Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s latest book, “Love Is the Way,” was released on Sept. 22, and like his 2018 book, “The Power of Love,” it emphasizes Christian teachings, particularly Jesus’ command to love one’s neighbor, as a powerful force for unity and healing in a troubled world.
Whereas the earlier book was a collection of notable sermons, including the one Curry preached at the royal wedding in May 2018, “Love Is the Way” takes a more autobiographical approach to the lessons of his faith. Curry illustrates core Christian beliefs and applies them to today’s social context by mining personal stories, from his early childhood in Buffalo, New York, to his work as a parish priest in Baltimore, Maryland, to his time as bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina.
Curry, who was elected presiding bishop in 2015, also describes key moments in recent church history, including the internal debate over same-sex marriage, the church’s values-based political advocacy and its support of the Standing Rock Sioux in their opposition to an oil pipeline in North Dakota.
“The purpose of this book is to explain what the way of love looks like, even as we walk it in a world that feels at times closer to a nightmare than to the dream,” he says in the introduction.
He was interviewed by Lulu Garcia-Navarro on NPR’s Sunday Morning Edition.
CURRY: Nobody does anything for no reason. There’s always a story. And sometimes, if you can get behind the presenting question, whatever that happens to be, the relationship will have the – sometimes can have the capacity to help you navigate the difference. I mean, in the book, I said, you know, I had – I was learning to stand and kneel at the same time – to kneel in the sense of acknowledging that I’m not God, and you have as much right to your perspective as I do to mine. But I’ve also got to stand – to stand for what I believe and humbly trust is the right thing. And it doesn’t change everybody’s minds, but it does create a different atmosphere, and atmosphere does make a difference, especially over the long haul.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, then let me ask you this. As someone who has been an advocate of racial justice, I’d like to ask you about this moment. There is this huge cry for equality by a new generation of Black people in America. What would you like people to think about?
CURRY: Well, you know, I mean, it’s a painful moment, but there’s hope in it. You know, George Floyd – for one human being to have their knee on the neck of another human being and to snuff out the breath of life that God gave in them – we saw that. And to hear that man cry for his mother – thank God for that 17-year-old girl who had her iPhone or her smartphone and filmed it. I think many of us saw that and said, that’s not who we want to be. That is not the America we want to have.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I can hear people thinking, sure, some people might’ve felt that, but there’s a large portion of this country also that doesn’t see a problem in quite the same way.
CURRY: That’s OK. You got to start somewhere. And so let’s start where we are. And part of what we can do is really face into the past. Where have we gone wrong? And maybe it wasn’t us. Maybe it’s previous generations. You know, Shirley Chisholm years ago used to say, you know, we all came over here on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now. Everybody won’t get onboard, but that’s all right. I don’t know any movement that start with the masses.
Curry_book.jpg
