Book: Being Human by Macaulay and Barrs

This book written in the 1970s is a Scripture-filled paradigmatic revolution for the missionally-minded Christian. (Wow - sorry about that… but really, all those big words mean something.) The book is written by two alums of L’Abri and written very much in the spirit of the teachings of Francis Schaeffer. What Barrs and Macaulay do is to make Schaeffer-esque concepts more approachable (many who have attempted to read some of Schaeffer’s work have found his writing a bit daunting). They also do something that is somewhat lacking in Schaeffer’s writings… Being Human is heavy with Scriptural references. Seeking to bring the concepts of human spirituality into focus, they reference much of what the Bible has to say about the nature of humanity.

Tracing the history of Christian thought regarding human spirituality they bring two ways of looking at the human equation: 1) the Biblical view and 2) the Platonic view. They do an apt job of tracing these two concepts and proving how the Platonic view has infected the Christian subculture. Another L’abri alum, Nancy Pearcey, penned the book Total Truth which also deals with the same false dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual. While Pearcey’s book deals with worldview, Macauley and Barrs deal with humanness.

Having read Pearcey’s book, I thought I was well-prepared to just nod my head through the book with few experiences that would be revelatory… I was mistaken. In almost every chapter, preconceptions I didn’t know I had began to surface and I was challenged to look much deeper at how I viewed my fellow man - Christian or not. I was stunned to find such deep prejudgment about people within me. My mind was opened to recognizing what it means that man was created in “the image of God” and how that should affect the way I think.

I highly recommend this book as serious reading for anyone who is interested in having their own preconceptions laid bare - what surprised me was that I was pretty sure I’d already had my major paradigm shift… this book proved just how deeply my incorrect view of human spirituality was ingrained.