It wasn't that long ago when you could not find a book by a mainstream evangelical publisher to acknowledge the goodness and beauty of transmarital, intimate cross-gender friendships. Go back twenty years, twenty-five, and thirty years and you will not find anything like that in books on marriage. But society and evangelical views of women have changed rapidly in the last 30 years.
And the attitudes toward close, cross-gender friendships are changing, too. Are You Waiting for "The One"?: Cultivating Realistic, Positive Expectations for Christian Marriage by Margaret Kim Peterson and Dwight Peterson is a refreshingly new book published by IVP. While IVP turned down my book proposal, they reveal the changing attitudes toward cross-gender friendship in this book aimed at those who are young adults and preparing marriage. Not only is the book to be commended for supporting cgfs, it promotes romantic realism rather than romantic idealism. I maintain this has immense implications in cgfs before they ever get married and then after they are married.
"It is possible to find intimate and rewarding friendship with persons of your own sex or, in somewhat different form, with persons of the opposite sex; but in either case, you are far more likely to find it if you look for it."
Dan interjects: You would have never found this in a mainstream evangelical publisger in early '80s or '70s. Even in the 90s is rare.
"As you mature, however, it can become easier to recognize that friendships can be deeply intimate without being inappropriately sexual." (italics inserted)
"Becoming an adult involves a recognition that intimacy always exists within limits, and it brings an openness to identifying and living within appropriare limits for the sake of the relationship." (italics inserted)
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