Author and public theologian Esau McCaulley dedicated his book Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope to his late father.
“Whatever else I am,” McCaulley wrote, “I will always remain your son.”
On a recent episode of The Russell Moore Show, McCaulley shared that people have often read that dedication and assumed that he and his father had a sweet, positive relationship.
“But actually,” McCaulley says, “that wasn’t true. We didn’t have a relationship at all. I was influenced by all of the things that he didn’t help me with.”
So why the dedication? McCaulley explains that learning to have compassion for his father has shaped his relationship with his own children.
“I hope that, [as my children] look back upon their experiences of living with me and my wife, they will say ‘those were flawed people, but they loved us as best they could.’”
May we, too, set our intentions to love, confess, and forgive in our families.
