Resources for Postliberal Preaching

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These resources were provided by Dan Lewis and Pen Peery at the conclusion of their August 2017 online roundtable: “Toward the Purple Church.”

Books

Campbell, Charles L. Preaching Jesus: The New Directions for Homiletics in Hans Frei’s Postliberal Theology

Pape, Lance B. The Scandal of Having Something to Say: Ricoeur and the Possibility of Postliberal Preaching

Eslinger, Richard L. Narrative and Imagination: Preaching the Worlds that Shape Us

 

Quick Thought Pieces

“I’m a White Man. Hear Me Out.” – Frank Bruni in The New York Times (8/12/17)

“The End of Identity Liberalism” – Mark Lilla in The New York Times (11/18/16)

“The Tribal Truths that Set the Stage for Trump’s Lies” – Michael Gerson in the Washington Post (3/23/17)

“Who Are We?” – Ross Douthat in The New York Times (2/4/17)

“What ‘Hamilton’ forgets about Hamilton” – Jason Frank and Isaac Kramnick in The New York Times (6/10/16)

“Save the Mainline” – Ross Douthat in The New York Times (4/15/17)

Emmett Till: Then and Now

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Lee Hinson-Hasty is curating a series identifying books that Presbyterian leaders are reading now that inform their ministry and work. Why are these texts relevant today? How might they bring us into God’s future? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Jan Edmiston

Emmett Till was murdered more than 60 years ago and since that terrible day, more than 10 books have been written to tell the story. But Timothy B. Tyson’s book, The Blood of Emmett Till, is especially timely for a 21st century audience, telling the story once again within the context of the increasingly reported deaths of so many unarmed black men as well as the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement.

There was a time when the murders of unarmed black men and boys went largely unreported. And while hundreds more have been killed since Emmett Till, some of their names are part of our national liturgy of lament: Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Clementa Pinckney, Freddy Gray. “America is still killing Emmett Till,” writes Tyson, but we are increasingly speaking the names of men and women of color who have died in the throes of racial bias and white supremacy. We are called to be like Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie, and not allow victims of racially motivated deaths to be forgotten.

There was a time when the NAACP was considered a radical organization – much like the Black Lives Matter movement has been decried by some today. Timothy Tyson points out the NAACP was once considered to be “a left-wing power-mad organ of destruction” which had been “infiltrated by communist sympathizers.” Similarly incendiary descriptions of Black Lives Matter can be heard today even though that organization’s stated mission is to affirm “black folks’ contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.” We are reminded in The Blood of Emmett Till that what was once considered radical can become mainstream – and treasured – when we consider the true life experiences of people we have ignored.

Tyson’s book reminds us about the essential nature of testimony. It was his interview of Carolyn Bryant for this book which led to her to admit that Emmett Till never assaulted her in that tiny Mississippi grocery store in 1955. We are reminded what happens when we live by fear even in the face of cultural pressures. False narrative kills.

And we are also reminded that brave truths spoken even at the risk of death is what God has called us to speak today. Tyson powerfully describes what it meant for witnesses like Frank Young and Moses Wright to be brave in the face of darkness. Even though – as expected – the murderers of Emmett Till were found not guilty, the testimony spoken by brave witnesses in the 1950s bolsters our own courage for these days.

If you are just now “waking up white” after reading Debby Irving’s book, reading Tyson’s book about distant days – which are not so distant after all – will further stir a desire to dismantle racism. You may be completely familiar with the story of Emmett Till, but is an important read for our time.

Jan Edmiston serves as Co-Moderator of the 222nd General Assembly (2016) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Jan was born, raised, and educated in Chapel Hill, NC, where she grew up in the University Presbyterian Church. She attended Andover-Newton Theological School and was ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament. She later earned a Doctor of Ministry in Christian Spirituality from Columbia Theological Seminary.She currently serves as Associate Executive Presbyter for Ministry at the Presbytery of Chicago.Edmiston blogs at A Church for Starving Artists. Throughout her parish ministry years, Edmiston served as moderator of the social justice committee and personnel committee, and took leadership roles in the areas of church revitalization, new church development, and presbytery council.

Thinking About Your Own Theology of Migration

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Lee Hinson-Hasty is curating a series identifying books that Presbyterian leaders are reading now that inform their ministry and work. Why are these texts relevant today? How might they bring us into God’s future? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty

Theological perspectives are noticeably lacking in news reports and political debates about the Trump administration’s immigration policies even though many religious leaders and faith communities are inspiring non-violent demonstrations and advocating for a new, more robust sanctuary movement. Indeed, there is a deep well of resources to inspire faith-filled activism.

Two “must reads” remain easily accessible on my desk: Daniel G. Groody’s and Gioacchino Campese’s co-edited volume entitled A Promised Land, A Perilous Journey: Theological Perspectives on Migration (Notre Dame, 2008) and Miguel de la Torre’s Trails of Hope and Terror: Testimonies on Immigration (Orbis, 2009).

Groody and Campese have assembled a vivifying collection of essays written by the world’s leading theological voices on economic migrants and refugees. Essays explore the basis for a theology migration in biblical stories and the traditions of the early church, attend to the politics of human rights, and imagine a constructive theology of migration. Groody is well-known for his work with migrants seeking to cross the U.S. Southern border. He has also collaborated with John Carlos Frye to produce films such as Dying to Live and One Body, One Border which partner well with A Promised Land, A Perilous Journey.

Another important book, Trails of Hope and Terror by de la Torre dispels the myths about migrants informing our contemporary politics of fear. Most important, de la Torre includes powerful testimonies given by people crossing the U.S. Southern border, border patrol officers, and ministers and activists carrying water out into the desert so people don’t die of thirst.

De la Torre also includes creative voices through poetry and songs. Corridos are Mexican ballads that convey news and can express the feelings of people who are oppressed by the most powerful. The excerpt below was translated from Spanish into English and originally written by a Salvadorian factory work about a Sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona.

“… he says that they are criminals.

But they only look for a decent job,

That in their country they have not found,

And without any apparent sense or reason,

Down the streets while in chains he paraded them”

(de la Torre, Trails of Hope and Terror, 130).

 These books will disturb your conscience and force you to confront the realities faced by economic migrants and refugees. Their stories will remain with you as you develop your own theology of migration and sense of God’s mission for the church today.

Elizabeth Hinson-Hasty is chair of the department of theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky and member of the Presbytery of Mid-Kentucky. The church’s role in addressing issues of social and economic justice has long been one of her principal concerns. She is author of Dorothy Day for Armchair Theologians (2014), Beyond the Social Maze: Exploring the Theological Ethics of Vida Dutton Scudder (2006), Reconciling Paul: A Contemporary Study of 2 Corinthians (2014-2015 Horizons Bible Study) and The Problem of Wealth: A Christian Response to the Culture of Affluence (forthcoming from Orbis in 2017).  She co-edited Prayers for the New Social Awakening (2008) with Christian Iosso and To Do Justice: A Guide for Progressive Christians (2008) with Rebecca Todd Peters. She is an alum of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (MDiv 1995) and Union Presbyterian Seminary (PhD, 2002). Elizabeth and her partner, Lee, make their home in the Highlands of Louisville with their two children, Garrison and Emme, and their dog, Bacsi.

A Method in the Midst of Madness

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Lee Hinson-Hasty is curating a series identifying books that Presbyterian leaders are reading now that inform their ministry and work. Why are these texts relevant today? How might they bring us into God’s future? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Bridgett Green

What happens when chaos steps in and disrupts our present circumstances? We become dizzy and disoriented us as our world changes beyond comprehension. We lose a sense of who we are and what we’re doing. And we wonder what is God doing and trying to show us.

When the method to the madness is lost and we are simply left with just madness, how are we to respond? Examining the courageous leadership of Chief Plenty Coups of the Crow nation, Jonathan Lear offers Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. His anthropological analysis with theological insight into Chief Plenty Coups and the Crow nation’s experiences of radical hope provides insights about how to face an uncertain reality with courage and conviction.

Chief Plenty Coups led the Crow nation at the turn of the 20th century when seismic cultural and political shifts devastated their way of life. Preserving their land, living off wild buffalo, and having a rich spiritual life were central to their culture. Invasions by white settlers, wars with other Indigenous nations, broken treaties with the U.S. government, and the utter annihilation of the buffalo created a massive shock wave to the Crow’s way of life and concepts of living.

Devastated by their reality, the Crow nation engaged in a radical hope to confront their present circumstances by synthesizing their traditions with a new conceptual framework for flourishing. Radical hope is the exercise of imaginative excellence for generating creative responses to world challenges. Rooted in vibrant ideals, it allows for a rewarding life in the face of hard realities. To have a radical hope, one must have a faith, or what Lear calls a psychological flexibility, to believe in possibilities without knowledge of how they would manifest.

As a young man, Chief Plenty Coups received a divine message warning him of future destruction and encouraging him to listen carefully and to learn from others. The elders and the community adopted his dream. Not knowing how it would manifest, the people allowed the dream to generate a radical hope for survival that would surpass their understanding.

With radical hope, the Crow nation kept their lands and mountains despite the pressures and broken treaties by the U.S. government enacted in the reservation system. Chief Plenty Coups encouraged generations to go to white schools, explaining that knowing what the white man knows would keep him from being able to oppress them. Eventually, the Crow nation built on their reservation Little Big Horn College that incorporated their history and traditions with western education. The Crow nation developed a new conceptual framework for flourishing.

When we experience a loss of identity, culture, or vocation, it’s an opportunity to follow the wisdom of Chief Plenty Coups: 1) access the real challenges; 2) seeks God’s will; 3) discern with community the vision; 4) have faith God’s vision (versus the prescription); 5) listen and learn from various sources; and 6) respond creatively and courageously to the present reality (and not a reconstructed version of the past).

Bridgett A. Green is a teaching elder and is completing her dissertation as a Ph.D. candidate in New Testament at Vanderbilt University. Living outside of Nashville, she serves the church as an acquisitions editor at Presbyterian Publishing Corporation; as a trustee on the board of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary; and as a trustee on the board of the Mountain Retreat Association (aka Montreat). She resources people as they practice Christianity with the tools of sound biblical interpretation, rigorous theological inquiry, and good questions.

Fighting About Politics and Religion: Why Do We Do It?

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Lee Hinson-Hasty is curating a series identifying books that Presbyterian leaders are reading now that inform their ministry and work. Why are these texts relevant today? How might they bring us into God’s future? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Nanette Sawyer

“Even before I knew why she was criticizing me, I knew I disagreed with her…” This line got a laugh when I recently quoted it in a sermon. Perhaps people could identify with it; if I’m honest, I certainly can. No one likes to be criticized.

Author and moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt wrote these words in his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. He was describing the day his wife asked him to not put the dirty dishes on the counter where she prepares the baby food. His disagreement with her came before he even knew what she was going to say, because he wasn’t reacting with his rational mind, he was reacting with his instinctive need to self-protect. In a light tone he admits that he realized on that day that he was a chronic liar.

He’s not alone, of course; Haidt was using himself to explain the human tendency to want to defend our reputation or the reputation of our “group,” whatever that group may be in any given situation. It could be a sports team, a political party, a family, a religion — any group of which we are a part and which defines some aspect of our identity.

One of Haidt’s major points is that our sense of being right, our sense of moral righteousness, comes not from our rational mind, but from an instantaneous “intuition” or intuitive cognition. Our intuition is like an elephant that we ride — it’s large, powerful, and in control. Our strategic reasoning is like a small rider being carried around on the elephant trying to explain why the elephant is right (even when it’s not).

It’s easy to say that other people’s deeply held beliefs are irrational, but more difficult to admit that mine are irrational, too. Irrational doesn’t necessarily mean wrong, it just means that our moral judgment, our sense of what is right and wrong, happens instantaneously and unconsciously in a flash of intuitive cognition, influenced by prior experience and beliefs.

This changes how we might think about discussing religion and politics with people who differ from us. Giving people more and better “reasons” as to why our opinions are better than theirs will generally not lead to either party changing their perspective. To effectively engage with people who disagree with us means befriending the elephants, theirs and our own, and accruing new experiences so that our intuitions change.

In addition to recognizing that there are both elephants and riders in the room, Haidt outlines moral foundations theory and shows that self-identified liberal and conservative people make moral judgements based on different types of criteria. Six classic moral foundations are:

  1. Care / harm
  2. Fairness/ cheating
  3. Loyalty / betrayal
  4. Authority / subversion
  5. Sanctity / degradation
  6. Liberty /oppression

You can take a free test (start with the Moral Foundations Questionnaire) and see how you measure up at www.yourmorals.org.

Haidt’s book is smart and well-documented, but grounded in story telling that makes it easy to read and understand. I have found it incredibly helpful as I try to wend my way through complex relationships with people who disagree with me and with each other in profound ways. Jesus said, “how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:4). Haidt’s book helps me take a look at the log in my eye.

Nanette Sawyer is a Presbyterian pastor who leads faith formation and small group ministries at Fourth Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago. Nanette was the founding pastor of Grace Commons, a small emergent church formed in an art gallery on the west side of Chicago. The author of Hospitality the Sacred Art (Skylight Paths, 2008), she feels called to guide people in spiritual practices that prepare us to be deeply rooted in God’s love and brave in extending that love to others.

Reaching Out with the Gospel in Intercultural Mode

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Lee Hinson-Hasty is curating a series identifying books that Presbyterian leaders are reading now that inform their ministry and work. Why are these texts relevant today? How might they bring us into God’s future? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Doris Garcia Rivera

In his book La interculturalidad un nuevo paradigma de evangelización, Jit Manuel Castillo offers the view of interculturality as a new paradigm of relationships and evangelization. The strong theoretical support to explain our present postmodern world, plural and multiethnic as the most challenging, yet most beautiful opportunity to rethink our witness as followers of Christ is unparalleled.

Jit takes us on a voyage to understand our present world with five deep metaphors – the tunnel, a broken, a liquid, and unbridled world, and an era of emptiness. Facing these as obscure realities, fragmented identities, fluid relationships, frontiers and truths, lighting speed processes of knowledge and increased difficulty to feel connected (a deep collective meaningless and depression), the author sets us into the emblematic processes of our time.

Identity processes take a leading argument, for our identities not only define us, but also help us interpret reality. Identities have never been static, but are in process of continuous change. Jit challenges us to see the new subjectivities (that many fear) as ways of being human, with flexible contours, embodied within flesh and cultures – just as my own identity is also embodied. It is interesting to see how these processes of creation and affirmation of new identities at the same time also affirm closed, inflexible, and exclusive fundamentalist and extremist identities.

One of the things that most struck me was his affirmation of the postmodern industrial society of “being seen” as opposed to “to be or to have” as the new understanding of existence. If we are not seen in social media, we don’t exist. If that is not seen, it didn’t happen. The change to a technologically dominated society, where the question is not why, but for what?, summarized many of my own observations of society. Utility is the horizon of technology and the techno-scientific project is to transform our human condition, to produce new subjects based on states, globalization, neoliberalism, capital, and pharmaceutical industries’ alliances. The author gives strong arguments to the proposal that new bodies and souls are being created – a digital post-organic and post-biological human being, devoid of holistic, universal, and contextual understanding of themselves.

Interculturality is a vital paradigm where we can face the manipulation of our identities by these somewhat abstract powers or by either more closer politicians or religious leaders. Interculturality is defined as a posture, a disposition to share our lives with the other – a space where all cultures are required to truly read and interpret the world in a more comprehensive way, is challenging. It is more than just eating a different food, or sharing a physical space with a different one. It takes place when a group begins to understand the meaning that things have for others. And it will be all the more profound where more significant aspects are shared – is the degree of shared life. Every time we lose the opportunity to connect with those who are different from us – we lose the opportunity to grow as human beings.

The reading reviewed Bosch’s missionary paradigms that I often use in my classes and applied these to intercultural evangelism as the new paradigm for the church. It opened many questions for me. What this means for our mission and evangelizing efforts? If interculturality is required to read and interpret the world – it is also required to interpret God in action in our midst. Becoming truly intercultural is to empty us, to reduce our own discriminating boundaries to make space for “otherness.” In this we follow Christ who emptied himself to take the form of a servant – as “other” – a human being. Becoming intercultural is a way of becoming incarnated, to truly reach out in love.

As a teacher and president of a seminary I also asked myself; what about theological education, how can I make it more intercultural? What about our teaching processes? What are our cultural presuppositions of intelligence, of learning?  How much are we still ingrained with a religious or theological superiority? How does God see that? How can we empty ourselves as Christians, as denomination to make space for others who yearn to be part of the body of Christ within our midst?

Overall, this is a reading for the strong heart who wants to be challenged to become more like Christ!

Doris Garcia Rivera is president of the Evangelical Seminary of Puerto Rico, the only Hispanic speaking, evangelical, protestant and ecumenical seminary born from several protestant denominations and the Presbyterian Church’s commitment to train the leadership for the church almost 100 years ago. Her vocation as a teacher and her call and work as missionary in theological education and development for 23 years shaped her to develop ministries to reach out to others, to make connections, to create spaces for personal, community and spiritual growth. 

Resist Right Now

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Lee Hinson-Hasty is curating a series identifying books that Presbyterian leaders are reading now that inform their ministry and work. Why are these texts relevant today? How might they bring us into God’s future? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Kathy Wolf Reed

Earlier this year I was fortunate to read Walter Brueggemann’s Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now. Like many of Brueggemann’s works, the book is both brief and powerful, making it (somewhat ironically) an ideal choice for those in professional ministry.

Striking to me was Brueggemann’s description of ancient Egypt: defined by anxiety, overly concerned with productivity, and overcome with an idolatrous worship of commodity. This exhausting mode of existence is not only an apt description of modern day society but modern day mainline Protestantism as well. I suppose that’s why I have not been able to get this book out of my mind.

Amidst threats that somehow our hard-earned commodities might not be safe or our ability to be productive could become compromised, human fear propels us into overdrive. We believe that if we could just do or have more, we might attain the peace our hearts long for – peace that in truth comes only from relationship with God. In the church, the tendency toward commoditization manifests itself as measuring ministry in numbers: membership, budgets, baptisms. We look across the street at what others are doing and think, “Maybe we should start a new program for singles/coffee ministry/contemporary worship service.”

Brueggemann names the flaw in our logic, describing the “endless pursuit of greater security and greater happiness, a pursuit that is always unsatisfied, because we have never gotten or done enough… yet” (page 13). He reminds us how in the Sabbath commandment, our God “nullifies that entire system of anxious production” (page 27). God gives us not just an option but a direct order to place boundaries on our inclinations to perpetuate anxiety.

“Such a faithful practice of work stoppage is an act of resistance.” Brueggemann writes. “It declares in bodily ways that we will not participate in the anxiety system that pervades our social environment” (page 31). He goes on to remind us how Jesus said, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matt. 11:28)

I cannot think of a more relevant book for today’s world and church. I am grateful for the gift of a biblical framework through which to understand my own anxieties and the restlessness of the society and systems in which I serve. I recommend this book to all church leaders as we continue to navigate anxious times.

Kathy Wolf Reed has served as co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Auburn, AL since 2014. The Mayberry-esque setting of Auburn provides a context in which Kathy and her family (co-pastor husband Nick and their three small children) can enjoy all the perks of small town life while the presence of a major university offers them constant opportunities to attend interesting programs and cheer on the Tigers from football games to equestrian meets.

Becoming Who You’ve Always Been

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Lee Hinson-Hasty is curating a series identifying books that Presbyterian leaders are reading now that inform their ministry and work. Why are these texts relevant today? How might they bring us into God’s future? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri

“What a long time it can take to become the person one has always been!” These words by author Parker J. Palmer – a teacher, writer and member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) – exemplify part of the insights I gained reading his book, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation.

Let Your Life Speak was recommended to me at a time marked by endings: service in a committee nearing its end, my father’s terminal cancer diagnosis, deciding whether or not to quit a job… I was feeling somewhat lost and wondering what was next, spiritually and professionally; where and how to best serve God, contribute to the church at large and the community.

Teaching about the gift of vocation and writing about his life experiences, including times of depression, Palmer conveys the message of claiming one’s truth and explains the concept of “true self.” His candid approach is refreshing and challenging. It encourages the reader to dig deep, recognizing limits, potentials, even failures and mistakes, as starting points in discerning “what’s next?” I recommend this book to all those who, like me, find themselves at a crossroads or for those who feel “true self” is still to be discovered. It is not a book to read over a weekend as it calls for honest reflection.

Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri serves as the moderator of the Presbytery of Tropical Florida and works part-time as an ESL teacher and trainer. She is also part of a CREDO faculty team. She has spent spent most of her adult life teaching teenagers and adults and serving in the church context. 

Living in a Constant State of Motion

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Lee Hinson-Hasty is curating a series identifying books that Presbyterian leaders are reading now that inform their ministry and work. Why are these texts relevant today? How might they bring us into God’s future? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Erin Hayes Cook

Put away your Bible cassette tapes and overhead projectors: the future is now. Journalist and author Thomas L. Friedman pauses his life to hear the cultural significance of busyness in his latest book, Thank You for Being Late. What he hears is not what you expect. Friedman realizes that our technological innovations move faster than our society and institutions can adapt. We are left feeling exhilarated and left behind all at the same time.

Friedman interviews everyone from the CEO of Google X research and development lab, Eric “Astro” Teller, to his hometown’s mayor. What humans need to develop in this age of accelerations is dynamic stability. Teller points out, “there are some ways of being, like riding a bicycle, where you cannot stand still, but once you are moving it is actually easier. It is not our natural state. But humanity has to learn to exist in this state.” Yes, humans are adaptive creatures but we have never had to adapt so quickly and with such versatility.

Through Friedman’s colorful and thorough research, I’ve learned what many of us knew but could not put into words. The institution of the church needs to teach her leaders, people in the pews, and potential community members how to develop their adaptability skills. We no longer move at the pace of the printing press. It’s Twitter’s fault. How can we learn to share the gospel when the vehicles of human experience change so rapidly? Be ready to be moved by the Spirit wherever she blows. And get rid of the overhead projectors. I’m sure Apple will come out with an app for it next week.

Send this book to your pastor friends and those considering ministry. Anyone who enjoys a detailed read interwoven with human story will appreciate it. However, Thank You for Being Late would not lend itself to a book study in my opinion. If you’d like to use it as a teaching tool, I would suggest putting excerpts in a bible study or topical discussion.

Erin Hayes-Cook serves a multicultural PC(USA) church in the small city of Rahway, NJ. She believes her call is to be bridge between cultures and generations where she currently serves. Outside of ministry life you will find her at the CrossFit gym or looking for a new recipe.  

Speaking Our Truth Without Shaming Those Who Don’t See It: The Soul of Shame

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Lee Hinson-Hasty is curating a series identifying books that Presbyterian leaders are reading now that inform their ministry and work. Why are these texts relevant today? How might they bring us into God’s future? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Linda Kay Klein

One of the most meaningful influences on my ministry and work today is Dr. Curt Thompson’s The Soul of Shame — a Bible-based exegesis of shame authored by a psychologist most comfortable in the intersection between interpersonal neurobiology and Christian spirituality.

At a time of tremendous national division, I wonder if some of us have become too comfortable with the notion that we and our kind are “right” and “good,” while others are “wrong” and “bad.” For example, I recently heard a pastor say that she would not speak with anyone from “the other side” unless they first admitted to her that they were a bad person. The room full of similarly-politically-minded pastors and other religious leaders mmhmm’d in agreement.

I am uneasy with how easy shaming has become among us. And I fear that, if left unchecked, it will continue to lead us down a very destructive path.

After all, that’s just what shame does.

Let’s pause for a moment and talk about what shame — or what Thompson calls “the primarily tool that evil leverages, out of which emerges everything that we would call sin” (page 22) — actually is, and how it affects us. From a research perspective, shame is different from guilt, humiliation, embarrassment or any of the other words we tend to lump together.

For example, researchers consider guilt the feeling “I have done something bad,” and shame the feeling “I am something bad.” The effects of these two neuropsychological states on people’s lives could not be more different. Whereas guilt makes us reach out to people and connect in an effort to repair relationships, shame inspires us to disconnect — perhaps we withdraw, lash out (either at ourselves or others) or hide.

It is important to name and fight for what we see as right, and against what we see as wrong. But when we engage in shaming — dehumanizing others by declaring them, rather than their positions or actions, to be wrong or bad — we create what Thompson refers to as “states of aloneness within us and between us, and most substantially between us and God” (page 54).

It is the disconnection that shame and shaming engenders within and among us that causes Thompson to refer to shame as “the emotional weapon that evil uses to (1) corrupt our relationships with God and each other, and (2) disintegrate any and all gifts of vocational vision and creativity” (page 13).

For communities that are, like me, trying to find ways to unapologetically speak and fight for our truths while honoring the humanity of those who disagree with us, Thompson’s book is a resource. He presents meaningfully about the nature of shame, which can help us understand the dangers of shaming, and offers Biblical tools for growth and healing. Thompson’s review of Biblical stories through the lens of shame also makes it a particularly strong tool for those interested in offering sermons and Bible studies on the subject.

Linda Kay Klein blends research and stories to expose unseen social problems and devise potential solutions. Her current project centers around the developmental effects of purity-based religious sexuality education programs on the lives of girls as they grow into adulthood. Formerly, Linda was the founding director of the Work on Purpose program at Echoing Green, a social entrepreneurship accelerator best known for helping launch Teach For America, the Freelancers Union, City Year, and over 600 other ground-breaking social change organizations.