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

McCaulley demonstrates that the Bible speaks to Black anger and suffering through Israel’s pain and anger, Old Testament prophesy, the cross, and God’s final judgment. He contextualizes his biblical exegesis within his and other Black people’s lived experience of internalized rage by opening with a reflection on his first time being called the n-word and noting that “Black children are taught strategies of survival that often come at the cost of their childhood or basic humanity” (120). Moreover, the suffering continues throughout life, as exemplified by legal proscriptions on Black life, such as slavery and Jim Crow, and the violence perpetuated against Black people in the form of murdering ordinary Black folks, including children, as well as influential Black leaders. Consequently, Black people’s rage and nihilism are not unfounded, but the Bible provides resources to address it.

McCaulley locates Israel’s pain and anger in their psalms of lament, highlighting Psalm 137 and the desire for vengeance. Psalm 137 illustrates a suffering people’s permission to remember and feel the pain they have endured as well as bring the depth of their experience to God in prayer. Even in the face of such pain and suffering, Israel’s prophets imagined a future beyond blood vengeance. Isaiah looks forward to the salvation of Israel’s former enemies, envisions deep forgiveness, and views the coming of Jesus as the end of all hostility.

McCaulley notes the similarities between Israel and Black Americans in the dynamics between oppressed and oppressor. For example, Israel’s “trauma of the destruction of the temple, the burning of Jerusalem, and the rape and murder that accompany modern and ancient conquests of the city” parallels the atrocities and subsequent loss and mourning for survivors of the Middle Passage (124). Similarly, he compares the psychological and emotional warfare of the Babylonians’ demand that the Israelites sing songs of Jerusalem amid their grief to the ways that Black people have been forced to perform happiness amid their suffering, as exemplified by Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” and the “jolly negro” trope that survives in popular media (125).

The cross allows Black Christians to identify with Jesus’s unjust suffering and internalize themes of forgiveness and multiethnic community. Remembering the cost of forgiveness paid in the form of the crucifixion—as depicted in Galatians 2:20, Romans 4:25, and Romans 3:23—enables Black people to find the power to forgive instead of seeking revenge. Therefore, the cross breaks the cycle of violence. However, the call to transform rage into forgiveness does not mean to continue accepting abuse, as the New Testament also calls on Christians to help those who are suffering.

While the cross breaks the cycle of violence, the resurrection provides the final vindication of Black hope. In 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, Paul suggests that belief in the resurrection gives way to forgiveness because God has the final judgment. The resurrection is God’s affirmation of the value of those who have suffered. Relatedly, Revelation 6:10 and Revelation 18:21 indicate God’s power to judge. Because the power of the cross compels McCaulley to desire repentance and healing for his oppressors, he suggests that there are hints of sympathy underlying Black rage.