Books I Have Edited: Unmuted

Sometimes the most interesting books come from a chance conversation – that’s the case with the book I’m writing about today. A colleague reckoned we should chat to Usha Reifsnider, and that conversation grew over time into a book I’m extremely glad to have published.

Had you heard of ‘muted group theory’ before reading this sentence? I imagine you hadn’t. But perhaps you’ve come across these words from Proverbs 31:8:

“Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.”

The ESV, and several other translations, explicitly use the English word ‘mute’ – others translate it as ‘dumb’, or ‘those without voice’. The point, I think, is pretty clear. Muted group theory, it seems to me, is one way that we can as Christians be obedient to that challenge and charge. Muted group theory seeks to hear the voices of those who have been ‘muted’, that is to say not heard in conversations, in particular for this book, theological and missiological conversations. Usha Reifsnieder, a missiologist and a regional co-director of Lausanne Europe, has carefully curated a book that has elements of a monograph, but also some of the hallmarks of an edited collection. It is more coherent, I think, than the latter can sometimes be, and more broad and diverse in a kingdom sense than a single-author book. After two chapters and and an introduction, for orientation, we hear from a wide range of voices from within the global evangelical church – the list below is as brief as can be without giving away the game (I really would encourage you to get hold of a copy!):

• Portugese women
• Female bodies, trauma, and healing
• Disability theology
• migrants in London
• an Ethiopian in Norway
• Racial ambiguity
• The Roma community
• local theologising
• cultural practices
• reverse mission and climate justice
• congregational conflict

This book spans the global and the local – I honestly believe it provides some vital tools to help us talk better within the church, as well as providing a helpful resource for students in the humanities who might be somewhat bamboozled by (for example) intersectionality and looking for a robust Christian engagement with some of these issues.

Our prayer is that this book will help Christians – perhaps particularly pastors, church and organizational leaders, and those in academia, think a little about how the church could echo the glorious Revelation 7 vision of every tribe tongue and nation, rather than the holy huddles of homogeneity we sometimes see. So far, so normal. But one thing that this passage in Revelaiton does which I think is often glossed over by focusing on visual diversity, is that these people are speaking and singing:

“After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they cried out in a loud voice:

We hope that this book goes some way towards embodying that radical truth of crying out together in a loud voice, balanced with the ‘Not Yet’ tension of our present circumstances, and the church’s need to bear in mind Proverbs 31:8.

Unmuted: speaking to be heard is edited by Usha Reifsnieder, and available now in hardback and ebook formats. I’d encourage you to consider buying a copy – or asking your library to stock it.