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Being Human: A new lens for our cultural conversations
'Being Human masterfully reorientates us towards the only story that ultimately makes sense of who we are ... A remarkably timely book'
Justin Brierley
'Practical, prayerful and ambitious. A Gospel-infused, wide-angle lens on contemporary society.'
Jill Duff, Anglican Bishop of Lancaster
'A valuable toolkit for church leaders, to help them build confidence in their members, to share the story of Jesus and his kingdom.'
Les Isaac OBE, President, Ascension Trust
'A great book about one of the most important but confusing questions of our time.'
Professor Iain Provan, author of Cuckoos in our Truth and Lies about Being Human
Who am I? Does my life matter? What will make me happy?
In different ways and at different moments we all ask life's big questions about what it means to be human. But in our fast-paced, rapidly changing and often exhausting society, our cultural stories struggle to provide us with good answers. Whether on issues of gender identity or AI, climate change or racial injustice, our individual solutions to life's big challenges can often end in deep division and broken relationships.
But there is another way. Being Human offers a new lens - a new way to engage with our cultural conversations using four key aspects of significance, connection, presence and participation. Digging into the foundations of our cultural stories, authors Jo Frost and Peter Lynas expose the cracks in our culture's understanding of what it means to be human. By contrasting our cultural narratives with the story of the Bible, we can see how cultural truths have been fractured and isolated from the fullness and richness of who God is and who God created us to be, and come to recognise that only in Jesus can we live truly fully human lives.
Being Human is a refreshingly clear and engaging guide for everyone who wants to live out and share the good, true and beautiful biblical vision of what it is to be human.
Peter and Jo co-lead the Being Human project, an initiative from the Evangelical Alliance, helping everyday Christians live out and share the biblical vision of what it means to be human.
Justin Brierley
'Practical, prayerful and ambitious. A Gospel-infused, wide-angle lens on contemporary society.'
Jill Duff, Anglican Bishop of Lancaster
'A valuable toolkit for church leaders, to help them build confidence in their members, to share the story of Jesus and his kingdom.'
Les Isaac OBE, President, Ascension Trust
'A great book about one of the most important but confusing questions of our time.'
Professor Iain Provan, author of Cuckoos in our Truth and Lies about Being Human
Who am I? Does my life matter? What will make me happy?
In different ways and at different moments we all ask life's big questions about what it means to be human. But in our fast-paced, rapidly changing and often exhausting society, our cultural stories struggle to provide us with good answers. Whether on issues of gender identity or AI, climate change or racial injustice, our individual solutions to life's big challenges can often end in deep division and broken relationships.
But there is another way. Being Human offers a new lens - a new way to engage with our cultural conversations using four key aspects of significance, connection, presence and participation. Digging into the foundations of our cultural stories, authors Jo Frost and Peter Lynas expose the cracks in our culture's understanding of what it means to be human. By contrasting our cultural narratives with the story of the Bible, we can see how cultural truths have been fractured and isolated from the fullness and richness of who God is and who God created us to be, and come to recognise that only in Jesus can we live truly fully human lives.
Being Human is a refreshingly clear and engaging guide for everyone who wants to live out and share the good, true and beautiful biblical vision of what it is to be human.
Peter and Jo co-lead the Being Human project, an initiative from the Evangelical Alliance, helping everyday Christians live out and share the biblical vision of what it means to be human.
- GenresChristian
234 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 12, 2023
9 people are currently reading
26 people want to read
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June 5, 2025
“What does it mean to be human?” is undoubtedly the most important question that our culture is asking itself, and one to which Christianity has a compelling and joy-giving answer. Unpacking the enormity of the question has been aided considerably by the publication of several excellent books over the last few years, one of which is this one by Jo Frost and Peter Lynas. They combine biblical faithfulness, generosity, clarity and cultural sensitivity in a book that is well written, thoughtful and compelling in its conclusions. They begin by going over some familiar ground, emphasising both the inseparable nature of culture from what it means to be human, and the extent to which our Western culture is struggling to define or understand itself now that we have slipped the moorings of our Christian heritage:
“Our western society's foundations are struggling to bear the weight being placed on them in our chaotic, complex and contested world. The surrounding environment is also changing rapidly as long-held norms are eroded. We are experiencing subsidence because our cultural foundations are not strong enough to handle the pressure, and we are all feeling the strain as a result…At a fundamental level, our cultural stories contain pre-existing ideas about God (or ultimate reality), the world and human beings. Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor uses the phrase 'social imaginary' to remind us that culture is more than just what we think. Culture is about being and doing and it touches every aspect of our lives. It's the way we collectively make sense of the world we inhabit and the stuff that we make. Culture is communal because it defines how we are expected to behave: it can be summed up in that classic line, 'That's not what we do around here'. It's the social norms that are never defined but collectively understood. Therefore, much of our humanity is concerned with the shaping and impact of our culture. To be human is to shape culture and to be shaped by culture…However, the horizons of our collective understanding are shifting as we move from a few widely accepted over-arching stories to an increasing number of personal or micro stories. These individual stories are smaller and less stable, and they cannot bear the weight being placed on them. As we each write our own personal story the horizons narrow, limiting our ability to engage with a fully human life, ultimately resulting in a dehumanising culture. We are presented with a world of unending freedom and choice, but in reality we are inhabiting smaller stories in a contested and chaotic cultural moment that can feel overwhelming.”
The authors describe our culture as a Jenga tower, where blocks are progressively (!) pulled from the bottom and placed on top, resulting in an increasingly unstable structure. This instability is driven by three main factors: secularism, expressive individualism and post-modernity. The bottom-most layer of the tower “is made up of blocks representing foundational stories about reality -- the general truths of our world and the basic beliefs that we share and agree on. But the secular story begins to remove these blocks…Secularism's aim is not simply a world without religion but a way of life in which all belief systems are contested and any claim of divine action is questioned. The options for belief are more numerous, but with no agreed set of beliefs, all beliefs are more fragile. Everyone feels pushed and pressed and tugged by rival stories of who we are and what we are for. Secularism allows faith to remain but demands that it is kept private. Charles Taylor, in his book A Secular Age, explains how 500 years ago it was almost unthinkable not to believe in God, yet now it is almost unthinkable to believe in God. We live in an age in which the blocks representing spiritual possibility, transcendence and the presence of God are being removed from our collective foundational cultural stories.” What complicates this story is that our society continues to engage in cosmic plagiarism (to quote Tim Killer), living “off the fruits of the Christian story while simultaneously chopping down the very tree that sustains that fruit…Our society prizes human dignity, freedom, justice and equality - all of which find their origin in Christian thinking.” Next comes a section of the tower “made up of blocks representing communal stories. These blocks are concerned with ethics and morality: how to treat each other and what good looks like. We see the powerful impact of the cultural story around expressive individualism here. This story tells us that to live fully we need to know ourselves and be free to project ourselves out into the world as we see fit. We can remove any blocks representing obligations and impositions or anything that might hold us back or stop us being ourselves. Having largely rejected religion, we are left to our own devices to interpret and order our world. Western culture experienced a profound shift inward during the periods of Reformation and Enlightenment – a shift that prioritised the individual as the basic arbiter of truth. We can now discover, create or choose our identity inside of us and then express it in the world…As the world around us grows increasingly fractured, as our political conversations, social media trolling, equality and inclusion challenges become ever more hostile and toxic, we retreat inward. The inner self is where we turn for protection and meaning. We seek to be authentic and true to ourselves rather than forced to conform to society, previous generations or religion. But writing your own script is a huge weight for any individual to bear. The further inward we go, the less we can cope with being in the world. As we each decide for ourselves how best to live and be true to ourselves, the Jenga blocks of moral commitment and communal responsibility are removed from the middle of the tower and placed on top.”
Lastly comes the section of the tower “made up of blocks representing personal stories. This is where the postmodern story comes into play. It tells us that truth is personal and subjective; you have your truth and I have mine. Postmodernism provided a healthy challenge to the certainty of modernity and the Enlightenment that came before it. The process of deconstruction is a helpful reminder that science doesn't have all the answers, and certain power structures and hierarchies, for example around race, sex and disability, needed to be challenged and overthrown. But postmodernism also encourages a radical scepticism that leads many to question almost everything. This deep sense of doubt harbours suspicion and rejects any overarching truth claim in favour of millions of micro stories or 'personal truths'. The postmodern story blurs the boundary between objective truth and subjective experience where meaning and truth are relativised to little more than personal taste.”
What does Christianity have to say in response to all of this? Simply that “We, as human beings, are created to be God's image bearers. We come from the dust, but He invites us into something more: to represent, project and share in His likeness…we have been crowned with glory and honour. We are created beings and we receive the character, nature and purposes of God. Like a child resembles their parents in how they look, how they act, the type of character they have, we are made to resemble God. We have been given authority over the works of God's hands. This is the language of image bearing - we are literally God's idols. We are to remind creation of God and we are to inspire creation's worship. We are to point creation back to the original. This is the image of God, the imago Dei. This is what it means to be human.”
To flesh out the implications of this, the authors have developed what they have called the Being Human Lens, a framework for understanding four of the main facets of our humanity in light of the reality that we are God’s image bearers:
1. Significance - You matter. To be human is to search for significance and meaning in our contested culture. We will explore the source of our significance, looking at what it means to know and be known and how this impacts our understanding of identity, dignity and equality.
2. Connection - We matter to each other. To be human is to crave connection in a world of self-centredness and fear and anxiety. We will explore our desire to love and be loved, looking at relationships, justice and peace.
3. Presence - Being here now matters. Every human being is called to be present to each other and the world. We explore how the importance of bodies, the places we inhabit and the time we are living in shape us as human beings.
4. Participation - The difference we make matters. To be human is to make a difference, to leave a legacy, to have an impact. We will explore the power and the freedom we have in fulfilling our purpose.
The rest of the book explores each of these four themes, each under four headings: cultural stories, the God story, Jesus and new humanity. So, for each theme, we move from what our culture has to say to what God says in creation, and redemption through Jesus, before closing with some of the implications for us as God’s people in the world.
Significance
The authors begin by outlining two dominant cultural stories that attempt to explain our significance: self-esteem and self-realisation. The first is an 'earn it' storyline, based on achievement and approval: “There's a set of targets we need to achieve - a good job, perfect family, nice house, healthy bank account, no wrinkles. We need to prove ourselves and earn credibility to win affection or approval. Our significance is based on how others see us.” The second is a 'be it' storyline, where our significance comes from within. The problem with both approaches is that they are riddled with incoherence, instability and inadequacy. By contrast, “the God story doesn't answer the question why you matter, it simply declares that you matter. It's not conditional on what you do, how others view you or how you see yourself, it is a state of being. You matter. As we shall see, our significance is both a declaration of reality and an invitation to more…as humans, our worth and our significance lies in knowing and being known by God.”
This is a better story, because “If our identity rests on our achievements and accomplishments, then we are in trouble. If our identity rests on our inner journey of self-discovery or the story we tell ourselves, we are in even more trouble. We cannot bear the weight of that responsibility. No degrees, no promotions and no amount of followers on social media compare to finding our identity 'in Christ'...All human beings are created as spiritual beings with a deep longing to find their significance in God. Our true self can only exist in relation to God.”
Further, we aren’t simply redeemed individuals in relationship with Jesus, but saved into a community that plays a part in God’s plan to build a whole new humanity: “This new humanity stands in contrast to much of western society, including parts of the church, which is centred around the myth that we belong to ourselves, that the search for our significance ends with us. But the search for significance is not an individual journey. Being human is not an 'I' endeavour; it is a 'we' endeavour. By necessity, to know and be known is a community activity. We explore our God-given gifts in community, being encouraged and accountable to others. When we are struggling and unsure of ourselves, others come alongside and steady us.”
Connection
Our society tells us that “We are consumers in a culture that easily consumes. A world of unregulated capitalism, environmental exploitation, political populism, culture wars, cheap religion, pornified relationships and dope-sick legal drug addiction. Our relationships continue to deform us and dehumanise the other, and our cultural stories do little to stem the tide of descent. Is this the inevitable future of all our relationships - or is there another way for us to be connected?” Again, “Our cultural stories cannot bear the weight of the complexity and variety needed for flourishing human relationships. Hints and fragments of truth can't cope with the struggles and strains of human interactions. And so we turn now to the God story. Here we see that to be human is to be connected. We share in the likeness of a loving, relational God. Therefore, when we project and participate in relationships based on love and generosity, it leads to flourishing. We can act without fear or self-centredness; we can instead relate to others generously and selflessly. We are able to move towards others with compassion and openness. We can nurture habits that mean we give freely and value others above ourselves.”
Presence
We are embodied, and present in a specific place at a specific time - and none of this by accident: “Our lives are messy, and our physicality is part of who we are…We live in a world that desperately wants to, but doesn't know how to, be present. We immerse ourselves in the distractions of the attention economy, which enables us to be apathetic to the underlying problems. When we are forced to confront a real-world issue such as illness or death, we can become anxious or despairing. But in the long run, we cannot escape the realities of time or place or our bodies. Being present in the world is essential to being human.” Rather than numbing ourselves with distraction, the authors encourage us to consider the God story, which “addresses the cultural challenges of the postmodern stories. It starts with a personal God, present in the creation He has spoken into being. He meets with His image bearers in a meaningful encounter. But the God story also acknowledges the reality of fragmentation, alienation and deconstruction in a fallen world.” Jesus, as God incarnate, constitutes the restoration of the task that God had always intended for humanity: to reign over creation on his behalf.
Participation
With the final part of the lens, the authors emphasise that “To be human is to make a difference in the world. To be human is to take part. The difference we make matters. Because while we may all have heard the cliché 'we're human beings, not human doings', what we do affects our world. We do stuff. We make a difference. Participation also brings our exploration of what it is to be human full circle. Many of our cultural stories start with participation; we derive our meaning from our actions and our identity from our impact.” If we make the mistake of beginning with our actions and impact we end up with an “ongoing, chaotic, complex, hyper-connected, perpetual state of crisis [that] is dehumanising. We get caught up in the anxieties of the moment and lose sight of who we are, how the world is ordered and how we are to live within it. Participating in a chaotic, disordered world has two extremes: on the one hand we can carry the overwhelming personal responsibility to solve all the crises on our own, left to try and navigate each new crisis without a generally recognised map or framework; or, on the other hand, we abdicate responsibility entirely, through exhaustion, playing the blame game, pointing the finger or simply opting out. But neither option can lead to human flourishing.” In understanding how we got here, they explain that “The premise of the secular story is that we do not need God to survive or thrive. There is no overarching story in which we all find our sense of significance. The result is a turn inward - the rise of expressive individualism and the resulting loss of relational connection. As we turn in on ourselves, postmodernism encourages us to distance ourselves from every external oppression. We deconstruct everything imposed on us: authority, reality and truth, forcing us to live in a virtual, displaced and fragmented world. This is a world where truth becomes a subjective power play and there is no way to speak truth to power. Every relationship is reduced to the dynamics of dominance and oppression.”
Again, the God story points to a better way as we are invited to partnership, fulfilling the creation mandate. This side of the cross, our participation has a redemptive quality as we play our part in the restoration of all things, and that will be fully consummated when Jesus returns.
In closing, Jo and Peter encourage us to consider the person of Jesus again, where all these aspects of humanity find their fullest expression and fulfilment: “It is Jesus who shows us life in all its fullness. It is Jesus who managed what we could not, who knew the Father, loved like the Father, drew close like the Father, and spoke order over chaos like the Father. Jesus is both the cause of our renewed likeness of God and the model we follow as we try to live it out. He communicates to us who God is, who we are meant to be, and shows what a human life lived in loving obedience to God looks like. Jesus is the human being we were all made to be. Through all that He says and does, Jesus teaches, demonstrates and creates a new way of being human for us all. We are to practise life in the likeness of a good, true, loving, relational, personal, present, active and generous God. These are to be the hallmarks of being human. They were the hallmarks of Jesus' life as He showed us how to truly, fully, beautifully bear the image of God…You are not an accident. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, created and formed by the very God who breathed His breath of life into you. He knows you intimately and loves you despite, or perhaps because of, all that He knows about you. He has placed you within His creation and invited you to participate and partner with Him. We are all invited into this new humanity, through Jesus and because of Jesus. We are invited to be part of a community that experiences eternal life, with transformed imaginations now and fully transformed bodies in the new creation. We are invited into a community on mission empowered by the Holy Spirit to participate in the restoration and renewal of all things. Like Jesus, we bear God's image and get to participate in bringing His dynamic rule and reign.”
That is what it means to be human, and it is our mandate and mission. Our part is to step out in faith and put it into action.
“Our western society's foundations are struggling to bear the weight being placed on them in our chaotic, complex and contested world. The surrounding environment is also changing rapidly as long-held norms are eroded. We are experiencing subsidence because our cultural foundations are not strong enough to handle the pressure, and we are all feeling the strain as a result…At a fundamental level, our cultural stories contain pre-existing ideas about God (or ultimate reality), the world and human beings. Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor uses the phrase 'social imaginary' to remind us that culture is more than just what we think. Culture is about being and doing and it touches every aspect of our lives. It's the way we collectively make sense of the world we inhabit and the stuff that we make. Culture is communal because it defines how we are expected to behave: it can be summed up in that classic line, 'That's not what we do around here'. It's the social norms that are never defined but collectively understood. Therefore, much of our humanity is concerned with the shaping and impact of our culture. To be human is to shape culture and to be shaped by culture…However, the horizons of our collective understanding are shifting as we move from a few widely accepted over-arching stories to an increasing number of personal or micro stories. These individual stories are smaller and less stable, and they cannot bear the weight being placed on them. As we each write our own personal story the horizons narrow, limiting our ability to engage with a fully human life, ultimately resulting in a dehumanising culture. We are presented with a world of unending freedom and choice, but in reality we are inhabiting smaller stories in a contested and chaotic cultural moment that can feel overwhelming.”
The authors describe our culture as a Jenga tower, where blocks are progressively (!) pulled from the bottom and placed on top, resulting in an increasingly unstable structure. This instability is driven by three main factors: secularism, expressive individualism and post-modernity. The bottom-most layer of the tower “is made up of blocks representing foundational stories about reality -- the general truths of our world and the basic beliefs that we share and agree on. But the secular story begins to remove these blocks…Secularism's aim is not simply a world without religion but a way of life in which all belief systems are contested and any claim of divine action is questioned. The options for belief are more numerous, but with no agreed set of beliefs, all beliefs are more fragile. Everyone feels pushed and pressed and tugged by rival stories of who we are and what we are for. Secularism allows faith to remain but demands that it is kept private. Charles Taylor, in his book A Secular Age, explains how 500 years ago it was almost unthinkable not to believe in God, yet now it is almost unthinkable to believe in God. We live in an age in which the blocks representing spiritual possibility, transcendence and the presence of God are being removed from our collective foundational cultural stories.” What complicates this story is that our society continues to engage in cosmic plagiarism (to quote Tim Killer), living “off the fruits of the Christian story while simultaneously chopping down the very tree that sustains that fruit…Our society prizes human dignity, freedom, justice and equality - all of which find their origin in Christian thinking.” Next comes a section of the tower “made up of blocks representing communal stories. These blocks are concerned with ethics and morality: how to treat each other and what good looks like. We see the powerful impact of the cultural story around expressive individualism here. This story tells us that to live fully we need to know ourselves and be free to project ourselves out into the world as we see fit. We can remove any blocks representing obligations and impositions or anything that might hold us back or stop us being ourselves. Having largely rejected religion, we are left to our own devices to interpret and order our world. Western culture experienced a profound shift inward during the periods of Reformation and Enlightenment – a shift that prioritised the individual as the basic arbiter of truth. We can now discover, create or choose our identity inside of us and then express it in the world…As the world around us grows increasingly fractured, as our political conversations, social media trolling, equality and inclusion challenges become ever more hostile and toxic, we retreat inward. The inner self is where we turn for protection and meaning. We seek to be authentic and true to ourselves rather than forced to conform to society, previous generations or religion. But writing your own script is a huge weight for any individual to bear. The further inward we go, the less we can cope with being in the world. As we each decide for ourselves how best to live and be true to ourselves, the Jenga blocks of moral commitment and communal responsibility are removed from the middle of the tower and placed on top.”
Lastly comes the section of the tower “made up of blocks representing personal stories. This is where the postmodern story comes into play. It tells us that truth is personal and subjective; you have your truth and I have mine. Postmodernism provided a healthy challenge to the certainty of modernity and the Enlightenment that came before it. The process of deconstruction is a helpful reminder that science doesn't have all the answers, and certain power structures and hierarchies, for example around race, sex and disability, needed to be challenged and overthrown. But postmodernism also encourages a radical scepticism that leads many to question almost everything. This deep sense of doubt harbours suspicion and rejects any overarching truth claim in favour of millions of micro stories or 'personal truths'. The postmodern story blurs the boundary between objective truth and subjective experience where meaning and truth are relativised to little more than personal taste.”
What does Christianity have to say in response to all of this? Simply that “We, as human beings, are created to be God's image bearers. We come from the dust, but He invites us into something more: to represent, project and share in His likeness…we have been crowned with glory and honour. We are created beings and we receive the character, nature and purposes of God. Like a child resembles their parents in how they look, how they act, the type of character they have, we are made to resemble God. We have been given authority over the works of God's hands. This is the language of image bearing - we are literally God's idols. We are to remind creation of God and we are to inspire creation's worship. We are to point creation back to the original. This is the image of God, the imago Dei. This is what it means to be human.”
To flesh out the implications of this, the authors have developed what they have called the Being Human Lens, a framework for understanding four of the main facets of our humanity in light of the reality that we are God’s image bearers:
1. Significance - You matter. To be human is to search for significance and meaning in our contested culture. We will explore the source of our significance, looking at what it means to know and be known and how this impacts our understanding of identity, dignity and equality.
2. Connection - We matter to each other. To be human is to crave connection in a world of self-centredness and fear and anxiety. We will explore our desire to love and be loved, looking at relationships, justice and peace.
3. Presence - Being here now matters. Every human being is called to be present to each other and the world. We explore how the importance of bodies, the places we inhabit and the time we are living in shape us as human beings.
4. Participation - The difference we make matters. To be human is to make a difference, to leave a legacy, to have an impact. We will explore the power and the freedom we have in fulfilling our purpose.
The rest of the book explores each of these four themes, each under four headings: cultural stories, the God story, Jesus and new humanity. So, for each theme, we move from what our culture has to say to what God says in creation, and redemption through Jesus, before closing with some of the implications for us as God’s people in the world.
Significance
The authors begin by outlining two dominant cultural stories that attempt to explain our significance: self-esteem and self-realisation. The first is an 'earn it' storyline, based on achievement and approval: “There's a set of targets we need to achieve - a good job, perfect family, nice house, healthy bank account, no wrinkles. We need to prove ourselves and earn credibility to win affection or approval. Our significance is based on how others see us.” The second is a 'be it' storyline, where our significance comes from within. The problem with both approaches is that they are riddled with incoherence, instability and inadequacy. By contrast, “the God story doesn't answer the question why you matter, it simply declares that you matter. It's not conditional on what you do, how others view you or how you see yourself, it is a state of being. You matter. As we shall see, our significance is both a declaration of reality and an invitation to more…as humans, our worth and our significance lies in knowing and being known by God.”
This is a better story, because “If our identity rests on our achievements and accomplishments, then we are in trouble. If our identity rests on our inner journey of self-discovery or the story we tell ourselves, we are in even more trouble. We cannot bear the weight of that responsibility. No degrees, no promotions and no amount of followers on social media compare to finding our identity 'in Christ'...All human beings are created as spiritual beings with a deep longing to find their significance in God. Our true self can only exist in relation to God.”
Further, we aren’t simply redeemed individuals in relationship with Jesus, but saved into a community that plays a part in God’s plan to build a whole new humanity: “This new humanity stands in contrast to much of western society, including parts of the church, which is centred around the myth that we belong to ourselves, that the search for our significance ends with us. But the search for significance is not an individual journey. Being human is not an 'I' endeavour; it is a 'we' endeavour. By necessity, to know and be known is a community activity. We explore our God-given gifts in community, being encouraged and accountable to others. When we are struggling and unsure of ourselves, others come alongside and steady us.”
Connection
Our society tells us that “We are consumers in a culture that easily consumes. A world of unregulated capitalism, environmental exploitation, political populism, culture wars, cheap religion, pornified relationships and dope-sick legal drug addiction. Our relationships continue to deform us and dehumanise the other, and our cultural stories do little to stem the tide of descent. Is this the inevitable future of all our relationships - or is there another way for us to be connected?” Again, “Our cultural stories cannot bear the weight of the complexity and variety needed for flourishing human relationships. Hints and fragments of truth can't cope with the struggles and strains of human interactions. And so we turn now to the God story. Here we see that to be human is to be connected. We share in the likeness of a loving, relational God. Therefore, when we project and participate in relationships based on love and generosity, it leads to flourishing. We can act without fear or self-centredness; we can instead relate to others generously and selflessly. We are able to move towards others with compassion and openness. We can nurture habits that mean we give freely and value others above ourselves.”
Presence
We are embodied, and present in a specific place at a specific time - and none of this by accident: “Our lives are messy, and our physicality is part of who we are…We live in a world that desperately wants to, but doesn't know how to, be present. We immerse ourselves in the distractions of the attention economy, which enables us to be apathetic to the underlying problems. When we are forced to confront a real-world issue such as illness or death, we can become anxious or despairing. But in the long run, we cannot escape the realities of time or place or our bodies. Being present in the world is essential to being human.” Rather than numbing ourselves with distraction, the authors encourage us to consider the God story, which “addresses the cultural challenges of the postmodern stories. It starts with a personal God, present in the creation He has spoken into being. He meets with His image bearers in a meaningful encounter. But the God story also acknowledges the reality of fragmentation, alienation and deconstruction in a fallen world.” Jesus, as God incarnate, constitutes the restoration of the task that God had always intended for humanity: to reign over creation on his behalf.
Participation
With the final part of the lens, the authors emphasise that “To be human is to make a difference in the world. To be human is to take part. The difference we make matters. Because while we may all have heard the cliché 'we're human beings, not human doings', what we do affects our world. We do stuff. We make a difference. Participation also brings our exploration of what it is to be human full circle. Many of our cultural stories start with participation; we derive our meaning from our actions and our identity from our impact.” If we make the mistake of beginning with our actions and impact we end up with an “ongoing, chaotic, complex, hyper-connected, perpetual state of crisis [that] is dehumanising. We get caught up in the anxieties of the moment and lose sight of who we are, how the world is ordered and how we are to live within it. Participating in a chaotic, disordered world has two extremes: on the one hand we can carry the overwhelming personal responsibility to solve all the crises on our own, left to try and navigate each new crisis without a generally recognised map or framework; or, on the other hand, we abdicate responsibility entirely, through exhaustion, playing the blame game, pointing the finger or simply opting out. But neither option can lead to human flourishing.” In understanding how we got here, they explain that “The premise of the secular story is that we do not need God to survive or thrive. There is no overarching story in which we all find our sense of significance. The result is a turn inward - the rise of expressive individualism and the resulting loss of relational connection. As we turn in on ourselves, postmodernism encourages us to distance ourselves from every external oppression. We deconstruct everything imposed on us: authority, reality and truth, forcing us to live in a virtual, displaced and fragmented world. This is a world where truth becomes a subjective power play and there is no way to speak truth to power. Every relationship is reduced to the dynamics of dominance and oppression.”
Again, the God story points to a better way as we are invited to partnership, fulfilling the creation mandate. This side of the cross, our participation has a redemptive quality as we play our part in the restoration of all things, and that will be fully consummated when Jesus returns.
In closing, Jo and Peter encourage us to consider the person of Jesus again, where all these aspects of humanity find their fullest expression and fulfilment: “It is Jesus who shows us life in all its fullness. It is Jesus who managed what we could not, who knew the Father, loved like the Father, drew close like the Father, and spoke order over chaos like the Father. Jesus is both the cause of our renewed likeness of God and the model we follow as we try to live it out. He communicates to us who God is, who we are meant to be, and shows what a human life lived in loving obedience to God looks like. Jesus is the human being we were all made to be. Through all that He says and does, Jesus teaches, demonstrates and creates a new way of being human for us all. We are to practise life in the likeness of a good, true, loving, relational, personal, present, active and generous God. These are to be the hallmarks of being human. They were the hallmarks of Jesus' life as He showed us how to truly, fully, beautifully bear the image of God…You are not an accident. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, created and formed by the very God who breathed His breath of life into you. He knows you intimately and loves you despite, or perhaps because of, all that He knows about you. He has placed you within His creation and invited you to participate and partner with Him. We are all invited into this new humanity, through Jesus and because of Jesus. We are invited to be part of a community that experiences eternal life, with transformed imaginations now and fully transformed bodies in the new creation. We are invited into a community on mission empowered by the Holy Spirit to participate in the restoration and renewal of all things. Like Jesus, we bear God's image and get to participate in bringing His dynamic rule and reign.”
That is what it means to be human, and it is our mandate and mission. Our part is to step out in faith and put it into action.
September 2, 2024
I got about 65% through this. It's a good concept and the first few chapters are very gripping but either I, or the writing became a bit tired. I will probably go back and finish, but lacking motivation to.
EDIT Have now finished it. My opinion remains 'cool idea, writing not very absorbing and possibly the idea needs to be polished a little? Feels a bit too broad?'
EDIT Have now finished it. My opinion remains 'cool idea, writing not very absorbing and possibly the idea needs to be polished a little? Feels a bit too broad?'
December 10, 2023
It's interesting how this book explores what it is being human- through a Biblical lens-and more so because if at any point you've ever wondered just how much more there is to good and evil, this would be a recommended read.
The authors look at what it means to be human through four key aspects: significance, connection, presence and participation.
I also found this book intriguing because the authors analyze the stories we are told, and we then tell ourselves rooted in our foundations of family, culture and society- so that it's not just looking at what it is now but also what informed our understanding and beliefs about humanity.
Thank you Netgalley for the eARC.
The authors look at what it means to be human through four key aspects: significance, connection, presence and participation.
I also found this book intriguing because the authors analyze the stories we are told, and we then tell ourselves rooted in our foundations of family, culture and society- so that it's not just looking at what it is now but also what informed our understanding and beliefs about humanity.
Thank you Netgalley for the eARC.
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