Mixed
Embracing Complexity by Uncovering Your God-led Identity
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Many of us feel like we don't belong or are out of touch with our true identity. Discover how you can gain a stronger sense of who God made you to be and step confidently into every relationship, fully owning your unique distinctions and celebrating the differences of others.
Group dynamics can be based on the simplest forms of physical and cultural distinctions, and those who don't quite fit the mold of a group can feel like outsiders. The reality is none of us fit into a box. We're all unique with a mixed background—socially, culturally, experientially. For some of us, like Eli Bonilla Jr., we are also mixed ethnically. No one person is an identical copy of anyone else.
In Mixed, Eli questions the basis of unity and inclusion and explores the multiple components of our identity, discovering how they can all be reconciled for God’s purpose as we reflect His image. Mixed will lead you to:
find peace with the complexity within yourself,understand yourself more deeply so you can relate to others,experience more human connection through a God-led identity, anddevelop greater empathy, celebrate cultures without creating division, and fight for people in the margins.
Eli will remind you that God made you the way you are for good reason, and you belong wherever He says you belong. Pairing personal stories with biblical teaching, Eli will inspire you not to hold back from others but to confidently share the fullness of who you are, and to love, celebrate, and unite with people who are not just different, but beautifully complex.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pastor Bonilla debuts with an inspiring call for readers to embrace their identities in faith settings and beyond. In arguing that everyone is "mixed," whether racially, culturally, or otherwise (Jesus, both "human and divine," was no exception), Bonilla urges readers to appreciate their differences, which are formed by Christ. The author recounts struggling to navigate his own mixed-race identity ("for the first twenty or so years of my life, I checked the racial box marked ‘white' on education and governmental forms... but if you saw my mother, there would be no questioning her African ancestry") until the 2020 racial reckonings sparked an existential crisis. He realized that God "doesn't dismiss our identifiers" but fashions them as part of a larger arc, even if the ends aren't clear. Once readers are aware that God has a divine plan, they can better respect their identities and others', as all are made "in God's image." To strengthen one's identity, Bonilla recommends connecting with God by making "the essentials of Christianity your foundation" and looking to scripture to see how Jesus persevered when mislabeled by others. Bonilla's story is illuminating, and his lessons are mostly solid—don't put yourself in a box; see others for who, not what (race, religion), they are—though some can be a bit vague for readers looking to translate ideas into practice. Nonetheless, believers seeking a Christianity that more fully embraces diversity will appreciate this.
