Identity (Society & Church) Book

Vernon White's refreshing and philosophically nuanced treatment of identity focuses on the notion of change as being fundamental to human life. On the one hand, change resonates with hope, creativity and new life; on the other hand, it reminds us of risk, loss and mortality. Change eventually brings physical death, and even prior to that delivers another kind of death by the question it puts to our very self. For the 'we' who will change seems insecure. If we are someone yet to be, will we be so radically changed that it makes little sense to talk of the same person? Out contemporary context forces this issue on us with a particular intensity. Change is rampant. There are major, rapid and interconnected changes in information technology, globalization, work and employment practices, consuemerism, and family, all of which affect human beings deeply, ambivalenty, and at every level. How best can we live through this process of change, which often seems to have no sense of direction? In trying to answer this question, White asks two other: does Christian faith propose a way of living with change, and if so, can it have beneficial effects on personal identity? In responding affirmatively to these questions, the author develops the notion of faithfulness, which - while itself embracing change - equally encapsulates an enduring insight that will always, and in every situation, have fresh light to shed. For the author, faithfulness, in its various forms, has been neglected along with theology itself, and needs to be re-formed and rediscovered as a means of sustaining true identity. The discussion ranges widely and in fascinating ways through social philosophy and recent theology; and in skilfully negotiating his way between past and present, local and general, and abstract and concrete, the author enables theology to speak to issues of contemporary life with considerable power and persuasiveness.Read More