Bitter the Chastening Rod: Africana Biblical Interpretation after Stony the Road We Trod in the Age of BLM, SayHerName, and MeToo

This complex volume will have the reader pondering Jesus’ own status as slave, wondering about daily life for those who are nameless and marginalized in the church, questioning received hermeneutical traditions, and reflecting on the legacies of Africana biblical interpreters.

Since African American biblical interpretation is unapologetically contextual, the contributors of Bitter the Chastening Rod engage the cultural history of Black peoples in the U.S. and diaspora, raising new questions about humanity, discipline, and culture amidst social movements such as #BLM, #SayHerName, and #MeToo. Consequently, this collective work of Africana biblical critics emerges as an assemblage of culturally informed knowledge of the text and history, innovative deployments of theories and hermeneutics, and emancipatory pedagogy grounded in praxis. It demonstrates the perseverance, resilience, and brilliance of generations of Black biblical scholarship. As Stony the Road We Trod opened the path not only for Black scholarship but also for other minoritized scholars, this volume is a must-read for all biblical scholars and an invaluable source for faith communities to join the struggle for justice in our time.

Bitter the Chastening Rod provides creative paths to the hackneyed roads that whitestream scholarship has built for Biblical Studies. We are in dire need of imaginative interpretive exercises that challenge how whiteness has pervaded historiography, linguistics, and literary analysis. We also need visionary models to build graduate programs, curriculums, and educational practices attentive to a world facing unprecedented global crises. Bitter the Chastening Rod suggests new paths for such enterprise.

This compelling sequel of the seminal Stony the Road we Trod proves the pressing relevance of Africana hermeneutics at this historical moment. These diverse readings offer a review of the work of pioneers; bold, historically grounded, and tragically relevant interpretations of individual texts about incarceration and violence; and important challenges to comfortable readers. No New Testament scholar, seminarian, or Christian should look away from the opportunities to enact justice that this volume presents.

Bitter the Chastening Rod: Africana Interpretation After Stony the Road we Trod in the Age of #BLM, #SayHerName, and #MeToo is a greatly anticipated volume that, in the spirit of Sankofa, builds upon, expands, and futures Black post-colonial biblical studies. The aggregation of renown scholars that pen this work offers brilliant insights on the biblical text and prophetic movements against subjugation. This important text engages the longstanding and ongoing work of confronting interlocking forms of oppression in the US and globally, centering the continuing need to illuminate connections between Africana biblical studies and the hermeneutical lenses of current revolutionary struggles. It is a must-read that informs any serious engagement of the theological disciplines and meaningful social action.

The pioneers of Black biblical scholarship have proudly passed the torch to an equally agile cohort of “troublers” who ably take up the call to challenge the still prevailing hermeneutic of whiteness. For me, a white scholar, BCR is the companion piece I’ve been waiting for. I owe these contributors not only a great debt of gratitude for such an essential resource but also my undivided attention and resolve as I trod my own hermeneutical trek.

This powerful and provocative collection is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in African American biblical interpretation. Bringing together activism and pedagogy, these essays from established and emergent scholars show how reading with black experiences can lead to invaluable insights about biblical texts of the past and sociopolitical struggles of the present—as they simultaneously offer cogent challenges to claims of racial neutrality in one’s reading of the Bible.

In commemorating the 30th anniversary of the publication of Stony the Road We Trod (1991) edited by the late Cain Hope Felder, the highly-competent team of African American scholars who contributed to STR did not disappoint. I am reasonably confident that Bitter the Chastening Rod will itself, like STR, stand tall among the canon of Africana biblical scholarship for some time to come.

This wide-ranging and interdisciplinary collection reflects just how much Africana and womanist biblical scholarship have bloomed in the wake of Stony the Road We Trod. The contributors push past the hermeneutics of whiteness and respectability in creative and often daring directions, with righteous rage, resistance, and perseverance in the face of recurrent violence against Black and Brown bodies. The paths are still rocky in so many ways, but these scholars present more resources for navigating these bitter truths than ever before.

At a time when some are attempting to rewrite history and whitewash Black enslavement, voter suppression laws are on the rise, and violence against Black and Brown bodies persists, this fine collection of essays speaks volumes to the present moment and beyond. The essays underscore the diversity in Africana interpretations as well as the continuing need for Black scriptural interpretations in the incessant work for Black liberation and freedom. Yet this work is not only about Africana liberation. To revisit the words of Felder, this monograph, like its predecessor, continues the building of a bridge that celebrates all of our stories.