Episode Details

What is the most racist thing you’ve ever experienced? 

That’s the question that was posed to Esau McCaulley, an author, assistant professor, and contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, as he sat on a panel in front of a mostly white audience. He didn’t answer the question. On a new episode of The Russell Moore Show, he explains why. 

Tune in for a rich conversation on suffering, how we tell our stories, and the meaning of empathy. Moore and McCaulley cover systemic injustice, the function of society, and how our personal backgrounds inform everything from our political engagement to the way we read Scripture. Reflecting on the wounds and grace of fatherhood, they discuss how they work to make God’s love plausible. They talk about McCaulley’s forthcoming book, a memoir titled How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family's Story of Hope and Survival in the American South. And they talk about addiction, pastoring, and what McCaulley has learned as a military spouse.

Resources discussed during this episode include:

• How Far to the Promised Land: One Black Family’s Story of Hope and Survival in the American South by Esau McCaulley
• Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley
• All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir by Beth Moore
• The works of James Baldwin
• The works of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• The works of Zora Neale Hurston
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley
• Confessions by Saint Augustine
• The Seven Storey Mountain: An Autobiography of Faith by Thomas Merton
• Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis
• The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage by Paul Elie

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