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

by Esau McCaulley

We have Old Testament examples of what it looks like for enslaved Jews to honor God’s name before unbelievers; for example, Daniel and Joseph. In both cases they found themselves under a foreign entity who had power over life and death. Joseph, when pressured to have sex with Potiphar’s wife, refused and suffered as a result. Daniel refuses to bow down to an idol. Both were lauded in the biblical and Second Temple material as examples of faithfulness under slavery. Thus, it is wrong to construe Paul’s call to submit as implying that he wanted Christian slaves to do whatever their masters wanted. There were examples in the biblical text of resisting the sexual advances of slave masters as a means of honoring God’s name. I propose, then, when Paul speaks of slaves honoring their masters, he does not mean unquestioned obedience.

On the whole these early Black Christians combined a strong affirmation of the need for personal salvation with varying levels of social action and resistance. This is readily understandable. If the Black Churches grew out of and in dialogue with the evangelical churches of the Great Awakening, it is not surprising that they would have a great affection for the Scriptures, even when they rejected the interpretations forced on them. All Christians are a part of one story and are in varying levels of dialogue with past and present interpretations. Christian communities do not spring into existence ex nihilo. The early Black church’s reorientation of the gospel to a more holistic and faithful witness than the one on offer by slaveholders is a manifestation of this ongoing conversation about the nature of the Christian faith.

Based on my readings of this tradition outlined above, I noticed a few things. First, there is no one Black tradition, but at least three streams: revolutionary/nationalistic, reformist/transformist, and conformist.49 Much of the modern academic dialogue highlights the heirs to the revolutionary and conformist tradition. I hoped to make a case for a third thing within the African American tradition. Second, I noticed that there were some common tendencies among the reformist/transformist stream. I named this the Black ecclesial tradition because I think it lives on in pulpits even if it is less often in print.