A Review of The Un-affirmed Core: Understanding the Factors behind and around Homosexuality
At 138 pages, this book by a professional counselor from Singapore distills many years of experience working with men who grapple with same-sex erotic attraction. Shen gets it as he dedicates his book to those who he continues to serve with this quote: “while the rest of the world tries to remember that ‘to err is human, to forgive is divine’, they have a guillotine consciousness that ‘to err is unforgivable’.” Shen aims to change the views of leaders—whether they be religious, social, political, or cultural—in regard to those affected by homosexuality. With a forward by the president of the Singapore Counseling Association, Shen is respected among the helping professionals in Southeast Asia. With a brief review by a doctoral
candidate priest at the Catholic University of America, Shen’s Catholic worldview is revealed; however, this book is by no means a religious approach to this topic, and Shen brings insight from not only the Christian viewpoint but also Muslim and Hindu viewpoints with whom he frequently interacts.