Dan J. Brennan

Mothers Say No to Freud: Reclaiming Closeness with Sons

"The only cultural image we ever see of mother-son closeness is a negative one" observed Kate Stone Lombardi. She has written a throught-provoking book, The Mama's Boy Myth: Why Keeping Our Sons Close makes Them Stronger. It is getting a lot of press. CBS here. NPR reviewed it.  New York Times also provided some space toward it. 

This book drew my attention because I have developed a passion for researching emotional closeness between men and women. The winds are blowing. Even though Freud is in the air, men and women in the twenty-first century are gaining some distance from a man who has inspired so much anxiety about closeness. 

Since Freud sexualized closeness in imaginations of the Western world (including evangelicals who ironically stresss we are not to be conformed to this world) the romantic relationship is the only relationship where you could not freak out or be uncomfortable about expressing mutual deep tenderness. Of course, for many contemporary evangelicals, Freud holds sway. 

The transformation from Freud for evangelicals is not going to happen overnight but it's happening in mother-son closeness and cross-gender friendships. Freud has so much power in the evangelical community and inspired much discomfort and anxiety over closeness. 

But God is raising up men and women from a variety of places to debunk Freud.

Inappropriate Relationships and Evangelical Therapists Pt. 3

So what would have happened had Scot McKnight asked how his blog readers would have felt had their married adult daughter come to her parents to say, “I’ve been going to a therapist. He’s been helping me work through some issues.”

Would any of them raised issues about emotional boundaries? Would anybody have expressed deep concerns about the daughter meeting alone weekly with another man who is not her husband?  Would Scot have warned about the emotional boundaries and safeguards of “exclusivism” in marriage?

Let’s hit the rewind button for a second. Scot McKnight, a friend, a theologian, one of evangelicalism’s most prolific and respected bloggers graciously introduced my book to his readers when it first came out. I am grateful for Scot’s generosity even though we have differences on male-female friendship, oneness, and marriage.

“Inappropriate Relationships and Evangelical Therapists” provides an opportunity to revisit those differences. You can read parts one and two here to catch up.

Within this series, I am highlighting some significant aspects of an expanding conversation among evangelicals. There are several things to explore with this series: ambiguities, contradictions among evangelicals about emotional depth and fidelity, two-tiered elite/lay system, the “unholy trinity,” and redemptive oneness in marriage and friendship.

Let’s start where Scot and I agree.

Inappropriate Relationships and Evangelical Therapists Pt. 2

As it turns out, if you read part one in this series on “Inappropriate Relationships and Evangelical Therapists” I have something in common with thousands of evangelical therapists which would shock some of them:

If you’re married, it is not inappropriate for you to be alone with a member of the opposite sex (married or not married) with whom you share an intentional dyadic relationship when no one else is present. It’s not inappropriate to nurture shared vulnerability, mutuality, authenticity, deep empathetic connection, and tender, meaningful touch when no one else is around.

That’s it.

Inappropriate Relationships and Evangelical Therapists Pt. 1.

First, let me begin by stating that I have great respect and admiration for evangelical therapists. This is not intended to be a critique against those therapists who welcome clients of the opposite sex. I definitely support that practice.

What I wish to explore are several themes currently embraced by a number of evangelicals and their fear of intimate cross-gender friendships. In particular, where do evangelical therapists stand on issues such as inappropriate relationships, emotional adultery, emotional intimacy, sexual attraction, emotional fidelity, and talking about intimate matters of the heart with no one else present? 

There are evangelicals who are critical of professional therapy as a matter of general principle, and they would not be the focus of my exploration. That’s another post, another time.

Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality and Catholicism Pt. 1

 

Okay, here I go. Can I be honest with you? I've been reluctant to plunge into the subject of the GLBT community for several reasons:

1. The enormous heat present among Christians. It's an issue with intense emotion on both sides. The minefield of language, rhetoric, arguments, debates, makes it exceedingly difficult to simply carry on a conversation. 

2. I did not want to draw attention away from the issue in my current book, Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions. The gay issue clearly is drawing much more interest and energy in our culture than the complex issue of intimate male-female friendships. I think cross-gender friendships are an important issue though.

3. I have good friends on both sides. I don't want to lose any of them. I have conservative friends who support SUSP and "progressive" friends who support same-sex mariage who also support SUSP.

I've already stated in a previous post that I believe that I believe marriage between a man and woman is an expression of authentic sexuality. I believe that male-female bodies matter when it comes to authentic sexuality. Male-female married sex means something. I don't believe that same-sex marriage means the same thing as male-female marriage. But, before I lose my friends on the other side (if there is any from the other side reading this), I ask for your patience and read on. I don't fit into Dave Fitch's three categories.

The Double Bind: Transparency/Secrecy

Close cross-sex friendships may discover the double bind of transparency and secrecy--especially in some evangelical communities.  Whenever these cultural binds take place, social complexity or relational depth is challenged.  Double binds always attempt to force the relationship into false dichotomies.  Either this or that, but one can't be in the deep middle between the either/or. 

For male-female friendships, one often hears about the need to practice the friendship out in the open.  This popular counsel is especially helpful for those who are married.  On the other hand, if the friends intentionally practice transparency within their community they risk facing social disapproval and suspicion--and a backlash if they don't conform to powerful stereotypes in the evangelical community.   The backlash reinforces the pressure to conform to current evangelical fashions defining morality (the Colorado Springs variety, maybe).  The fact of the matter is that healthy, good, flourishing, intimate male-female friendships are counterstereotypical: they challenge many deeply-held prescriptive stereotypes that some Christians embrace concerning men, women, gender, faith, friendship, community, and social order.  

Is there hope for progress?

Cross-Sex Friendship Quote of the Week

I love this quote.  This is from an ordained monk, Guibert of Gembloux and his friendship with Hildegard of Bingen.  Although ordained, he opened his life, ministry, and heart to her.  Also, his language reveals an intimate bonding that was nonromantic but yet deeply passionate.  At many layers, this friendship goes beyond the shallow When Harry Met Sally dialogue, beyond simplistic gender roles, beyond sex-segregation.

"I live with her in the beauty of peace and of all delight and sweetness, I am directed by her counsels, supported by her prayers. I press forward by her merits, I am upheld by her kindnesses and daily I enjoy conversation with her."

Guibert of Gembloux regarding Hildegard of Bingen

Singled Out: Popular Culture and Positive Views of Celibacy

Although we live in a sex-obsessed culture, in the secular world there happens to be positive portrayals of celibacy and chapter two focuses on these examples.  The authors remind us that, in response to the sexual revolution psychologist Gabrielle Brown believed that sexuality "is a conscious, voluntary behavior which is learned, rather than an instinct over which one has no choice."   This challenges the idea as sex as a biological imperative.  Her ideas line up with what many Christian have believed for over two thousand years.  Brown thought that "abstinence is a response on the outside to what's going on, and celibacy is a response from the inside." 

Singled Out: The Narrative of Sex and Repression in Pop Culture

I believe this is a valuable book for conversation not just for singles but for married Christians as well.  The issues here so overlap with cross-gender friendship in the Christian community.  This is not just a book for those who are single. 

Christine Colon and Bonnie Field assume that all unmarried Christians should practice celibacy.  "This is not to say that all single Christians should experience an undeniable 'call' from God or that they should make a life-long commitment to a living single, celibate life.  It does not even mean that we believe that single Christians should not date or desire marriage.  It simply means that Christians should abstain from sexual relationships for as long as they are single, whether that is for a short period of time of for their entire lives.  We use the term 'celibacy' rather than 'abstinence' because the focus on abstinence tends to be on waiting for a future marriage.  The type of celibacy we propose is focused on our relationship with God rather than a future marital relationship."

Chapter One: Repression & Neuroses: Negative Secular Views of Celibacy

Singled Out: Singleness, Friendship, and Marriage

Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must be Reinvented in Today's Church is a book I want to spend some time exploring here.   For a while now, I have been wanting to do a series on singleness, friendship, and marriage and this book is a great place to jump off.  

 

My thinking about singles in the evangelical sub-culture began to change significantly when 1) I started doing serious research on spiritual friendship and in particular, friendship between the sexes a few years ago and 2) I formed an intimate friendship with a single woman.  Number one (same-sex or cross-sex) has almost been totally ignored by evangelicals in their eccelesiology, discipleship, and spiritual formation.   As Eugene Peterson has commented, "Friendship is a much underestimated aspect of spirituality" and this is especially true in Protestant and evangelical spirituality.   

I think this underdeveloped, undervalued, underestimated spirituality of friendship in evangelical spirituality has contributed to the married versus single dichotomy in the contemporary Church life.  After several years of researching spiritual friendship, I don't believe these are unrelated facts:  while there have been endless books on marriage and family, the number of books on either singleness or friendship in the evangelical community are incredibly few in comparison.  I don't think that's a publishing "coincidence."  Yet, nearly almost half of the adult population in the evangelical world is unmarried and the number continues to grow.