Why I Wrote Low Anthropology

A couple reasons. The first might sound a little pretentious: I’ve been needing a book like Low Anthropology for some time, and got tired of waiting for someone more talented to write it. I’ve needed it so badly, in fact, that I decided it was worth the risk of putting myself out there again in unalterable form. No takebacks.

You see, every few weeks, a specific type of visitor drops by our church office. Usually they are experiencing a crisis and in some kind of distress. They tend to have little to no background in Christianity. They may even bear mild antipathy toward organized religion. But life–and maybe a friend–has brought them to a place where they want to explore the possibility of God. No one is more surprised by this than they themselves.

The epigraph!

After sitting down and listening to what they’re going through, we generally don’t want the person in question to leave empty-handed. So we scan the shelves for a book that might connect. Something that doesn’t assume too much yet doesn’t water things down either. Digestible without being condescending or accusatory. Something that allows a person to feel recognized and seen — and then addresses them with real spiritual substance.

Titles which served this purpose twenty years ago no longer do the trick. “You have to start further back” is what Francis Spufford advises writers who want to tackle religious subject matter today. The conditions of belief have changed immeasurably since the days when, say, C.S. Lewis was writing.

The truth is, we have plenty of great volumes on prayer, plenty on vocation and justice and sanctification and suffering even. But we are always coming up empty in the category of give-to-anyone books that aren’t loaded with Christianese. Writing that engages with people on their own terms and makes faith in God (and God’s grace!) intelligible — both intellectually and emotionally. The sort of book you might give your agnostic uncle or spiritual-but-not-religious sister-in-law at Christmas.

Such books, when done well, work the double magic of making the believer more excited about their own faith (see: Spufford’s own Unapologetic). I tried to write one with Low Anthropology. Like I said, pretentious.

Secondly, I live in the same crazy world that you do. I do my best to negotiate the cloud of acrimony that hangs over our day-to-day, but it’s not always easy. It’s hard to miss the deepening crisis of meaning that surrounds us. People who can’t talk to each other — and don’t want to. The fear and the alienation and the endless blame-shifting. I don’t need to belabor it. “Everything’s broken” as Bob Dylan sings.

Much of our despair, I’m convinced, is fueled by a superficial view of human nature. This near-default view flatters us with fantasies about our capacities and motivations but fails to account for the actual data of our lives, leaving us lonelier and more burned out as a result. I hear from so many people who feel burdened by the pressure to perform an ideal version of themselves. I feel it myself. Yuck.

Here’s the thing: by editing out the less savory stuff about our humanity, we also snuff out solidarity, empathy, and vulnerability. We snuff out love! Humor too. All of a sudden we think we’re the only one with problems. The only one barely hanging on. The only one who doesn’t belong. Thank God the truth of who we are is more comprehensive.

Low Anthropology is my attempt to cut through the noise with hope, highlighting the counterintuitive truth that weakness and limitation can function as a doorway to compassion, unity, and grace. It’s a message that gets lost, even (especially?) in the church, yet one that is desperately needed if we are to live together in a non-miserable way. To say nothing of propagating true religion.

This is not You Suck: The Book, as a friend recently joked. If anything, it is You Are Just as Real as Everyone Else (and That’s Good News): The Book.

Playwright Thornton Wilder once ventured that “The revival in religion will be a rhetorical problem — new persuasive words for defaced or degraded ones.” Seculosity set about translating the doctrine of justification by faith into modern language. Low Anthropology is my attempt to make Christian teaching about original sin and creatureliness intelligible to the wider world. As Jerry Seinfeld once told George Costanza after George bore his soul, “Good luck with … all that.” #serenitynow.

One final word of warning: those who pick up Low Anthropology hoping to read an engagement with intra-faith debates about human nature may find it frustrating. This book isn’t meant as an argument for this type of Christianity or that type. Instead, it is an attempt to answer the question of what makes faith in God alluring and urgent in the first place. Super unambitious, I know, especially for a book that supposedly lauds humility. Ha ha … ha?

So welcome to Low Anthropology R Us, AKA Hypocrites Anonymous, AKA Broken Vessels of the World Unite. It’s a fun place to spend time (unless you’re a piece of ceramic dishware). Only rule is no takebacks. Until you need one, that is.

Low Anthropology releases this coming Tuesday, Sept 13th! Click here or here to order, and please please pretty please for the love of all that is holy don’t forget to rate, review, and share.