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Becoming Human
John Behr
John Behr’s brief, richly illustrated meditation on what it means to become human in Christ, guided by Irenaeus’s vision of creation, growth, and glory.
About This Book
Becoming Human: Meditations on Christian Anthropology in Word and Image
Designed by Amber Schley Iragui. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2013.
What does it mean to become truly human? Fr. John Behr turns to St. Irenaeus to show that humanity is not a finished state but a calling: we grow into the likeness of God as that likeness is revealed in the crucified and risen Christ. Brief, accessible, and accompanied by images, this is an ideal doorway into Irenaeus’s theological vision.
What This Book Forms
Human beings are creatures in the making. Through Behr’s reading of Irenaeus, we learn to understand the human person through Christ, the one who reveals both God and humanity, and to receive the body, time, suffering, and death within the long work of becoming like God. Our incompleteness appears not simply as failure, but as the arena of growth, freedom, and communion.
From Dr. Doom's Shelf
I remember first reading this book while staying in a small cabin just outside the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, working on my dissertation. I was blown away by it, and I peddled it hard every chance I had after that first reading. It is short enough to read slowly, beautiful enough to linger over, and deep enough to reorder the way we think about human nature. Behr makes clear that Irenaeus’s anthropology is not an abstract account of what a human being is. It is a vision of what we are becoming in Christ.
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