“Reading While Black” by Esau McCaulley–Book Analysis Series (Part 4)

Here in my fourth and final post on Esau McCaulley’s book, Reading While Black, I am going to give a very brief overview of the final two chapters in the books and then give some final thoughts. Chapter 6: What Shall We Do with This Rage?As the title suggests, McCaulley begins this chapter by highlighting…

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“Reading While Black” by Esau McCaulley–Book Analysis Series (Part 3)

Here in my third post on Esau McCaulley’s book, Reading While Black, I’m going to look at Chapter 4, “Reading While Black—The Bible and the Pursuit of Justice,” and Chapter 5, “Black and Proud—The Bible and Black Identity.” Chapter 4: “Reading While Black—The Bible and the Pursuit of Justice”McCaulley begins this chapter by recalling the…

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“Reading While Black” by Esau McCaulley: Book Analysis Series (Part 2)

Here in my second post on Esau McCaulley’s book, Reading While Black, I am going to provide an overview chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 is entitled, “Freedom is No Fear: The New Testament and a Theology of Policing,” and Chapter 3 is entitled, “Tired Feet, Rested Souls: The New Testament and the Political Witness…

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New Book Analysis Series: “Reading While Black:African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope” by Esau McCaulley (Part 1)

Last fall, Esau McCaulley, an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, came out with his book, Reading While Black: An African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope. To be honest, even though I bought it soon after it came out, it had remained on my desk, unread for a while. Part…

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T.S. Eliot: “Rhapsody on a Windy Night”

Rhapsody on a Windy Night has always been one of my favorite poems by T.S. Eliot. In many ways, it is one of the easiest to read and understand. As the title suggests, the setting of the poem takes place in one night, from the time of midnight to four in the morning. It is…

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T.S. Eliot: “Portrait of a Lady” (Some thoughts…and a Reading)

T.S. Eliot’s poem Portrait of a Lady was first published in 1917, in Eliot’s book of poetry, Prufrock and Other Observations. The poem is about guilt and broken relationships, and in the course of the poem, there are essentially three voices: (a) the man and his “inner voice,” (b) the man and his “outer mask”…

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T.S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Some thoughts…and a reading)

It really says something about how difficult T.S. Eliot’s poetry can be when the one, if not only, poem almost every high school English Literature curriculum has of Eliot’s is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. That poem, among all the poetry of Eliot, is evidently considered to be the easiest—and it isn’t that…

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T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”: Little Gidding

Little Gidding is the fourth and final poem in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. Written in 1942, it essentially signaled the end of Eliot’s public career as a poet. Little Gidding is actually a village in Huntingdonshire. In that village, there is a chapel that serves as the geographical focus of the poem. Whereas Burnt Norton…

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T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”: The Dry Salvages

Dry Salvages is the third poem in T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. It is the only poem of the Four Quartets that includes an introductory note to tell us that the Dry Salvages is actually a small group of rocks with a beacon off the northeast coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. This is important to know…

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Book Review: “(Mis)Interpreting Genesis” by Ben Stanhope…yes, it is REALLY GOOD

Over the past five years or so, I’ve written quite a lot about the creation/evolution debate, particularly on the misinterpretation of Genesis 1-11 by young earth creationist organizations like Answers in Genesis, and for a lot of concordist interpretations of Genesis 1-11. Simply put, Genesis 1-11 isn’t addressing modern scientific issues at all. Genesis 1-11…

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