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Book review: Embracing Humanity (BRF Advent Book) by Isabelle Hamley

by
25 October 2024

The gospel is not, this author shows, virtual, says Mike Starkey

THERE is a nice touch on the cover of this Advent book from the Principal of the theological college Ridley Hall, Cambridge. In a starry Christmas sky above a snowy landscape, what first appears to be a moon turns out to be a human fingerprint. The fingerprint motif is continued in each of the daily Advent readings.

Hamley wryly reflects in her introduction that she is writing a book on God made flesh in an era when humans seem more eager than ever to escape the flesh. Virtual reality and a growing range of options for bodily modification allow us to change our given flesh. They even hold out the hope of casting off its limitations altogether.

Hamley offers a Bible reading, reflection, questions for discussion, and a prayer for each day in Advent. At the end of the book are suggestions for group study. A core theme is the vigorous earthiness of the biblical hope. The Good News is for the whole person; the vision of eternity is bodily resurrection; in Hebrew thought, you don’t “have” a body: you are a body. Matter matters.

Other themes explored include contemporary loneliness and relationality; human fragility in an anxious culture; human limitations and localities; lament and hope; the Covid pandemic and the fear of death; violence and oppression; home and global migration. The author asks the reader to reflect on what it means for faith and spirituality not to somehow hover above the solidity of the world, but to be firmly rooted in places and bodies. God brings salvation not by removing us from our humanity, but by entering it.

Hamley’s real gift in this book is an intelligent pulling together of classic Advent biblical themes with contemporary cultural themes and references touching on human embodiment. It is a wonderful little book, in more senses than one.


The Revd Mike Starkey is a London-based writer, and former Head of Church Growth for the diocese of Manchester.

 

Embracing Humanity: A journey towards becoming flesh (BRF Advent Book)
Isabelle Hamley
BRF £9.99
(978-1-80039-226-7)
Church Times Bookshop £8.99

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