Dan J. Brennan

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.

Creative and Integrative Fidelity

Priest, spiritual director, and author Francis Wade on cross-gender friendships beyond marriage:

"Remember that the covenant of marriage includes a healthy engagement with the wider world. The possibility of physical adultery need not keep one from having close relationships with the opposite sex. Nor should the possibility of emotional adultery keep one from developing compelling interests, demanding responsibilities, or important friendships. The solution is to integrate those relationships into the life of the marriage." 

The Art of Being Together

Andrew Marin, Friendship, and the GLBT Community

There are some powerful conversion stories emerging out of the conversation in  Christian communities and GLBT communities.  Sara Miles' powerful story in Take This Bread does not fit into any neat traditional categories of sexuality and conversion. Well, it would have if she became straight. But she hasn't. On the other hand, there is, just as powerful, the journey of Melinda Selmys who leaves her lesbian lover of seven years to embrace the Roman Catholic faith (Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality and the Catholic Church).

I am still mulling over Andrew Marin's book, Love is an Orientation. It is so challenging and refreshing in the midst of debates and heated rhetoric on both sides.  I believe sexuality and Christian friendship is going to be an ongoing conversation in the 21st century. Longtime readers of my blog will know my passion for close, intimate, flourishing male-female friendships. I also believe Christian friendship and the GLBT community will be an ongoing conversation.

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?

Thought for the Day

Sexuality invites us to a spirit of mutuality and equality encompassing the complex bonds of marriage and friendship.

I like that. 

Singled Out: Deconstructing Evangelical Romantic Idealism

 

When I started to write a book on cross-gender friendship, I knew one of the things I had to do was attempt to deconstruct the romantic idealism usually embedded in the evangelical language and practice of "one flesh."   Colon and Field in their new book, Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented in Today's Church observe that we often "find ourselves confrontedly repeatedly with the messages that affirm the value of marriage over almost everything else." 

 

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. 

Love: Abundance vs. Scarcity

Lisa McMinn on exclusivity and abundance in marriage:

"God's love is one of abundance, not scarcity.  Unfortunately, we often live out of a grudging acceptance of a scarcity-of-love perspective rather than an abundance-of-love perspective, focusing on what we are not allowed to have rather than on what we do have.  Singles reflect the abundance of God's love in the inclusive open way they can relate to everyone.  To live with a view of scarcity is to focus on a moral restraint or need to sublimate the desire for genital sexual fulfillment rather than finding abundance in the freedom to love intimately and inclusively, recognizing they can give and receive more because of singleness.  Married couples reflect God's faithful convenantal love that puts down roots and grows deeply into the multiple dimensions of abundant love with one person.  To live in abundance rather than scarcity is to explore and embrace the depth of love possible in an exclusive relationship rather than focus on the moral restraint that limits that kind of love to one other.  Married people have the opportunity to live in abundance of an exclusive relationship yet not become so focused on each other that they neglect caring for and being in relationship with others in their community;  neither are they so open to caring for and being in relationship with others that they seek abundance through other relationships that lead to sarcity in their marriage.  Sexual fidelity becomes a gift of abundant love rather than a taxation on love resulting in scarcity.  Fidelity also recognizes that the bond between a husband and wife creates a community that is real and bigger than the two individuals alone. "

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day--faith dance style.  What a beautiful day to celebrate love--to celebrate ordered love!  And, that's what I have been celebrating.  Sheila and I had a blessed morning and we got plans for a nice dinner with a good bottle of wine overlooking a half of dozen roses. 

and...earlier today, I brought Jennifer flowers (no, not red roses) celebrating her wonderful presence in my life.  There is something indescribably sweet about celebrating ordered love.   

Authentic Friendship & Marriage: Blending the Two

It stuck me afresh last night while Sheila and I were in conversation: the deep blending of authentic friendship between men and women within marriage and transmarriage.

You know how it is us.  At least it is this way between Sheila and me: there is this rich layer of subjects that both husband and wife return to again and again in their dialogue between each other because those subjects are near and dear to their hearts and souls. 

More than ever before, I am conscious of this gift I have been given--this blending of authentic friendship between the sexes within marriage and transmarriage.  Lilian Calles Barger's observation that, "It may be that sex scandals and broken marriages among Christians is the result of a famine in cross-gender friendships" struck me afresh.  It also got me thinking about David Benner's chapter on soul friendships in marriage in his book, Sacred Companions.