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

McCaulley maintains that Christianity has always included Black people because God’s glory lies in a diverse group of worshippers. McCaulley refutes the idea that Christianity is a white religion. Accordingly, he utilizes African locations and figures as examples of early Black Christianity. He identifies Alexandria, Egypt as one of the three major centers of early Christianity and notes that Christianity spread rapidly in Ethiopia and Nubia in the fourth and sixth centuries, respectively.

He identifies God’s vision of a multiethnic community in the Genesis narrative and God’s promise to make Abraham a father of many nations. Other important African figures that McCaulley identifies are Ephraim and Manasseh. Accordingly, he finds that Genesis 48:3-5 communicates that the reason underlying Jacob’s embrace of his half-Egyptian grandsons is that Jacob considers them evidence of God fulfilling the Abrahamic promises. Relatedly, David’s prayer in Psalm 72 envisions a just and multiethnic kingdom informed by the Abrahamic promise. Because blessing all the nations of the Earth happens through the descendants of Abraham, David’s prayer for the impending rule of Solomon takes on a special significance. Psalm 72 mirrors the language of the Abrahamic promises and hope for a just kingdom over the whole earth through the rule of Davidic kings.