Childhood Faith: The Cringe, The Cute, The Complicated + Esau McCaulley

Saved by the City

What's on your Jesus Island?

Church, God, Christianity — they made up a core part of our identity as kids. In other words, we definitely had a Jesus Island. And, yes, that's a reference to Pixar's highly relatable "Inside Out." This episode of the podcast is full of them. Katelyn and Roxy plumb the depths of their childhood faith and discuss how those core memories continue to shape their faith today (or not!). We are joined by Esau McCaulley who shares some of his core faith memories as a kid, as well as the expectations put on black Christians and how the faith of his forebears set him on the path he’s on today.

GUEST:

• Esau McCaulley is associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. He is the author of the recent memoir "How far to the Promised Land: One Black Family's Story of Hope and Survival in the American South," and "Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope."