Barbie is a billion-dollar blockbuster movie poking fun at our culture while wrestling with profound issues. Essentially the film asks the question every politician fears: what is a woman? Meanwhile, social media is shaping our daily lives and new technology such as AI is pushing the boundaries of what it means to be human. Canada is testing the limits of when we can end a life – physician-assisted suicide now accounts for over 4% of all deaths in Canada. Questions around abortion and the beginning of life are likely to play a significant role in next year’s US elections, and the UK is grappling with similar issues.
Whether on issues of gender identity or AI, climate change or racial injustice, our cultural conversations keep coming back to the question – what does it mean to be human? At the same time, our culture is in a continual state of crisis and chaos and is struggling to provide coherent answers.
The Being Human project is an initiative of the Evangelical Alliance helping everyday Christians live out and share the biblical vision of what it means to be human. The project engages with the cultural stories and habits that shape us, as Paul does in Mars Hill (Acts 17). It helps us recognise the glimmer of truth in those cultural stories but also that those truths have been fractured and isolated from the rest of the God story. Like fragments of a shattered mirror, we can still see our reflection, but now only through fractured shards that cut our hand as we grasp them looking for truth. And so, we have to re-place those truths within the larger God story.
The project offers a new apologetic looking to Jesus, the truest human being, who invites us into a new way, very much based on the original way, of being human. Jesus is both the model and the means – He is the perfect human and invites us to be truly, fully human in Christ.
Being Human offers 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. We have just launched a new season of podcasts with guests such as Tim Mackie of BibleProject, writer and activist Karen Swallow Prior, and Christopher Watkin, author of Biblical Critical Theory.
A new book, Being Human: A new lens for our cultural conversations is available now along with a free six-week video series. For more information, check out beinghu​man​lens​.com
