Chris Steed

When Cain left the red stain on the appalled earth, there was only him, the restless wanderer of the world. The Red Stain of Cain lies in the anguished questions of God – ‘where is your brother?’ ‘What have you done?’ We have failed one of the first and most basic demands of scripture – to be our brother’s and sister’s keeper. Understanding the separateness requires us to grasp how we come to see another as ‘other’, someone with whom they have severed mutuality and responsibility. For centuries, people have depersonalised or depreciated the Other because of race, class, gender, disability, sexuality and age. These set up a power imbalance that leads to pernicious domination. How on earth has all the violence and power imbalance happened amongst the very people who especially espouse a high view of the cross? Does Christianity have anything to say to the violence of our times? Would it have worked if Jesus had merely sipped poison and perished? Did it have to be so brutal? This book is not a historical study so much as calling for theological antibodies. The cross does not legitimate violence. Quite the opposite. How could it, when the cross was an act of the most violent State savagery and Jesus was a victim? If those who cheer on (or wave away) mob rule, lynch parties or tribal bloodbaths, excuse violence against women and girls or give succour to child abusers’ hold to a high view of communion and the atonement – they do so in violent contradiction with what they believe about the cross of Christ. Based on the idea of valuable personhood, when something happens that demands recompense, redress or payment of some form, violence sets up a sort of transaction (a symbolic exchange) in which value is the currency as in the exchanges of everyday life. Can this throw light on Jesus paying the price for our sins and expose social sins that condone violence and actually encourage it? Can we find some theological antibodies? Dr Chris Steed is a writer, Church minister and academic with a varied career in church and charity leadership. Currently, Chris leads in the Counselling and Theology programme at London School of Theology. His doctorate in Social Sciences through Exeter University proposed a new theory of violence. Chris is a member of the British Sociological Association, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is the author of a dozen books and numerous articles, see www.christophersteed.co.uk.

The Red Stain of Cain

Stephen Webb

Chris and Stephen off Gogglebox are known and loved by millions of viewers for their outrageous humour, filthy language and adorable sausage dogs. But there's a lot more to them than that. The ex-partners have both had their fair share of ups and downs, and here in their joint memoir they carry us through their experiences on a wave of hilarious back-and-forth conversations and killer one-liners. From their childhoods to finding fame on Gogglebox, nothing is off-limits. Stephen: "Going to the allotment was something we'd look forward to. Especially when it got dark and we used to nick everyone's vegetables" Chris: "We lived in this flint house on the edge of the cemetery, and not surprisingly it was really haunted." Funny, frank and pretty ridiculous, this is the perfect book for any Gogglebox fan.

We Need To Talk

The Significance of High Value in Human Behaviour is an innovative conceptualisation of how the quest for a high self-worth works as a psychosocial dynamic, presenting the idea that feelings of impotence and low self-esteem induce a powerful impetus on negative human action. This book gives an account of what it means to base a whole psychological perspective on high value, which has been an understudied aspect of human action. Employing an ethnographical approach, the book uses client observations and social research to promote original solutions in an empathetic and engaging manner for psychological support services aiding isolated individuals. It considers the concept of a valuable self and examines the negative effects within the personality which can be generated when this drive for a valuable self is blocked through human devaluation or violence. The Significance of High Value in Human Behaviour will appeal to academics and post-graduate students in the fields of psychology and psychotherapy, psychotherapists with specialist interests in loneliness and self-worth, and sociologists concerned with the psychology of the self.

Chris Steed

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