ON MY BOOKSHELF
Making an impact People have been revealing their bookshelves on video calls in recent months. Salvationist asked a number of people to tell us about books on their bookshelf – this week, Online Content Editor Bethany Gibson (THQ) turn can help my relationship with my creator to flourish.
THE HARRY POTTER SERIES IT’S hard to put into words the impact of the Harry Potter books and films on my generation. The overarching narrative that champions love above any other ‘magic’ helped me on my faith journey in my teens. The indescribable draw I felt to God and his love seemed validated, given that such a popular, secular narrative was obsessed with the mysterious power of love and loving relationships. I could quote so many lines, but one that stands out is from a conversation between Harry and Professor Dumbledore in the final book of the series. Harry asks if their conversation is real or if it is only happening inside his head. Dumbledore replies: ‘Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?’ Suddenly, having faith in a God I couldn’t see didn’t seem so crazy. A LIFE ON OUR PLANET I’D watched the Netflix documentary of the same name, so when I received David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet for Christmas, I thought I’d just be reading what I already knew, and expected to get bored after a couple of pages. Thankfully, I found there was so much I still needed to learn.
As I was taking in Attenborough’s account of how humankind has abused the Earth throughout its lifetime, my corps, Regent Hall, was journeying through a sermon series on the Sabbath. The two narratives aligned and I could feel God teaching me something. God charges us with being stewards of his creation and warns us about the dangers of pushing our own productivity to dangerous levels, of ‘working’ on the Sabbath. If we want to flourish, we need to take time to rest and be at one with him. But we’re not the only part of God’s creation that needs to rest in order to flourish. If our world is to heal and stabilise, we need to rest the land and sea. Attenborough points to countries, such as New Zealand, that are striving to move beyond toxic productivity and growth by dropping GDP as a measure of economic success and are instead considering people and the planet alongside profit. He encourages us to consider ‘green growth’, not only for the benefits it will bring to the natural world but also for our own wellbeing. I am now eager to keep discovering how my worship and Sabbath-keeping can support green growth and how this in
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT RACE THIS is the first book I have read by a black author. It feels pretty awful to have just realised that. Last year I listened to the Youth and Children’s Ministries All Terrain Podcast interview with black American Salvation Army officer Major Marion Platt. It was following the murder of George Floyd, and Platt said we need to ‘make space for the suffering of others’. I realised that in order to demonstrate my solidarity with black people, I needed to start making space for the voices of black authors, artists and directors, and start listening to the experiences of the black community in the Church and in my neighbourhood. Ben Lindsay explains that We Need to Talk About Race is ‘not meant to produce white guilt’ but is intended to ‘start a conversation’ and ‘create opportunities for prayerful selfreflection’. Each chapter covers a different area, from ‘being black in the UK’ and ‘the Church and slavery’ to ‘church leadership’ and ‘disentangling Christianity from white supremacy’. At the end of each chapter, Lindsay asks a series of questions that are for black people to consider as well as white church leaders and white church members. The questions really lend themselves to a book club or Bible study setting, so if you are interested in reading this book, consider reading it with people from your corps or friendship group. It’s not an easy read, but I found it to be a necessary one. If I want to see change, I have to start by looking at my own life first. Salvationist 19 June 2021
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