Unpopular Culture by Guvna B Reviewed

So I didn’t initially intend to buy Unpopular Culture by Guvina B, which apparently came out in June. However, I did buy it when I found out that he featured heavily in the current issue of the Premier Christianity magazine and that the whole book was only 99p more than the magazine in our local book store, (which had a promotional discount on it). I figured I may as well read the whole book rather than the magazine. What follows is my review.

For the uneducated Guvna B is a MOBO winning British rapper. I could get into the categorisations here but as he says in the book he’s not a big fan of labels and to be honest I’m old and remember when it was as simple as “rap” “hip hop” and “electro”. There’s been times in  his career has been harmed by being pigeon holed as a Christian or gospel artist.

Whilst this book follows a certain evangelical path it is not your usual “trot it out and get them in” paperback. Whilst it’s clear that he has and does perform at big evangelical events it’s equally the case that he points to faith being a journey rather than being “an event”. This is refreshing and reflects the overall honesty which comes through the book.

Early on he briefly talks of his own experience of growing up on a council estate in an area which underwent gentrification as a result of the Olympics. Within this he talks of aspiration and makes clear that those who live in social housing do have aspiration but it tends to be more material and short term than the aspiration with delayed gratification.

I found the material about educational achievement interesting and frustrating. He went on a path of progression which involved doing not so well in his GCSE’s. really not good in his AS Levels but then turning it round to get to university. This path is not unusual but it is increasingly being cut off to people. A Level departments no longer exist in a lot of colleges and the modular system has been abandoned. Whilst he is not overly positive about his university experience it is clear it is “the way out” for many of those young people in social housing (and elsewhere) who do have that long term aspiration.

Now, when it comes to the aspiration “cycle” he makes clear that we need to encourage people to be themselves and own the gifts God has given them. The school, job, relationship, mortgage, family repeat cycle is one which can have negative aspects to it if that is the only goal somebody has.

So you can see a lot of wisdom in this book. It also contains a more positive take on social justice than some books of this type can. As well as talking about supporting a child through the Compassion sponsorship scheme he talks about really engaging in issues. As somebody who says they were desensitized to a lot of things for a long time he says if you start looking at the news and thinking about how you would react if you were seeing your own family it makes a difference. He also mentions, explicitly at various points, the topic of police brutality including the case of Eric Garner.

So do I recommend this book or is it just for young people? Well, I found it useful and at times challenging. Yes, I could get through most of it in the time it took me to drink a large glass of white, but so what. This young man has some important things to say and they appear to being said with integrity. His basic bible teaching isn't bad either.

He does mention the difference of writing for a Chrisitan and secular audience and I have to say I’d love to have read what he’d written if it was for a secular rather than a Christian publisher and with a secular audience in mind to sell to. Still he has a living to make and so do his publishers and so this is the book we get and I have to say it isn’t a bad read all things considered.

This is my body - C. Beardsley & M. O'Brien Ed's Reviewed

This is my body: Hearing the theology of transgender Christians edited by Christina Beardsley and Michelle O’Brien is a collection of contributions by people connected with the Christian trans group Sibyls.

 

The introduction to the book acknowledges the lack of voices from trans men and younger people. I think the lack of a voice from cis partners of trans people is also a loss in a book like this which is not exclusively trans, containing the voices of allies as well. It is not that young and f to m Christians don’t exist, rather I think they are more likely to access different networks (often for LGBTQ+ Christians now LGB Christian groups are becoming more welcoming to T members). Something touched upon in relation to secular f to m groups by the editors as they seek to give an explanation.

The book is a hybrid of academic articles and personal stories. This works to some extent, as does the decision to include all contributions to the stories, however brief. However, I do think that the disjuncture between academic or pseudo-academic articles and many of the stories is such that a book and a pamphlet would have been more helpful. Additionally a couple of the contributions are so brief one does wonder if it would have been more helpful not to include them if something more could not have been coaxed out of the writers.

The first main chapter by the editors talking about The Sybils Gender, Sexuality and Spirituality workshop was particularly strong. Within it there was interesting use of labelling theory and it’s bringing into focus of intersectionality. We all have a sexuality of some kind (even if that is not binary or is a sexual orientation linked to a lack of attraction) and a gender (again even if that is non-binary). This workshop seeks to look at how these factors intersect and how they further relate to our spirituality. The way people have responded to this workshop was also interesting to read.

The next chapter; Acting like a man-playing the woman: gender in performance which is solely authored by Beardsley uses historical analysis of theatre and performance in order to rebuff some of the assertions made by Oliver O’Donovan (a theologian whose work has put forward a range of unhelpful and incorrect notions regarding gender). This was one of the parts of the book which appealed to the social historian within me.

Jasmine Wooley put together a chapter on the social construct of gender which was useful in the way it explained the way that people’s understanding of being trans is often linked to their role as social actors. This is not to suggest that being trans is a choice, rather it highlights as the symbolic interactionists do the way in which we “perform” in relation to the “other” and form our identities around what is expected of us and the fears of what will happen if we deviate from that. Whilst the discussion around legislation was helpful and positive I was disappointed that the discussion of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act (2013) did not acknowledge the negative aspect of that legislation for trans people and their partners who are within a civil partnership. There was a really interesting short section towards the end of this chapter on the challenges presented by the medical model, I was disappointed this had not been slightly longer. However, the chapter covered a lot of ground.

Michelle O’Brien’s chapter on Intersex was particularly interesting and moving. It wove together personal testimony with research. This was the chapter I learnt most from.

This first part of the book for me was the strongest. The chapters became more academic as they moved onto the Theology and Trans chapters. Mercia McMahon sought to reflect on the way in which queer and feminist theologies can help in developing a trans theology. In doing this she also sought to think about how the untimely death of Althaus-Reed, a former professor of divinity in Edinburgh, put back the development of a trans theology. Whilst this chapter did do some useful thinking I think there was an issue in not bringing into play other liberation theologies such as womanism.

Beardsley put together a second solely authored chapter which engaged with the Church of England document “Some Issues in Human Sexuality”. It was a useful update of an earlier article and was interesting in that it gave some of the background to where the current discussions are coming from. This was followed by a chapter looking at a group discussion on the issues within the paper on Issues in Human Sexuality. It ended with some useful recommendations for churches.

Section Three was Scientific and Other Perspectives. This part of the book was the one which I found most difficult to engage with, particularly as a non-scientist. The first chapter by Terry Reed of GIRES was interesting and I was able to follow it. It dealt particularly well with non-binary identity.

Then came Chris Dowd’s chapter Five things cis folk don’t know about Trans folk because it isn’t on trashy TV – my right of reply. Chris is a  URC minister  and ally who came from a MCC background. This paper was based upon his PhD paper. Now, I have to admit a lot of my reaction to this chapter came from the persistent use of the word “folk” which annoys me. To me “folk” is a type of music and the only time I hear it used in relation to people is by Christians. Aside from that it is not a bad chapter which highlights the misconceptions many people have about trans people.

Susan Gilchrist’s paper sought to mix history, science and theology in what was essentially a psychology paper. As a non-scientist I found it overly academic and the least helpful chapter within the first part of this book.

The second part of the book, as I say contained personal stories. The historical ones of these were enjoyable and informative. It was interesting reading these to reflect upon how they were from a particular generation and I did wonder how they would contrast with younger people’s stories had they been in there.

Cross dressing was discussed and I think the most interesting and useful was a self-interview with Elaine Sommers.

The saddest chapter came from well-known trans activist Helen Belcher whose story told of her move to atheism, in part as a result of the awful treatment she had received from the church.

These stories were the most important part of the book to me in many ways because they highlighted what bad practice in the church can look like, as well as what better practice is like. The stories of partners were also touched upon, although as I say I think it would be useful for them to have been told by the partners themselves.

With regard to the contribution by allies I found them interesting and at points offensive. How, even in inverted commas the T word got into the book I have no idea. It would be like writing a piece about ethnicity and using the N word to talk about when you first met a black person.

So would I recommend the book? Yes, if you want to understand more about the experience about older trans people or if you want to explore some of the historical or theological issues involved. If you want a quicker and easier read that just tells you about somebody’s experience of being trans and Christian I would recommend Rachel Mann’s Dazzling Darkness.

Thisis my body: Hearing the theology of transgender Christians, (2016), Edited byChristina Beardsley and Michelle O’Brien is published by Darton, Longman andTodd Ltd.

Cranky, Beautiful Faith - A Review

Cranky, Beautiful Faith by Nadia Bolz-Weber is the story of a contemporary female Lutheran priest based in Denver. It is a fairly standard Christian autobiography on one hand being a set of stories and anecdotes which give the reader a controlled level of insight into the life and experience of somebody who is a major Christian speaker. There are the transformative experiences, ministering to those who are seen as marginal by the rest of society and the frustrations of ministry which seem to be part and parcel of these types of books. Yet this isn't your standard Christian paperback because Bolz-Weber is a heavily tattooed pioneer minister and nothing is quite standard in her life it seems.

 The endorsement from Gordon Gano, lead singer of the Violent Femmes, which comes before the main text says "For anyone who is Chrisitian, interested in Christianity, anti-Christian (or anti-Religion) I recommend this book" . This sums up who the book is for, at least in theory...everybody.  

The likely readership for a book published by a Christian publisher however provides a paradox but it is a paradox which Bolz-Weber deals with herself in the book. She is pastor at the House of Saints and Sinners a pioneer community/ church and it is a church which was set up to minister to the sorts of people who couldn't deal with traditional (inherited) church or more to the point those types of churches couldn't deal with. There came a point when the group started to get publicity and those who responded to the publicity were the people who turned up in their Dockers and got their news from papers not online sources. Bolz-Weber recounts how she had her heart turned about the need to include these people too. This book is like that. Clearly written for people who don't do church or feel the church can't cope with them yet likely to be read by nice middle class Christians.

Before it gets to the point of talking about this paradox at the end of the book Bolz-Weber begins by talking about her own experience of rejecting the fundamentalist church she had grown up in and becoming an alcoholic stand up comic. She moves on to getting clean and falling in love with a seminary student and finding herself at a point where she ends up training to become a minister. It's an engaging description which feels a bit like it has come out of a Douglas Coupland novel. In fact the whole thing reads a bit like it could have been written by Coupland.

As she talks about her ministry at The House of Saints and Sinners the types of people she is talking about will perhaps be challenging or alien to some of her readers. I didn't find it challenging in that way though.  I don't know if it is because there are aspects which I could identify with, which are part of the world I live in particularly relating to LGBandT stuff and the people who part of her congregation. She talks for example about a trans naming ceremony in one chapter. The liturgy which Bolz-Weber put on the net was what Karl adapted and used when he was putting together the naming ceremony he had at the very mainstream church he goes to, a couple of years ago.  Or perhaps it was because I am an avid Coupland reader but this book felt comfortable rather than shocking. However, as I say this book with its use of the F word every so often and descriptions of chaotic lives would have more of a shock value for the type of Christians who would find it an insight into the type of world they know nothing of or really are challenged by.

The book does highlight how Bolz-Weber has a real heart for and ability to minister to those who society would regard as being on the margins and how creative her ministry is. Whilst being rooted in liturgy there is a creative edge to it, as with many pioneer communities and that is what comes through. She also talks in a real way about the ways in which she has been challenged by a range of people and the place the support of good friends, family and colleagues has had.

The stories of journeying with and ministering to those on described as being on the edges and to those who are part of the institution (she tells the story of talking to a bunch of ministers and being honest about an event she'd put on which didn't work out) have deep theology and meaning within them put forward in a deceptively easy read. The story just referred to together with a story about when she found herself getting ripped off by somebody pretending to be a Hurricane Katrina survivor have something deep in them which I think make this book useful for Christians involved in ministry at various levels. Those people who get held up as successful suffer all the same sorts of issues as others.

What I liked about this book is that it is an easy read which makes you think. It's not a classic but it is well worth a look.

 

Cranky, Beautiful Faith by Nadia Bolz-Weber is published by Canterbury Press. ISBN 978-1-84825-531-9