Our Unforming
De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation
- Prayer & Spiritual Formation
- Publisher: Fortress Press (Augsburg Fortress)
- Published: 2022
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Publisher's Description
Christian spiritual formation resources and teachings have primarily come from Western spiritual traditions. Our current approach to formation comes out of that way of thinking and being, communicating that the white experience of God is the norm and authority. In Our Unforming: De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation, Cindy S. Lee proposes that we as the church need a new way to engage in spiritual formation. To thrive in our increasingly diverse contexts, we need an unforming and a reforming of our souls. We need to unform the ways Western-dominated church leaders have understood formation. We need to reform--to imagine and create a more intricate spirituality that includes diverse experiences of God. Our Unforming is organized into three cultural orientations and eight postures. Lee proposes that when we consider non-Western cultural ways of being--turning from linear to cyclical, from cerebral to experiential, and from individual to collective--the formation journey shifts. We live out these movements through postures, ways of entering into deeper spiritual transformation. The eight postures reflect our experience of time, generations, imagination, uncertainty, language, work, dependence, elders, and harmony. Lee offers a more robust spirituality to hold the complexities of a multicultural God and the God-human relationship. Our Unforming is sure to inspire further conversation as it shifts how we approach formation in our diverse communities.
Endorsements (6)
“Through her storytelling, Cindy S. Lee provides practical, wise, and meaningful ways to embody a spirituality that centers Christ and roots us in the love and mystery of God. She reminds us that we are each a unique fabric and expression of God’s beautiful tapestry. This book calls us as God’s beloved to create sacred and inclusive spaces, see ourselves and each other as God does, share stories, and experience God’s presence through our collective lives.”
“This evocative and gracious book expands conversations on spiritual formation beyond the parameters of Western, white experience. As a scholar and practitioner, Cindy S. Lee interrogates the field with courage and insight. She offers the reader ways to break through colonized spaces, and she offers the field of spiritual formation subversive and creative ways to push beyond limited contextualization to a more expansive transformative vision. As a scholar of European descent, I found Lee’s questions as integral to my own way of being in the world, and this work will undoubtedly enrich my own spiritual identity and practice. This welcoming book will help more people experience the transformative path of the sacred.”
“Through her lens as an Asian American woman, Cindy S. Lee offers a contemplative approach with rich resources and practices to reimagine spiritual formation from its Westernized, white lens. Through her own experience and wisdom, along with the other BIPOC voices included in this volume, she provides a clear way toward a more robust spirituality to meet the diversity and challenges of our times. It’s a powerful diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice treatise on spiritual formation.”
“I have been waiting for this book for a long time, even before I knew Cindy was writing it. As a practitioner and teacher of spiritual formation, I have struggled with the vacuum of stated context in spiritual formation literature. As a white woman processing my formation, I, too, need unforming. This thoughtful, well-written volume will go far to correct this. I will recommend this book often.”
“Our Unforming is the breath of fresh air my body, mind, and soul crave. It has given me new insight and awareness as I continue my lifelong formation journey of ‘uncluttering,’ communing with God, co-journeying, and leading others as they do the same. Dr. Lee helps us see the need for new languages, orientations, and postures in spiritual formation. Drawing from her rich cultural heritage and wealth of knowledge, Lee helps us to begin our unforming of Western paradigms of formation that focus on progress, knowledge, and the individual. “This work guides us to embrace orientations and postures that are grounded in the lived experiences and reality of our ancestors, passed down on the front porch, at the kitchen table, and in the living room. It gives BIPOC folks permission to embrace their own cultural heritage and postures they may have put down and abandoned in favor of Western paradigms that have been center stage. Lee draws us back to the heart of spiritual formation as she guides us into connecting and being formed by God as a way of being versus doing, both individually and communally. “This book is a must-have for folks who lead others in spiritual formation—not as a how-to book, but as an invitation to deepen their own journey so they may be unformed and formed; so that they may guide and lead others in a more holistic, embodied, and authentic way. This book is needed for the church and its body, who have found themselves desolate and dry like the deer in Psalm 42, longing and thirsting for our living God to be present and near as we navigate the complex reality of our lives and society.”
“This book has the power to set a new path for spiritual formation and vitality in the promise of a new humanity. In Our Unforming, Dr. Cindy S. Lee provides a liberating road for a spirituality for the global church by relinquishing the limitations and values of Western thinking. I have waited for a book like this to provide new perspectives, freedom, depth, and cultural sensitivity for a spiritual posture among non-Western Christians. Read this book and be challenged, renewed, and encouraged.”
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