A review by Jane Walters
At the outset, I must confess that I wouldn’t normally have chosen to read a book like this, concerned as it is with the big issues of politics and society. However, I found it accessible, its arguments compelling, and it’s opened my eyes to the world around me.
The simple starting point is that politics has shifted away from the traditional divisions of right/left and conservative/liberal towards identity groups based on race, gender, sexuality and age. Chang unpacks four key topics: feminism, racial justice, gay pride and trans rights. In considering feminism, the author traces its beginnings from the mid-19th century, when voting rights was the pressing issue. Following WW2, a second wave focussed on equal pay and then reproductive rights, including birth control and legalised abortion. The ensuing third and fourth waves have seen a broader ‘smash the patriarchy’ agenda.
The chapter on racial justice paints an equally vivid historical landscape, starting with the slave trade which, by the 18th century, involved 12 million Africans. After the American Civil War, when slavery was abolished, the issue of racial segregation arose, with key players such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. Today’s racial justice movements have broader goals, including the deconstruction of ‘white privilege’. Black Lives Matter, for example, attracted worldwide solidarity.
The Gay Pride chapter again traces the historical roots, with people beginning to take a stand and seeing legislation change. For many campaigners, though, the focus is less on parliamentary debate and more on dismantling homophobia. Once more, we meet this term ‘deconstruction’ – this time in tackling the structures and biases that propagate heteronormality.
The final topic Chang explores is trans rights, perhaps considered as ‘making the body fit the soul’. A 2018 government report cited 200,000 - 500,000 trans people living in the UK. The trans movement is shaping language and pressing for wider societal transformation. Again, the aim is not just legislative reform but a move towards the deconstruction of binary gender.
However, Chang goes on to say that these four aspects of identity politics are united by a bigger, overarching story. All these oppressed groups are waking up from their oppression, becoming ‘woke’. Moreover, they’re rising up to fight and overthrow their oppressors – oppressors who are seen as politically conservative, middle-class and Christian. In other words, Christians have become the bad guys in the story.
So, how should Christians respond? Chang describes three unhelpful ways: mirroring, arguing and ignoring. In the first, ‘[those] who have been labelled as oppressors in the narrative of identity politics have responded by mirroring the language and actions of the social justice campaigners’. This approach alienates listeners, leads to retaliation and insults, escalates tension and is not Christ-like! Arguing, meanwhile, quickly leads to what has become known as ‘cancel culture’ where an argument – or potential argument – is shut down for the sake of political correctness. Additionally, in our postmodern culture, where ‘truth is relative and personal conviction is of primary authority’, debate is ineffective. Finally, we can respond by remaining ignorant/avoidant and carrying on as normal, preaching the same sermons, maintaining the same church programmes. However, identity politics is already shaping the church, Chang says. We need to be careful and wise in declaring the gospel in our current culture but never ashamed of it.
In part three, the author unpacks how to find a way through, focussing on the ‘power of story-telling to shape lives and influence ideas’. Identity politics is driven by people telling their stories within the chief themes of this culture: freedom, liberation, justice, identity, diversity, equality, unity and peace – all of which are Christian home-turf issues. Saying, ‘You can’t argue against a story but you can out-narrate it with a better one,’ Chang gives a really helpfully laid-out set of narratives based on the gospel which do just that.
I found the chapter ‘Speaking the language of the culture’ fascinating, drawing from the apostle Paul’s statement that he became all things to all people in declaring the gospel. Our current culture of seeing life through an oppression/liberation lens responds particularly powerfully to the message of redemption, he maintains. Moreover, this is something we should model in the way we live. His final thoughts from the book of Daniel remind us that change starts when we pray.
In summary, the author has clearly done his research on some thorny topics and has presented them in ways any reader (even me!) can understand, with a useful glossary at the end. I found helpful his frequent re-statement of key points as he went along, ensuring I didn’t lose the thread. I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who wants their Christian witness to be relevant to the world we live in.
Ben Chang is a speaker and writer, as well as working full time in the health sector. He speaks regularly at conferences, universities and churches on a range of issues including medical ethics, mental health, identity politics and cultural engagement. He blogs at www.benchangblog.com
Together Magazine
Together is the Christian resources magazine for the UK, with stories of what God is doing across the church today, book reviews and publishing industry news. Subscribe now at www.togethermagazine.org.