Book Review: Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions

So, I finally got around to purchasing and reading Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions by Dan Brennan. I’ve been wrestling a lot here recently with his ideas, so it only made sense that I read his book in order to try and obtain a more full understanding of what he is trying to communicate.

At it’s core, this is a book about friendship, and about challenging us to do friendship better. I think the second paragraph of the foreword sums it up well:

While the concept of friendship has been expanded to such a degree that it has largely been diluted, the concept of intimacy has been narrowed to mean primarily sexual intimacy, and within the Christian community, exclusive marital sexual intimacy.

Allow me to unpack this a bit. What is the first Continue reading →

What is Our Job?

I heard Mike Breen speak a couple of weeks ago. It was interesting; if I were to be asked to relate the basics of Christianity, I would have covered all of the same points which he did, only using different language. One thing he said stuck in my mind, not because of it being a new idea, but because it was well put:

We [Christians] have thought it is our job to make and “do” church, and that it is the church’s job to create disciples. But we have it wrong, and that’s the reason we are seeing such poor results. Jesus told us to make disciples. As we make disciples, church will happen. The church’s job then is to display God’s image to the world. (paraphrased)

This is so good! We (the church) are Christ’s body. Jesus is the image of God. Continue reading →

The Greatest Faith

Several men stand side-by-side, facing the firing squad. Shots blast through the air, the men fall to the ground. With his last breath, one man turns to the other next to him and says, “Remember me when you become president!”
—*record scratching noise*

What?! What did this guy say? Remember him when he becomes president?? To the man laying on the ground with only moments left to live? Completely ridiculous! Ludicrous! Unfathomable! And yet that’s what happened. This man had some kind of amazing faith!

The second man responded, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:39-43)

Rethinking Friendships and “Romance”: Marriage

This seems to be in part continuing from the previous post regarding exclusivity. Presently, I’m exploring the questions: What is marriage? What makes marriage marriage and not something else? Or another way of putting it, What is exclusive to marriage? I explore these questions with some trepidation. I am not married, nor have I been married, so I can’t say anything about what being married is like from personal experience. Nevertheless, one must be able to form ideas about marriage from the outside, else how would anyone enter into marriage?

  1. While “romantic” feelings have been around forever, marriage in most cultures has been more of a practical arrangement. It is not until modern western culture that “romance” has been viewed as Continue reading →

Rethinking Friendships and “Romance”: Exclusivity

  1. There is a certain exclusivity expected in “romantic”/marriage type relationships. This seems right. But how much and what type of exclusivity is needed?
  2. As mentioned earlier, we’ve generally expected that “romantic” relationships must fulfill most all of our relational needs. Along with the “romantic myth” and exclusivity, or perhaps a specific expression of it, comes the notion that partners in a “romantic” relationship must be (as opposed to can be) best friends. Therefore, the importance of friendships with others is weakened and may actually be seen as a threat.
  3. Because of the expectation of exclusivity, there is the feeling that these relationships should be guarded, lest there be some breach in the exclusivity. This Continue reading →

Rethinking Friendships and “Romance”: Expressions of Love

  1. Love can be expressed in all types of relationships. The ways in which love are expressed (“love languages”) are the same for all types of relationships: words of affirmation, quality time, giving and receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.
  2. Our culture has a weak paradigm for love and the expression of love outside of “romantic” and to some extent familial relationships. Therefore, all attraction and expressions of love outside of family are assumed to be “romantic”/sexual. Since our culture has no alternative, indeed these things must be “romantic”, for what other alternative is there? This explains the “When Harry Met Sally” notion that men and women can’t “just be friends”. Because close friendships will incite Continue reading →

Rethinking Friendships and “Romance”: The Romantic Myth

My thoughts in this section are a bit less solidified. I may revisit and update them later. I’m trying to be as honest and realistic as possible, but it’s a bit difficult. This is in part because I know people have a wide range of experiences, though I only have limited experience myself.

  1. “Falling in love” and/or sexual attraction are among the strongest desires and emotions known to men and women. It is easy to think that a “romantic” or sexual relationship will fulfill all our deepest relational desires. Or put differently, it is easy to think that the “right” “romantic” relationship is the ultimate relationship. Our culture has bought into this belief very heavily, and it is propagated through all forms of media. We believe that the Continue reading →

Rethinking Friendships and “Romance”: Our Need for Relationships

In sorting out what I’ve been thinking, I’ve come up with a number of “bullet point” style ideas. They are either beliefs which I have, or ideas I’m seriously considering. I’m posting them here to communicate my overall paradigm, and numbering them for easy reference.

  1. I believe that we—human beings—are made to be in relationships. The need for love and relationships is a primary, basic human need, right after eating and breathing. (This is how we are created in God’s image.) We seem to have the need to share life with one or more people. So, for example, I may know of many people who love me and who would do what they could to help if I had a specific need. That’s wonderful, yet I also want someone (or more than one person) to talk Continue reading →

Rethinking Friendships and “Romance”: Initial Thoughts

The main idea I took from the previously posted quotes is that a person doesn’t have to be married or even in a “romantic” type of relationship to experience life-giving relationships. This is because marriage/romance isn’t the ultimate relationship, and because people can have deep, life-giving friendships. These ideas seemed really good to me; they seemed to make sense and to fit.

Personally, once these ideas sunk in, it felt like a weight had been lifted—it was great news. I hadn’t really been consciously aware of it, but I did have the notion that I wouldn’t really experience the kind of life-sharing relationship I desired until/unless I was married (or with the person whom I would eventually marry). Once pointed out, these ideas seem almost so obvious I wondered that I didn’t wholly see them before. Now, I know intellectually that marriage won’t fulfill every desire a person has. But it’s easy to slip into feeling like your waiting for what you really desire, as I had.

A little while after this, due in part to personal experience, I began to think, “This all sounds good in theory, and it may well be right, but is it practical in our culture?” Along with this, I was continuing to try and digest these ideas, and determine what I thought of them. I at least saw some truth in them, so they were creating a paradigm shift in my mind. However the subject of friendships and relationships is a broad and complex one. So moving a few ideas requires considering the effects on a whole lot of other intertwined ones. So I’m still trying to sort out exactly where my new paradigm will settle.

Rethinking Friendships and “Romance”: Quotes

For the past several days to a week or so, I’ve been trying to sort out some ideas sparked by the following quotes. The area of friendship, marriage and “romantic” relationships is wide and complex. For that reason it’s taking me quite a while to process all of my thoughts. I plan to blog more about this in the near future, when I’ve sorted it out more in my head. For now, I wanted to share the quotes which have brought me to this point. I’ve pulled them out of the larger context in order to highlight the parts which have hit me. (Note that the quotes below come from a handful of pages, all of which are linked.)

In the history of Christian spirituality, friendship is a robust love beginning with Jesus’ declaration, “No one has Continue reading →