CHAPTER 1: The South Got Something to Say
"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. All the things that racists had done to us, then, had strong biblical warrant" (9). Here he's speaking of fundamentalists as those that "used the Bible as justification for their sins, personal and corporate" (8).
"Given that evangelical means different things to different people, it is important to clarify what I mean by the term" (9). He describes Bebbington's quadrilateral:
"--Conversionism: the belief that lives need to be transformed through a 'born-again' experience and a lifelong process of following Jesus.
"--Activism: the expression and demonstration of gospel in missionary and social reform efforts.
"--Biblicism: a high regard for and obedience to the Bible as ultimate authority
"--Crucicentrism: a stress on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross as making possible the redemption of humanity.
"It is common knowledge that when it comes to beliefs about the Bible and Christian theology more generally, evangelicals and Black churches have much in common. Very few Black churches would have a problem with what is included in this list. The problem is what is left out" (10).
"Eventually I started to notice a few things. While I was at home with much of the theology in evanglicalism, there were real disconnects. First, there was the portrayal of the Black church in these circles. I was told that the social gospel had corrupted Black Christianity. Rather than placing my hope there, I should look to the golden age of theology, either at the early years of this country or during the postwar boom of American Protestantism. But the historian in me couldn't help but realize that these apexes of theological faithfulness coincided with nadirs of Black freedom.
"I learned that too often alongside the four pillars of evangelicalism obtained above were unspoken fifth and sixth pillars. These are a general agreement on a certain reading of American history that downplayed injustice and a gentleman's agreement to remain largely silent on current issues of racism and systemic injustice. How could I exist comfortably in a tradition that too often valorizes a period of time when my people couldn't buy homes in the neighborhoods that they wanted or attend the schools that their skills gave them access to? How could I accept a place in a community of the cost for a seat at the table was silence?
"My struggle was more than different readings of American history and issues of justice. I had difficulty with how the Bible functioned in parts of evangelicalism. For many, the Bible had been reduced to the arena on which we fought an endless war about the finer points of Paul's doctrine of justification. True scholars were those who could articulate the latest twists and turns in a debate that has raged since the Reformation. Yes, the question of our standing before God is important, vitally important (I laud the great emphases of the Reformation). But I wondered what the Bible had to say about how we might live as Christians and citizens of God's kingdom. I was told that the Bible says we must defend the sanctity of life. the authority of the government (including the military and the police), and religious freedom. Again, each of these questions is important. I am pro-life. I am not an anarchist. But what about the exploitation of my people? What about our suffering, our struggle? Where does the Bible address the hopes of Black folks, and why is this question not pressing in a community that has historically been alienated from Black Christians?" (11-12).
"One more story. Midway through the writing of this chapter, I was invited to give a lecture on Black biblical interpretation to a group of COGIC pastors. I began by outlining much of the material covered so far. I spoke about the Black church of my youth, mainline Protestantism, Evangelicalism, and the Black progressive tradition. I had planned on discussing the strengths and weaknesses of each when a pastor stopped me in the middle of the lecture and asked what they were supposed to do. He said that he accepted my criticism of a complacent orthodoxy that doesn't advocate for the oppressed. But when he sends his clergy to colleges and seminaries that share his concern for the disinherited, too often that comes at the price of the theological beliefs that he holds dear. I was asked where one could go that shares their social concerns and takes seriously their belief that the Scriptures are God's Word to us for our good. Who could they read that combined both? They said it seemed like they needed to go to one source for theological analysis and another for social practice" (14, emphases mine).
Quotes Brian Blount: "Euro-American scholars, ministers, and lay folk... have, over the centuries, used their economic, academic, religious, and political dominance to create the illusion that the Bible, read through their experience, is the Bible read correctly" (20).
"For those of us who want to continue to affirm the ongoing normative role of the Bible in the life of the church, it will not do to dismiss the concerns raises about the Bible from many quarters. The path forward is not a return to the naivete of a previous generation, but a journeying through the hard questions while being informed by the roots of the tradition bequeathed to us. I propose instead that we adopt the posture of Jacob and refuse to let go of the text until it blesses us. Stated differently, we adopt a hermaneutic of trust in which we are patient with the text in the belief that when interpreted properly it will bring a blessing and not a curse. This means that we do the hard work of reading the text closely, attending to historical context, grammar, and structure" (21).
CHAPTER 2: FREEDOM IS NO FEAR
"I am afraid still because I worry that my sons or daughters might experience the same terror that marked the life of their father and my ancestors before me.
"This fear might seem unwarranted to some. I am tempted to list statistics about Black folks and our treatment at the hands of the police. But I am skeptical that statistics will convince those hostile to our cause. Furthermore, statistics are unnecessary for those who carry the experience of being Black in this country in their hearts. We know, and this book is for us" (41).
CHAPTER 3: TIRED FEET, RESTED SOULS
"Nearly sixty years after the publication of this letter [King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"], the debate around the role of the church in the public square continues. Was King's mission to end segregation and create a just society at all analogous to the work of Paul and the prophets or was it merely partisan politics? Was his public and consistent criticism of the political power structure of his day an element of his pastoral ministry or a distraction from it?
"For many Black Christians the answer to this question is self-evident. We have never had the luxury of separating our faith from political action" (49).
"...Romans 13:1-7 should be read as a testimony to our inability to discern when God's judgment will arrive. This does not mean that a Christian cannot protest injustice, it means that we cannot claim God's justification for violent revolution. Submission and acquiescence are two different things" (51).
"Prayer for leaders and criticism of their practices are not mutually exclusive ideas. Both have biblical warrant in the same letter" (53).
"A theology of mourning allowed Rev. Dr. King to look on the suffering of the people in Birmingham and refused to turn away. Mourning calls on all of us to recognize our complicity in the sufferings of others. Sin is more than exploitation, but it is certainly not less. A theology of mourning never allows us the privilege of apathy. We can never put the interests of our families or our country over the suffering of the world" (65).
"To hunger for justice is to hope that the things that cause us to mourn will not get the last word" (66).
"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 name" (68).
"Once we posit a Creator, which is the bedrock of all Jewish and Christian theological reflection, then all things become possible. Building on the words of St. Paul, 'Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?' (Acts 26:8). Why can't God enable a virgin birth?" (86).
"One more point needs to be made here as it specifically relates to Black Christian biblical interpretation. In chapter one, I argued that all theology is canonical in that everyone who attempts to think about the Bible must place the variety of biblical texts in some kind of order, understanding one in light of others. This isn't unique to Black Christians; everyone does it.
"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. This is what we see in Satan's use of Scripture in the wilderness. The problem isn't that the Scriptures that Satan quoted were untrue, but when made to do the work that he wanted them to do, they distorted the biblical witness. This is my claim about the slave master exegesis of the antebellum South. The slave master arrangement of biblical material bore false witness about God. This remains true of quotations of the Bible in our own day that challenge our commitment to the refugee, the poor, and the disinherited" (91).
"God's vision for his people is not for the elimination of ethnicity to form a colorblind uniformity of sanctified blandness. Instead God sees the creation of a community of different cultures united by faith in his Son as a manifestation of the expansive nature of his grace. This expansiveness is unfulfilled unless the differences are seen and celebrated, not as ends unto themselves, but as particular manifestations of the power of the Spirit to bring forth the same holiness among different peoples and cultures for the glory of God" (107).
CHAPTER 7: THE FREEDOM OF THE SLAVES
"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. 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" (138).
"Jesus' argument [that 'it was not this way from the beginning'] suggests that the norms for Christian ethics are not the passages that are allowances for human sin, such as Moses' divorce laws. What matters is what we were made to be. Jesus shows that not every passage of the Torah presents the ideal for human interactions. Instead some passages accept the world as broken and attempt to limit the damage that we do to one another" (141).
BONUS TRACK: FURTHER NOTES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF BLACK ECCLESIAL INTERPRETATION
"All Christians are 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" (175).
"...I speak to interpreters generally, there is a difference between acknowledging the social location of interpretation and letting said location eclipse the text itself" (182).
"First, there is no one Black tradition, but at least three streams: revolutionary/nationalistic, reformist/transformist, and conformist. Much of the modern academic dialogue highlights the heirs to the revolutionary and conformist traditionist. 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 the pulpits even if it is less often in print" (183).
McCaulley teaches us that social location is not everything, but it certainly a real consideration when endeavoring to read the Bible rightly, and that the church thrives when people from different perspectives bring their questions and interpretations to the community. McCaulley's exemplary demonstration of this, addressing issues he and his community face being Black in America, is theologically-rich, Scripturally-rooted, and truly an exercise in hope. I'm not sure if I was the intended audience, but I sure found it encouraging. I also loved listening to McCaulley's interview on the Bible Project (here) and highly recommend it.
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