PRESS RELEASE
The Rev. Canon Dr. Esau McCaulley, Jr is a native of Huntsville, Alabama, and a 1996 graduate of J.O. Johnson High School. He is the son of Rev. Laurie Bone McCaulley and the Late Esau McCaulley, Sr. Esau is married to Mandy McCaulley, a pediatrician and a Navy reservist. Together, they have four wonderful children. Esau is a New Testament scholar and an Anglican Priest. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of St Andrews, where he studied under the direction of N.T. Wright. His research and writing focus on Pauline theology, African American Biblical Interpretation, and articulating a Christian theology of justice in the public square.
Dr. McCaulley is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. He has also appeared in outlets such as Christianity Today and the Washington Post. He is the host of the Disrupters Podcast and functions as a Canon Theologian for his diocese. The Redeemer University of Canada awarded the 2020 Emerging Public Intellectual Award to Dr. McCaulley who currently, serves as an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL.
His second book, “Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope,” was published by Intervarsity Academic Press (IVP) has received several awards and recognitions such as Christianity Today’s: The Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year 2021; The Englewood Review of Books: 2020 Best Theology Book; 2020 The Gospel Coalition Book Award – Popular Theology – Honorable Mention; 2020 IVP Reader’s Choice Awards; 2020 FTC Book Awards: For the Church and is an Amazon #1 Best Seller in Sociology and Religion. Reading While Black will be translated into Portuguese.
Reading While Black looks at the tradition of African American biblical interpretation and argues that reading Scripture from the perspective of Black church tradition is invaluable for connecting with a rich faith history and addressing the urgent issues of our times. He advocates for a model of interpretation that involves an ongoing conversation between the collective Black experience and the Bible, in which the particular questions coming out of Black communities are given pride of place, and the Bible is given space to respond by affirming, challenging, and, at times, reshaping Black concerns. McCaulley demonstrates this model with studies on how Scripture speaks to topics often overlooked by white interpreters, such as ethnicity, political protest, policing, and slavery.
Ultimately McCaulley calls the church to a dynamic theological engagement with Scripture, in which Christians of diverse backgrounds dialogue with their own social location and the cultures of others. Reading While Black moves the conversation forward.