. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of St Andrews where he studied under the direction of N.T. Wright. His research and writing focus on Pauline theology, African American Biblical interpretation, and articulating a Christian theology of justice in the public square

His doctoral dissertation, called Sharing in the Son’s Inheritance, was published by T & T Clark in 2019. Sharing in the Son’s Inheritance looks at the role Jewish messianism played in Paul’s argument in Galatians that Jesus has made believers heirs in the Messiah to the Abrahamic promises.

His second book Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope  will be published by Intervarsity Academic press (September 1, 2020). Reading While Black looks at the tradition of African American biblical interpretation and argues that the Bible rightly understood and read from a decidedly black perspective can speak a word of hope to African Americans in the United States.

Alongside these more academic works, he writes popular pieces. He is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. He has also appeared in outlets such as Christianity Today and the Washington Post. He is also the host of the Disrupters Podcast and functions as a Canon Theologian for his diocese.

Dr. McCaulley, currently, serves as assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. He is married to Mandy, a pediatrician and a Navy reservist. Together, they have four wonderful children.

Learn more about Esau McCaulley