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

“If the Bible needs to be rejected to free Black Christians, then such a view seems to entail that the fundamentalists had interpreted the Bible correctly.”

McCaulley refers to the debate between white mainline Protestants and white fundamentalists, in which mainline Protestants have tried rejecting the Bible altogether because of the ways that fundamentalists have used scriptures to justify the subjugation of Black people. Underlying the acceptance of the fundamentalist interpretation is a dismissal of or lack of engagement with Black biblical interpretation. McCaulley presents the BEI method to demonstrate that an alternative interpretation is not only possible but also more accurately conveys biblical witness and reveals the character of God as a liberator.

“The social location of enslaved persons caused them to read the Bible differently. The unabashedly located reading has marked African American interpretation since.”

This passage highlights the text’s thesis about the Impact of Social Context on Religious Interpretation. McCaulley contends that all theology is socially located, and BEI is informed by the enslaved status of early Black Christians. The socially located reading allowed early Black Christians and subsequent generations of Black people to interpret the scriptures in a way that affirmed God as a liberator and stood in direct opposition to enslaved enslaver exegesis.

“But if we all read the biblical text assuming that God is able to speak a coherent word to us through it, then we can discuss the meanings our varied cultures have gleaned from the Scriptures. What I have in mind then is a unified mission in which our varied cultures turn to the text in dialogue with one another to discern the mind of Christ.”

McCaulley intends for BEI to open space for dialogue among different groups of Christians. He uses the collective pronouns “we” and “our” to reflect his call for dialogue in a “unified mission.” This advocacy for diversity in Christianity is a precursor to McCaulley’s exegesis in Chapter 5 in which he presents God’s eschatological vision for a multiethnic community of believers. Unlike dominant claims that proper Christian belief and practice require the flattening of ethnic differences, McCaulley argues that the unique perspectives of socially located interpreters are necessary for the wider community of Christians to glean a universal message.

“But a difficult job does not absolve one of criticism; it puts the criticism in a wider framework. That wider framework must also include, if we are going to be complete, the history of the police’s interaction with people of color in this country. If the difficulty of the job provides context, so does the historic legal enforcement of racial discrimination and the terror visited on Black bodies.”

A key element of McCaulley’s articulation of a theology of policing is the demonstration that the concern is not an abstraction. This quote comes after McCaulley reflects on his encounter with the police during his youth, in which he emphasizes that he committed no crime other than being young and Black. Thus, the police’s role as state-sanctioned enforcers of racial discrimination and violence has real implications for Black people in America, and that is an injustice that McCaulley contends must be named and acknowledged. Violent police hence become antagonists in the texts from this point, reinforced by the emphatic noun “terror.”

“We recognize that the state has been given its responsibilities. We are not anarchists, but we do recognize that the state is in fact under God. The state has duties, and we can hold them accountable even if it means that we suffer for doing so peacefully.”

In discussing the theology of policing, McCaulley examines Paul’s words in Romans 13:1-7, finding that Romans 13:1-2 is a statement about God’s sovereignty and skepticism regarding humans’ ability to discern God’s plans to bring corrupt leaders to judgment. However, the limit on human discernment is not a limit on political witness; Christians reserve the right to name the injustices enacted by government authorities and policy enforcers and hold them accountable for their wrongdoing. McCaulley contends that the potential suffering for a peaceful witness is not in vain because the witness entails a vision for a better society.

“Prayer for leaders and criticism of their practices are not mutually exclusive. Both have biblical warrant in the same letter.”

Though 1 Timothy 2:1-4 is typically read as a limit on Black political expression because of the call to pray for leaders, McCaulley provides an alternative interpretation that contextualizes the passage within Paul’s political witness in the rest of 1 Timothy. In 1 Timothy 1:8-11, Paul states that laws are put in place for the ungodly, not the righteous, and he then proceeds to name the kind of ungodliness that is contrary to sound doctrine, such as enslavement. McCaulley also points out that 1 Timothy 2:1-4 is not just about praying for leaders, but for everyone. Thus, 1 Timothy illustrates that political witness is not in opposition to prayer for leaders.

“When Black Christians look upon the actions of political leaders and governments and call them evil, we are making a theological claim in the same way that Paul was. Protest is not unbiblical; it is a manifestation of our analysis of the human condition in light of God’s own word and vision for the future.”

McCaulley opens Chapter 3 with a discussion of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” In King’s letter, he places his activism in the tradition of the Apostle Paul carrying the gospel of Jesus through the Greco-Roman world. Thus, McCaulley highlights the theological basis of political witness, as illustrated in Paul’s condemnation of the political, economic, and social forces he considers a manifestation of evil spiritual powers.

“To hunger for justice in a messianic context is to long for God to establish his just rule over the earth through his chosen king. Righteousness or justice then, is inescapably political. Hungering for justice is a hungering for the kingdom.”

McCaulley also locates a theological basis for political witness in Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. The above passage refers to Matthew 5:6, in which Jesus moves beyond mourning toward a vision and hope for a just society in the kingdom of God. McCaulley links Matthew 5:6 to Isaiah 9:6-7 to illustrate that it was prophesied in the Old Testament that this just society would be brought about through the messianic son of David. Thus, Christian faith inherently involves political witness because the hunger for justice is the desire for the reconciliation of all under the triumph of Jesus over the evil forces of the earth.

“Peacemaking, then, cannot be separated from truth telling. The church’s witness does not involve simply denouncing the excesses of both sides and making moral equivalencies. It involves calling injustice by its names.”

McCaulley explains that in Matthew 5:9, Jesus calls his followers to be peacemakers, and this is the third and final step after mourning and hungering for justice that characterizes the theology of political witness provided in the Sermon on the Mount. When McCaulley discusses the eight clergy condemning Black protest, he notes their assertion that Black protest does not further the cause of peace and their attempt to take a middle ground or moderate course in the face of injustice. The Sermon on the Mount, then, directly refutes the clergy’s claim and attempt to moderate course because the mourning and hungering for justice that precede peacemaking mean that political witness requires naming the injustice and taking a firm stand against it.

“Black Christians who came to Christ surrounded by the false Gospel given to them by their slave masters were right to see in the exodus narrative a God worthy of their trust. The first generation of Black Christians and Zechariah’s generation share a common faith in the God revealed during the exodus.”

In answering the question of whether the Bible is equipped to speak to Black concerns, McCaulley undertakes an exegesis of the gospel of Luke to illustrate how and why early Black Christians came to faith, even in the face of suffering. Zechariah and Elizabeth function as a point of connection for early Black Christians because they similarly faced national and personal tragedy, but their memory of God’s liberatory character gave them hope, as they knew they could trust in the God of the exodus. McCaulley uses the term “slave masters” instead of “enslavers” when exploring the plight of these Black Christians; while this term is falling out of use because it implies dominance and superiority on the part of the enslaver and reinforces the understanding of an enslaved person as inferior property, in this passage, it underscores the anguish that led enslaved people to seek a narrative about freedom.

“The question isn’t always which account of Christianity uses the Bible. The question is which does justice to as much of the biblical witness as possible. There are uses of Scripture that utter a false testimony about God.”

When Jesus is led into the wilderness, Satan quotes biblical scripture to tempt Jesus, and Jesus responds by quoting Deuteronomy, which illustrates his faithfulness to the true testimony of the scripture. Enslaved enslaver exegesis is comparable to Satan’s arrangement of biblical scriptures to support his purposes and distort biblical witness. What is implied is that BEI canon is more like Jesus’s use of the scripture, particularly because his reference to the Exodus narrative communicates trust in God the liberator.

“God displays his glory precisely in rejecting the value systems posed by the world. It is the rejection of the world’s evaluation that lifts the souls of the Black Christian because this country has repeatedly claimed that Blacks are ontologically inferior.”

When Jesus delivers his first sermon in Nazareth, he reads Isaiah passages that communicate that his ministry is for those who have been devalued in society and that those very same people are prioritized in God’s kingdom. For McCaulley, this means that Jesus is an advocate for Black people, and it is through Jesus that God shows that his love for Black people is not diminished by their status in American society.

“It is false to claim that modern Black Christians are in revolt against their heritage. If the Black community in our day is going to reclaim the lost bits of our story, then let us recover the whole thing. The Black man or woman in America who goes back to Africa looking to find their roots will be surprised to find many Black and Brown ancestors staring them in the face proclaiming Christ is risen.”

McCaulley provides historical and biblical evidence to support his assertion that God always intended for Black people to be a part of his kingdom. McCaulley pushes back against claims that Christianity is a white man’s religion by adopting a pan-African lens and locating the roots of Black Christianity in early African Christianity that preceded slavery and colonialism.

“When it comes to the question of Black presence in the Bible, it is not a question of finding our place in someone else’s story. The Bible is first and foremost the story of God’s desire to create a people. We are encompassed within that desire.”

McCaulley locates God’s vision for a multiethnic community of believers in Genesis and Revelation. McCaulley must prove God’s inclusion of Black believers in his kingdom because a major criticism of Black people’s practice of Christianity is that it is an alien religion, adopted only through violent imposition. Including Black Christians in God’s creational intent and eschatological vision works alongside McCaulley’s identification of historical and biblical precedents of African Christianity to make the case that Black identity and Christian identity are not in opposition.

“Christ, similarly, does not convey worth on ontologically inferior blackness. Those of African descent are image bearers in the same way as anyone. What Christ does is liberate us to become what we are truly meant to be, redeemed and transformed citizens of the kingdom.”

McCaulley’s discussion of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts serves the dual purpose of providing an example of an early African Christian and demonstrating that people of African descent are drawn to Christianity through encounters with the cross. The tone of this passage is akin to a Christian sermon as McCaulley provides didactic guidance, suggesting that Black Christians should become “redeemed and transformed citizens.”

“God’s eschatological vision for the reconciliation of all things in his Son requires my blackness and my neighbor’s Latina identity to endure forever. Colorblindness is sub-biblical and falls short of the glory of God.”

McCaulley contends that the diversity of God’s kingdom communicates the expansiveness of God’s grace and his power to unite all through faith in Christ. Thus, believers’ varied identities must be visible and acknowledged in the end to fulfill God’s eschatological vision. McCaulley’s attention to the diversity of God’s kingdom relates to his key claim that the unique perspectives that arise out of different groups’ interpretations of the Bible are necessary for the entire Christian community to discern the truth of biblical witness.

“Psalm 137 reminds us that it is possible and even required for our own survival to say that we will not sing and dance for our masters. Instead, we will remember what was done to us. It is the duty of survivors to remember.”

In the socially located reading of Psalms 137, McCaulley finds guidance for Black people experiencing rightful anger due to unjustified trauma and suffering. McCaulley suggests that, like Israelites who were asked to sing in the aftermath of trauma, Black people have experienced the psychological warfare that accompanies the assaults on their bodies. Accordingly, Israel’s refusal to appear jolly in the midst of their suffering offers space for Black resistance. This conveys the Power of Scripture in Addressing Contemporary Social Issues.

“The beginning of the answer to Black anger is the knowledge that God hears and sees our pain. This means that an elementary school kid first introduced to racial trauma is at least equipped with a place to put his pain. They are borne up to heaven in prayer.”

After McCaulley shares his reflection on the first time he was called the n-word, he notes that Black children are stripped of their innocence early, and Black people internalize their rage because there seems to be no place to put it. The anger is then externalized and directed at other Black people, resulting in intercommunal harm and violence. His reflection on his experiences as “an elementary school kid” aims to evoke pathos and prompt reflection in the reader.

“The profound act of mercy gives us the theological resources to forgive. We forgive because we have been forgiven. It is only by looking at our enemies through the lens of the cross that we can begin to imagine the forgiveness necessary for community.”

Where other parts of the text suggest that suffering is the basis for Black people’s identification with Jesus, here McCaulley emphasizes that Jesus is truly innocent in a way that Black people are not due to human fallibility. Black people, like other humans, have done harm, but since they have been forgiven through Jesus’s sacrifice, then following Jesus’s example means that they too must forgive those who have done harm.

“The story of Christianity does not on every page legislate slavery out of existence. Nonetheless, the Christian narrative, our core theological principles, and our ethical imperatives create a world in which slavery becomes unimaginable.”

Through the application of Jesus’s exegetical method—distinguishing between God’s creational intent and human laws designed to limit the damages of a broken society—McCaulley discerns in the Bible the resources for abolition alongside the historical reality of slavery. McCaulley argues that God does not condone slavery by locating God’s creational intent in Genesis and Revelation. The Old Testament laws and Paul’s words indicate that although human society does not align with God’s creational intent, there are attempts to limit the damages of institutionalized practices in a way that aspires toward God’s creational intent.

“The Old Testament laws recognize the humanity and dignity of the enslaved person in ways that far outstrip Israel’s contemporaries. It also provides various avenues for freedom.”

To support his claim that slavery is not a part of God’s creational intent, McCaulley examines enslavement laws encapsulated in the Old Testament. Old Testament law mandated manumission after a certain period of time, instructed that the formerly enslaved receive provisions to start a new life, prohibited the murder of enslaved people, called for the protection of self-liberated enslaved people, and required that enslaved people be freed if they sustained certain forms of bodily harm from their enslavers. The laws, then, regarded enslaved people as humans worthy of dignified treatment, whereas American chattel slavery was founded upon the denial of Black people’s humanity.

“The Bible has been a source of comfort, but it has been more. It has inspired action to transform circumstances. It has liberated Black bodies and souls.”

McCaulley’s key claim about BEI is that it is an exercise in hope, and here he demonstrates that hope emerges from the comfort that the biblical text provides in ensuring God’s value of Black people as well as the strategies outlined in the Bible to bring about social transformation. The dual emphasis on personal salvation and social transformation through God’s redeeming qualities is the cornerstone of Black biblical interpretation and Black Christian practice.

“The bifocal appropriation of the Christian message as a power that can bring about personal and societal change is the Black Christian tradition’s gift to the American church.”

A key aspect of Black Christianity is the wedding of Christian doctrine and social practice. McCaulley highlights that as early Black Christians separated from their white counterparts and established their own churches, their criticism was not of the scripture itself but rather the interpretation of the scripture and the concomitant social (in)action that ran counter to the Christian doctrine that Black people discerned in their readings of the Bible. Thus, Black Christianity challenges the broader Christian community to establish compatibility between orthodoxy and orthopraxy. McCaulley hence argues for the Contribution of Black Theological Perspectives to Broader Christian Thought.