Reading In-Between

How Minoritized Cultural Communities Interpret the Bible in Canada Edited by Néstor Medina, Alison Hari-Singh and HyeRan Kim-Cragg

Pickwick Publications, 2019. 147 pages. $26 (e-book $10)

This book aims to make more room for minority voices on Scripture. The editors explain this to be challenging work even for “those of us from minoritized backgrounds.

“The sway of the dominant EuroCanadian culture often places a set of blinders on us that dampens our ability to reflect theologically from our own ethnocultural vantage point,” they write.

This volume starts with six essays. Readers learn how Confucian teachings on piety and suffering can provide a framework for the Christian gospel; how Ecclesiastes echoes a Chinese Canadian’s search for

meaning; the tension of shifting from a culture of sitting cross-legged to a “high-chair” culture; what it means to see a “lived hermeneutic” among Latina/o Canadian communities; how Sadhu Sundar Singh’s notion of Christian bhakti is a way for Indian Canadians to engage with the Bible; and how in Bible translation a “hermeneutic of love” is required “on a trajectory toward a new community that recognizes the inherent value of diversity.”

Next come two response essays of helpful critique and praise – and argument for more scholarship by, about and for minoritized communities.

I learned much from this book, including ways I’ve assumed my own approach to be objective or correct when my perspective is merely one of many that seeks to understand the revelation of God with us.

All Canadian Bible readers can benefit from this book. It can help whites learn to appreciate and listen to other perspectives, and it can encourage people from minority groups to express a culturally shaped voice.