Episode 10: With David Swanson and Esau McCaulley

Jen is joined by David Swanson and Esau McCaulley to continue the conversation about the reading life and the current cultural moment.David W. Swanson is the founding pastor of New Community Covenant Church, a multiracial congregation on the South Side of Chicago. He also serves as the CEO of New Community Outreach, a non-profit organization working to reduce causes of trauma and raise opportunities for equity in Chicago. He previously served as a Director of Church Planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church. David and Maggie have been married for 21 years and have two amazing sons. David’s book, Rediscipling the White Church: From Cheap Diversity to True Discipleship, published by InterVarsity Press, released in May.David sends out an occasional newsletter to email subscribers about race, justice, and theology. And as our listeners might be especially keen to learn, David keeps a lists of books he’s reading on his website, www.dwswanson.com.Esau McCaulley is an assistant professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. His second book, Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope, releases on September 1. Esau looks at the tradition of African American biblical interpretation and argues that the Bible rightly understood and read from a decidedly black perspective can speak a word of hope to African Americans in the United States. Alongside his more academic works, Esau also writes popular pieces for numerous outlets including Christianity Today, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.He is a military spouse and is married to his beautiful wife, Mandy, a pediatrician. Together, they have four wonderful children.Books Mentioned in this Episode:The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. TolkienThe Dresden Files by Jim ButcherCrusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. WellsDivided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael Emerson and Christian SmithNotes of a Native Son by James BaldwinMethodologies of Black Theology by Frederick L. WareWhat to the Slave is the Fourth of July? by Frederick DouglassThe Black Church in the African American Experience by C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. MamiyaAfrican American Religious History: A Documentary Witness by Milton C. SernettLiberation and Reconciliation: A Black Theology by J. Deotis RobertsThe Cross and the Lynching Tree by James H. ConeAfrican American Theology by Frederick L. WareDoctrine and Race: African American Evangelicals and Fundamentalism Between the Wars by Mary Beth Swetnam MathewsPreaching with Sacred Fire: An Anthology of African American Sermons by Martha SimmonsJesus and the Disinherited by Howard ThurmanThe Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du BoisAn Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation by Nyasha JuniorTheir Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale HurstonEmpowerment Ethics for a Liberated People: A Path to African American Social Transformation by Cheryl J. SandersNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass James Baldwin: Collected EssaysGhosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side by Eve L. EwingTears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric DysonDemocracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul by Eddie Glaude Jr.The Hidden Wound by Wendell Berry