Niverville Author explores social cannibalism

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This article was published 05/05/2021 (1484 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Niverville resident has made his debut in the literary scene with the release of a book bearing an unusual name.

David Braun, author of the new book Are We All Cannibals? explores the idea of ‘social cannibalism’, a term that came to him in a dream in which he says he received a visit from Jesus Christ.

“He was teary eyed and emotional, and he said, ‘my people are caught in social cannibalism,’ …and I was like, ‘what is social cannibalism?’ and he said, ‘it’s when my people are kind of stuck in stealing life from each other, versus receiving it from me through my blood and body through my sacrifice.’”

This incited a journey of recognizing the ways Braun says members of the church and society at large are manifesting feelings of insecurity to receive protection, belonging, significance and provision. In the book he categorizes them in four ways: the dictator, the loner, the slave and the hoarder. Braun explains these types of social cannibalism run rampant but often go unnoticed.

“If we allow these mindsets to dominate us it starts to really impact us in a negative way in our relationships, our connections, and it can start to impact how we come across in relationship to others,” he said.

To some, this seems like a self-help book penned to use psychology to change one’s mindset. For Braun, the book is written with the intention of providing tools to the reader with the help of his own experiences intertwined. In fact, the phrase ‘this is not a self-help book’ are inscribed on the back cover.

A lifelong resident of Manitoba and member of the church including pastoring for a decade, at one point Braun, now 47, found himself in what he deemed a personal crisis.

“I was really bogged down and pretty discouraged and seeing a lot of conflict in our in our little community,” he said.

Braun made the connection between how he was feeling and the scripture of the bible through his psychology education. He did a deep dive of the Bible and upon finding connections between behavioral patterns changing and fewer reference of God as father, the idea of social cannibalism became clear to him.

“I have no problem with God as my father. But I didn’t realize that I could have an intimate, ongoing daily connection with him in that he cared for me. And that that caring could bring a security to me that nothing else in this universe could, and that security can help me deal with tough stuff,” he said.

After writing the manuscript for the book in 2017, Braun sat on the text for a few years until he said the COVID-19 pandemic revealed deep political and social unrest which fueled his desire to have it published. He said the problems society has faced during the last year line up with the issues addressed in his book.

Braun noted his book is not a cure-all for the problems those in or out of the church may be facing, but with a peek into his own personal life the text may provide some guidance to finding some answers.

“This is who I am, this is kind of my history, my story walking forward through my life,” he said. “So people can know I am for real but not pretending to have all the answers. And then from there I basically explain how coming to the end of myself and as a Christian leader crying out to God as my dad, and getting surprised by who I found in that journey.”

Are We All Cannibals? is available for purchase at Hulls Family Bookstore, McNally Robinson, The Great Canadian Dollar Store and Amazon.