Reading While Black - Esau McCaulley

⭐ 8.5/10

(Originally written by Beans)

This book is pretty self explanatory. Dr. McCaulley writes this short but impactful book about his experience - and the larger black experience - reading the bible as an African American.

There were some really fascinating chapters in here that talked about modern day policing of black people and how the early Christians may have been policed by the Roman guard. He traced the earliest of Christianity back to Africa and demands that black people everywhere have a claim to Christianity and the bible - not just through the slave master white man who passed it down.

It was a shorter book but really dense. An important read for me as I am studying scripture and trying to get a more well rounded view of the bible from different voices.

A poignant statement he made was that when liberation was happening for the black community, some churches were tempted to throw away all of scripture, as if one can’t read the bible without coming to the conclusion that they should be slaves. Black people refused to believe this and came to a much different, better conclusion.

Would recommend this to all of you! It’s super readable and very thoughtful.