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

by Esau McCaulley

Every devout student who experiences higher biblical criticism for the first time is inevitably a bit bewildered. Things that were once simple become much more complicated. How do we reconcile the two creation accounts in Genesis? How do we deal with differences in the Gospels? How do we bring Paul and James into conversation with one another in a way that allows both voices to be heard? What should we do with the book of Revelation? What about the violence in the Old and New Testaments and the passages that make our ears tingle?

One does not have to dig very far into history to see that fundamentalist Christians in the South (and the North) have indeed inflicted untold harm on Black people. They have used the Bible as justification for their sins, personal and corporate. But there is a second testimony possibly more important than the first. That is the testimony of Black Christians who saw in that same Bible the basis for their dignity and hope in a culture that often denied them both.

I contend that the enslaved person’s biblical interpretation, which gave birth to early Black biblical interpretation, was canonical from its inception. It placed Scripture’s dominant themes in conversation with the hopes and dreams of Black folks. It was also unabashedly theological, in that particular texts were read in light of their doctrine of God, their beliefs about humanity (anthropology) and their understanding of salvation (soteriology).

I suggest that Paul’s words about submission to governing authorities must be read in light of four realities: (1) Paul’s use of Pharaoh in Romans as an example of God removing authorities through human agents shows that his prohibition against resistance is not absolute; (2) the wider Old Testament testifies to God’s use of human agents to take down corrupt governments; (3) in light

of the first two propositions, we can affirm that God is active through human beings even when we can’t discern the exact role we play; (4) therefore, Paul’s words should be seen as more of a limit on our discernment than on God’s activities.

I maintain, then, that we read Romans 13:1-2 as a statement about the sovereignty of God and the limits of human discernment. We are allowed to discern and even condemn evil like the prophets did. We are allowed to resist like the Hebrew midwives, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Nonetheless, we cannot claim divine sanction for the proper timing and method of solving the problems we discern.

Paul grounds his call for submission to the state with a description of what the state should do: For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! (Rom 13:3-4)

Paul recognizes that the state has a tremendous influence on how the soldier/officer treats its citizens. Thus, if there is to be a reform it must be structural and not merely individualistic. This is grounds in a democracy for a structural advocacy on behalf of the powerless. Second, Paul says that the government should not be a source of fear for the innocent. This problem of innocent fearfulness continues to plague encounters between Black persons and law enforcement. Again Paul’s words provide guidance on the shape reform must take.

For the American Christian this means that he or she has to face the fact that our government has crafted laws over the course of centuries, not decades, that were designed to disenfranchise Black people.30 These laws were then enforced by means of the state’s power of the sword. Historically in America, the issue has been institutional corporate sin undergirded by the policing power of the state.

Black hope for policing is not that complicated. Paul articulates that hope quite plainly in Romans 13:4. We want to live free of fear.

ON APRIL 12, 1963, EIGHT CLERGY—two Methodist bishops, two Episcopal bishops, one Roman Catholic Bishop, a Rabbi, a Presbyterian, and a Baptist—wrote a letter addressed to the citizens of Alabama. This was their second such proclamation. Their first, written nearly three months earlier on January 16, was named “An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense.” It called for an end to violence surrounding civil rights protests in Alabama and implored those on both sides of the divide regarding the civil rights of African Americans to trust the court system. Although it said that “every human being is created in the image of God and is entitled to respect as a fellow human being with all basic rights, privileges, and responsibilities which belong to humanity,” it made no strong stand against segregation. It was the epitome of moderation. Some three months later this group of eight composed another letter. This one contained a not-so-veiled criticism of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) whom they characterized as “outsider agitators” whose actions did not further the cause of peace.1 They questioned the efficacy of the political witness of Rev. Dr. King and others. They pointed out the fact that “such actions as incite to hatred and

violence, however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not contributed to the resolution of our local problems. We do not believe that these days of new hope are days when extreme measures are justified in Birmingham.”2 This criticism of King’s actions and the Black Christian tradition of protest that undergirded it came from something of a white southern ecumenical consensus. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Episcopalians, and Jewish leaders opposed King.3

Herod did not see Jesus as a danger because he was a compassionate healer who spoke of justice, repentance, and transformation. Herod saw Jesus as a threat because his ministry of healing was a sign of the in-breaking reign of God. Repentance was spiritual preparation for God’s eschatological work of salvation.

What does Jesus say when he finds out that his mission has brought him into conflict with the sitting king of Israel? He says, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem’” (Lk 13:32-33, emphasis added). Jesus’ words show no deference to the political authority inherent in Herod’s status. He calls him a fox. This is not a compliment. To be called a fox in Jesus’ day meant being considered conniving and deceitful.

According to Paul, Jesus saves us from our sins, and he also calls us into a kingdom that treats its people better than the way Rome treats its citizens. When Paul calls this age evil and says that we are rescued from it, it is a statement that we are no longer bound to order our lives according to the priorities, values, and aims of this age. We are free to live differently while we await the coming of the true king. Calling the social and political order evil is a political assessment as well as a theological one. It is the assessment that Rev. Dr. King made in his critique of Jim Crow. King said that the current practices throughout the North and the South were a manifestation of the kingdom of darkness and that the kingdom of the beloved son called for a different way.

The question that ought to keep Christians up at night is not the political activism of Black Christians. The question should be how 1 Timothy 2:1-4 came to dominate the conversation about the Christian’s responsibility to the state.

Howard Thurman in discussing the relationship between Christianity and the oppressed notices the following: I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I have heard a sermon on the meaning of religion, of Christianity, to the man who stands with his back against the wall. It is urgent that my meaning be made crystal clear. The masses of men live with their backs constantly against the wall. They are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. What does our religion say to them?15

Jesus preaches the gospel to the poor, the brokenhearted are healed, and those in bondage are set free. This shows that those whom society has declared secondary receive the place of priority in the kingdom. In a society where Black lives have historically been undervalued, we can know that we have an advocate in the person of Christ.

Either some Westerners have whitewashed Egyptian history by turning many of its characters into Europeans, or they have not. If they have whitewashed Egyptian history, then that whitewashing extends to the era of the early church. This means that the leading lights of early Christianity were Black and Brown folks or Egypt isn’t as African as we say it is.

we turn our eyes from Egypt and move further south to the kingdom of Nubia in what we now call Sudan. We find that it was evangelized most successfully in the sixth century by the missionary Julian sent from Constantinople.4 The speed at which Christianity became the official religion has led some to suggest that the Christian mission precedes the activities of Julian.5 In any case, Nubia is an example of Christianity coming into Africa without any colonization.

The pro-slavery faction in North America (and beyond) maintained that Black skin and enslavement were the result of the curse of Ham recounted in Genesis 9:20-27. No reasonable reading of Genesis could maintain (1) Canaan was the ancestors of all Africans; (2) the curse was black skin; (3) the point of Genesis was to substantiate European dominance over African peoples. Nonetheless, the social location of the enslavers looking for justification for sin distorted the plain meaning of the text.

The importance of Africans in fulfilling the Abrahamic promises can be seen in the much-neglected story of Jacob, Ephraim, and Manasseh. Black Christians will be familiar with the story of Joseph, who was enslaved and sold by his brothers to Egypt. Eventually Joseph rose in power, ending up second only to the Pharaoh (Gen 41:40). Pharaoh also gave Joseph an Egyptian wife, Asenath, by whom he had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh.

Joseph brings his two boys to be blessed by his father. Meeting these two half-Egyptian, half-Jewish boys causes Jacob to recall the promise that God made him many years prior: And Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and he blessed me, and said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful and increase your numbers; I will make of you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your offspring after you for a perpetual holding.’ Therefore your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are now mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are.” (Gen 48:3-5) Jacob sees the Brown flesh and African origin of these boys as the beginning of God’s fulfillment of his promise to make Jacob a community of different nations and ethnicities, and for that reason he claims these two boys as his own.

Mark adds an interesting detail in his account of the passion of Christ. He says that Simon of Cyrene was compelled to carry the cross.14 Cyrene is a city in North Africa in what we now call Libya. In the same way that Mary’s giving birth is seen an image of Christian faithfulness, Simon’s cross carrying is a physical manifestation of the spiritual reality that Christian discipleship involves the embrace of suffering.

Philip was one of those who left Jerusalem and spread the gospel. Acts 8:26 tells us that as he went along an angel directed him to take the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. The angel redirected him so that he might encounter an Ethiopian eunuch in charge of the treasury for the queen mother of Ethiopia.17 Within the narrative world of Acts, the conversion of this Ethiopian manifests God’s concern for the nations of the world. Philip approaches him and discovers that he is reading a passage from Isaiah. The Ethiopian could only be familiar with Isaiah if he already knew something of the God of Israel. This shows a deep African connection to the God of the Bible.

Black bodies enter the laws of this land, not as persons but as an accounting tool to determine the voting rights of white men (the Three-Fifths Compromise). Before that we were mercilessly dragged from our native land and flung to the far ends of the world to be beaten, bred, raped, and degraded. Families were ripped apart and all the doors of opportunity were closed to us. We were despised and rejected by men, seen as cursed and abandoned by God. We were those from whom men hid their faces.2

James W. C. Pennington put words to our anxiety: Does the Bible condemn slavery without any regard to circumstances or not? I, for one, desire to know. My repentance, my faith, my hope, my love, my perseverance all, all, I conceal it not, I repeat it, all turn upon this point. If I am deceived here—if the word of God does sanction slavery, I want another book, another repentance, another faith, and another hope!2

On the first read, the Bible does not appear to say all that we want it to say in the way that we want the Bible to say it. And yet this is the crucial part: the Bible says more than enough.

In Israel, no Hebrew slave could be enslaved for more than six years, and when the slave was freed he or she was to be given resources to start a new life: If a member of your community, whether a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and works for you six years, in the seventh year you shall set that person free. And when you send a male slave out from you a free person, you shall not send him out empty-handed. Provide liberally out of your flock, your threshing floor, and your wine press, thus giving to him some of the bounty with which the LORD your God has blessed you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; for this reason I lay this command upon you today. (Deut 15:12-15)

Slaves who have escaped to you from their owners shall not be given back to them. They shall reside with you, in your midst, in any place they choose in any one of your towns, wherever they please; you shall not oppress them. (Deut 23:15-16)

James Cone is recognized by all as a seminal figure in the creation of Black Liberation theology. No analysis of the Black ecclesial tradition could be complete without some interaction with him. This justifies a brief look at Cone’s interpretative method as seen in his essay, “Biblical Revelation and Social Existence.”28 Cone rightly argues that all theology is socially located. According to Cone, this is a good thing because acknowledging social location affirms the goodness of the creation in which God has placed his people.29 Therefore, God’s choice of enslaved Israel to be his chosen people spoke to his character. Cone says, “If God had chosen as his ‘holy nation’ the Egyptian slave masters instead of the Israelite slaves a completely different kind of God would have been revealed. Thus, Israel’s election cannot be separated from her servitude and liberation.”30

Is it accurate to claim that political liberation is so much the overriding concern of the Old and New Testaments that we can claim that it is the gospel of Christ? In the biblical material, Exodus gives to Leviticus the formation of a cult and a people whose holiness of life reflected something of the nature of God. Texts such as the Magnificat and passages in the Psalms and prophets emphasize the upsetting of social structures, but those same biblical texts call upon the newly freed to repent of their sins and commit to the transformed lives indicative of the change brought about by the Messiah Jesus.33

First, there is no one Black tradition, but at least three streams: revolutionary/nationalistic, reformist/transformist, and conformist.