If we are avoiding opposite-sex friendships because we’re worried such friendships pose an inherent risk to our marriage, then we’ve misunderstood the dignity and telos of both marriage and friendship. We are denying ourselves, our spouse and our would-be friends the rich diversity of relational abundance that God has provided for us in this creation, as we look towards the next.
Dani, I'm newer to your work and already so profoundly grateful for it. In some ways, I'm grateful for the delayed introduction, since I've been talking about similar things for a while now and would have been guilty of plagiarization! I recently emphasized in a women's conference on sexuality (I'm a Christian sex therapist) that we are created as sexual beings, and that erotic sexual behaviors are only a small part of that sexuality. And so, acknowledging and embracing this, that we relate to one another as sexual beings and not always inside the bounds of the erotic, actually frees us to relate wholly and truly with one another, modeling the oneness that Christ called his Church to in John 17. Thank you for articulating this more fully here. Keep on!
The thing that I find saddest about this thinking is that as an unmarried Christian you basically spend your whole twenties and thirties losing friendships. It's an inevitable part of a culture that thinks this way. And then we wonder why so many in the position no longer continue to be as much, or sometimes any, part of the body.
Great article as always! I absolutely loved your point about how friendships are not competition to marriage, but a complement. I think that’s often a problem that some married people face, in that they come to expect that they can receive all their relational needs from their marriage, when one really can’t.
I found your conflation of sexual and sexed a bit strange tho. Of course that which is sexual is always experienced and embodied within our sexed nature. But it’s not just about being of a given sex, it’s a question of attractions, desires, intentions and acts, and of course for us Christians its purpose as being within a marriage with both procreative and unitive components (not that one need fullfil either of these purposes to have committed a sexual act, but that is what we ought to reserve it for). So it seems a bit strange to say that because we experience our relationality through our sexed natures that our relationality is always sexual, no more than going to the toilet is fundamentally experienced within our sexed nature, having different genitals and all that. It becomes sexual not because of being within our sexed nature, but on the basis of those attractions, desires, intentions and acts as explained above. I hope I’m not misunderstanding your point here, please correct me if I’m misunderstanding you
Now that the Sydney Anglicans through one of their own have stated that we don't need marriage, I can't imagine they are far from accepting all kinds of marriage. Think about it.
Dani, I'm newer to your work and already so profoundly grateful for it. In some ways, I'm grateful for the delayed introduction, since I've been talking about similar things for a while now and would have been guilty of plagiarization! I recently emphasized in a women's conference on sexuality (I'm a Christian sex therapist) that we are created as sexual beings, and that erotic sexual behaviors are only a small part of that sexuality. And so, acknowledging and embracing this, that we relate to one another as sexual beings and not always inside the bounds of the erotic, actually frees us to relate wholly and truly with one another, modeling the oneness that Christ called his Church to in John 17. Thank you for articulating this more fully here. Keep on!
The thing that I find saddest about this thinking is that as an unmarried Christian you basically spend your whole twenties and thirties losing friendships. It's an inevitable part of a culture that thinks this way. And then we wonder why so many in the position no longer continue to be as much, or sometimes any, part of the body.
Great article as always! I absolutely loved your point about how friendships are not competition to marriage, but a complement. I think that’s often a problem that some married people face, in that they come to expect that they can receive all their relational needs from their marriage, when one really can’t.
I found your conflation of sexual and sexed a bit strange tho. Of course that which is sexual is always experienced and embodied within our sexed nature. But it’s not just about being of a given sex, it’s a question of attractions, desires, intentions and acts, and of course for us Christians its purpose as being within a marriage with both procreative and unitive components (not that one need fullfil either of these purposes to have committed a sexual act, but that is what we ought to reserve it for). So it seems a bit strange to say that because we experience our relationality through our sexed natures that our relationality is always sexual, no more than going to the toilet is fundamentally experienced within our sexed nature, having different genitals and all that. It becomes sexual not because of being within our sexed nature, but on the basis of those attractions, desires, intentions and acts as explained above. I hope I’m not misunderstanding your point here, please correct me if I’m misunderstanding you
Now that the Sydney Anglicans through one of their own have stated that we don't need marriage, I can't imagine they are far from accepting all kinds of marriage. Think about it.