Social Identity

In the shifting culture of our diverse, postmodern world, it is important to understand what we believe and why we believe it. In this collection of writings, David K. Bernard's trusted voice calls us to steadfastly adhere to the universal truth claims of apostolic faith. And in so doing, we will step into a Pentecostal future of explosive growth and unprecedented revival.

“Your parents are so amazing for adopting you! You should be grateful that you were adopted.” Angela Tucker is a Black woman, adopted from foster care by white parents. She has heard this microaggression her entire life, usually from well-intentioned strangers who view her adoptive parents as noble saviors. She is grateful for many aspects of her life, but being transracially adopted involves layers of rejection, loss, and complexity that cannot be summed up so easily.

Award-winning journalist Mike Hixenbaugh delivers the immersive and eye-opening story of Southlake, Texas, a district that seemed to offer everything parents would want for their children—small classes, dedicated teachers, financial resources, a track record of academic success, and school spirit in abundance.

The story of Christine Jorgensen, America's first prominent transsexual, narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives. Their erasure from trans history masks the ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-19th century to present-day anti-Black and anti-trans legislation and violence.

Abortion touches all of our lives. While statistically nearly everyone knows someone who will receive an abortion in their lifetime, limiting narratives flatten our understanding and assumptions around abortion, while stigma and criminalization stifle discussion. What we lack are the language and tools to provide care and support to all of the members of our communities who receive abortions, before, during, and after them.

In a technologically-saturated era where nearly everything can be effortlessly and digitally reproduced, we're all hungry to carve out our own unique personalities, our own bespoke personae, to stand out and be seen. As the forces of social media and capitalism collide, and individualism becomes more important than ever across a wide array of industries, "branding ourselves" or actively defining our selves for others has become the norm. Yet, this phenomenon is not new. In Self-Made, Tara Isabella Burton shows us how we arrived at this moment of fervent personal-branding.

There are true things about us and there are truer things. David Lomas invites readers to move beyond what may simply be true to the truest thing, discovering a real identity in Christ. We are all bundles of competing desires and half-true labels. We arry them around like scars; we carry them around like badges. They tell us we are no more than a job description, relationship status, or appearance. But the most important and truest identity of every Christian is that they are loved, accepted, and created in the image of God.

They are everywhere on social media. Images of perfect, pleasant women with perfect, pretty children in perfect, tidy homes—the epitome of “good” moms. But this model of motherhood is an illusion that far too many women either measure themselves against or simply cannot relate to in the first place. Enter Jamilah Mapp and Erica Dickerson: if you are sex-positive, cannabis-friendly, and love sharing NSFW stories with your fellow mom friends, you’re not doing anything wrong and you are definitely not a bad mother. And Jamilah and Erica are your tribe.

Long-term social and demographic changes - and the conflicts they create - continue to transform British politics. In this accessible and authoritative book, Sobolewska and Ford show how deep the roots of this polarization and volatility run, drawing out decades of educational expansion and rising ethnic diversity as key drivers in the emergence of new divides within the British electorate over immigration, identity, and diversity.

Identity Economics bridges a critical gap in the social sciences. It brings identity and norms to economics. People’s notions of what is proper, and what is forbidden, and for whom, are fundamental to how hard they work, and how they learn, spend, and save. Thus people’s identity—their conception of who they are, and of who they choose to be—may be the most important factor affecting their economic lives.

Our society is undergoing an evolution, and we should take this as a call to action to ensure that all people, regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, age, ethnicity, race, religion, or social class, are treated as humans worthy of respect.

Like many of us, Jeffrey Marsh was conditioned to have an outward focus—to give to others, to be a good listener, and to be the one who gave the best advice. In Marsh’s case, it was a method of survival. Growing up genderfluid in an unaccepting family, Marsh did everything they could to meet the needs of others and not have needs of their own. And ultimately, this meant Marsh put themself in the backseat of their own life. In this heartfelt and sincere book, Marsh shares their story and the lessons they learned on the path back to themselves.

Sticky is a beat-around-the-head foster kid with nowhere to call home but the street and an outer shell so tough that no one will take him in. He started out life so far behind the pack that the finish line seems nearly unreachable. He's a white boy living and playing in a world where he doesn't seem to belong. But Sticky can ball. And basketball might just be his ticket out, if he can only realize that he doesn't have to be the person everyone else expects him to be.

They number in the millions and they are incredibly important to families and to our society, yet they are underappreciated, little respected, and even controversial. Who are they? They are the stay-at-home moms. In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms is a special book, a profound and unique understanding of how important it is for mothers to raise their own children.

Someone in the U.S. is an identity-theft victim every four seconds. It is extremely easy for anyone from anywhere in the world to assume your identity and, in a matter of hours, devastate your life in ways that can take years to recover from. Stealing Your Life is the reference everyone needs, by an unsurpassed authority on the latest identity-theft schemes.

What exactly are we? The modern world has many answers to that question, each of which has consequences for the choices we make about our own lives and the lives of others. In this short, simple book, Mark Meynell wants to help confused Christians understand what God has said about these questions in the scriptures, and offers a positive and liberating way forward as we discover what true humanity really is.

In this moving middle-grade novel drawing upon Umpqua author Charlene Willing McManis's own tribal history, Regina must find out: Who is Regina Petit? Is she Indian? Is she American? And will she and her family ever be okay?

Greg Bottoms writes about growing up white and working class in Tidewater, Virginia, during school desegregation in the 1970s. He offers brief stories that accumulate to reveal the everyday experience of living inside complex, systematic racism that is often invisible to economically and politically disenfranchised white southerners - people who have benefited from racism in material ways while being damaged by it, he suggests, psychologically and spiritually.

Come learn from a woman who has found a pathway to unrelenting desire, outrageous intimacy, and the deepest, most profound love in a 20-year-long relationship to one man, with four kids and two businesses in tow. Julie will revolutionize the way you relate to yourself and the ones you love, bringing deeper connections and richer intimacy. Enough mediocrity. Enough waiting. You are more powerful than that.

Deni Todorović never meant to become a poster child for self-love. On their popular Instagram page, Style by Deni, they show their followers what it means to lead a joyous, open-hearted life–but this wisdom has been hard-won, and in this book Deni shares how they’ve learned to live on their own terms. As a queer, non-binary person and as a child of migrants, Deni knows firsthand what it means to exist between worlds and to step into one’s truth.