diff --git a/lib/jekyll/configuration.rb b/lib/jekyll/configuration.rb
index c2e74eb2..e01f798c 100644
--- a/lib/jekyll/configuration.rb
+++ b/lib/jekyll/configuration.rb
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ module Jekyll
         Jekyll::External.require_with_graceful_fail('toml') unless defined?(TOML)
         TOML.load_file(filename)
       when /\.ya?ml/i
-        SafeYAML.load_file(filename)
+        SafeYAML.load_file(filename) || {}
       else
         raise ArgumentError, "No parser for '#{filename}' is available. Use a .toml or .y(a)ml file instead."
       end
@@ -145,7 +145,7 @@ module Jekyll
     # Returns this configuration, overridden by the values in the file
     def read_config_file(file)
       next_config = safe_load_file(file)
-      raise ArgumentError.new("Configuration file: (INVALID) #{file}".yellow) unless next_config.is_a?(Hash)
+      check_config_is_hash!(next_config, file)
       Jekyll.logger.info "Configuration file:", file
       next_config
     rescue SystemCallError
@@ -228,7 +228,8 @@ module Jekyll
       end
 
       %w[include exclude].each do |option|
-        if config.fetch(option, []).is_a?(String)
+        config[option] ||= []
+        if config[option].is_a?(String)
           Jekyll::Deprecator.deprecation_message "The '#{option}' configuration option" +
             " must now be specified as an array, but you specified" +
             " a string. For now, we've treated the string you provided" +
@@ -292,6 +293,7 @@ module Jekyll
     end
 
     private
+
     def style_to_permalink(permalink_style)
       case permalink_style.to_sym
       when :pretty
@@ -306,5 +308,17 @@ module Jekyll
         permalink_style.to_s
       end
     end
+
+    # Private: Checks if a given config is a hash
+    #
+    # extracted_config - the value to check
+    # file - the file from which the config was extracted
+    #
+    # Raises an ArgumentError if given config is not a hash
+    def check_config_is_hash!(extracted_config, file)
+      unless extracted_config.is_a?(Hash)
+        raise ArgumentError.new("Configuration file: (INVALID) #{file}".yellow)
+      end
+    end
   end
 end
diff --git a/test/test_configuration.rb b/test/test_configuration.rb
index 553dfda3..608dfef0 100644
--- a/test/test_configuration.rb
+++ b/test/test_configuration.rb
@@ -59,6 +59,34 @@ class TestConfiguration < JekyllUnitTest
       assert_equal %w[config/site.yml config/deploy.toml configuration.yml], @config.config_files(@multiple_files)
     end
   end
+
+  context "#read_config_file" do
+    setup do
+      @config = Configuration[{"source" => source_dir('empty.yml')}]
+    end
+
+    should "not raise an error on empty files" do
+      allow(SafeYAML).to receive(:load_file).with('empty.yml').and_return(false)
+      Jekyll.logger.log_level = :warn
+      @config.read_config_file('empty.yml')
+      Jekyll.logger.log_level = :info
+    end
+  end
+
+  context "#read_config_files" do
+    setup do
+      @config = Configuration[{"source" => source_dir}]
+    end
+
+    should "continue to read config files if one is empty" do
+      allow(SafeYAML).to receive(:load_file).with('empty.yml').and_return(false)
+      allow(SafeYAML).to receive(:load_file).with('not_empty.yml').and_return({'foo' => 'bar', 'include' => '', 'exclude' => ''})
+      Jekyll.logger.log_level = :warn
+      read_config = @config.read_config_files(['empty.yml', 'not_empty.yml'])
+      Jekyll.logger.log_level = :info
+      assert_equal 'bar', read_config['foo']
+    end
+  end
   context "#backwards_compatibilize" do
     setup do
       @config = Configuration[{