Hope is key for McCaulley as something one brings to the text and takes from the text, and this further locates his own interpretative position within Black hermeneutics. He contends that the “instincts and habits of Black biblical interpretation,” born out of the Black experience of oppression, perseverance, and triumph, “can help us use the Bible to address the issues of the day” - and not merely address the issues, but interpret and respond to them with durable Christian hope (23). But especially needed, especially now, especially in America, is the Black perspective that McCaulley articulates in this book. There is, instead, a whole chorus of readers in dialogue with Scripture, and they need each other in order to hear how Scripture is speaking back to us all, no matter our location.

There is no such definitive voice, says McCaulley. And the less-forthcoming foil, at least by implication, would be many white readers of Scripture - those who tend to obscure their own location and limited perspective, assuming that theirs is the normal, default, correct lens for reading Scripture.

The “we” that he means is evident from his book’s title: Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope. A Feature Review of Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hopeīuy Now: Įverybody is “reading while something,” says Esau McCaulley - “but we are honest about it” (20).

Reading While Black by Esau McCaulley