Book 10 of 2022 --Intercultural Visions: Called to Be the Church

 

Over a decade ago the United Church of Canada pledged to grow into a truly intercultural church (though I suspect many people in the church have no idea about that pledge much less have taken time to work out what it means in how we are the church).

This book offers a series of reflections on what it might mean to be an intercultural church. To structure the book each writer was given a line from the New Creed paragraph "We are called to be the church".

Each of these essays offers food for thought. I was routinely challenged as I read through them. I suspect there may be some things the authors would say differently now, 10 years later, but many of the points raise are still very relevant.

AS the United Church continues to claim a desire to be both intercultural and anti-racist (and really you can't have the former without the latter) more people need to read these essays.

Book 9 of 2022 -- Shame and Grace

 This book has been on a shelf in my parents' house for 25 years or so. Many times over the last 20 years I have looked at it sitting there and thought "I should read that". This year I finally did.

Back in my final year of seminary I went to a graduate seminar where one of the professors was sharing some of her work on shame. Charlotte differentiated between legitimate guilt over something one had done and shame, which is more of an ontological piece. Shame is about how we see who we are. As such, while guilt can be a motivator for change and repair, shame can, in the end, be incredibly debilitating (trust me, I know the effects quite well).

In this book Smedes differentiates between earned/valid shame (which I think is similar to what many of us would call guilt) and unearned shame. He talks about the sources of that shame, the various things like depression that look like or travel with shame. He talks about the ways shame shapes our lives. And he talks about the cure -- grace.

Smedes is (or at least was almost 30 years ago when this book came out) associated with Fuller Seminary. So he speaks not only using the lens of psychology but also the lens of theology.

I have known shame and grace in my life. There was a time when shame shaped my understanding of who I was. Some days that is still true. But it is getting better -- I think..We live in a world that can be really good at imparting shame. WE need to be just as good at reminding people of the reality of grace,