Dan J. Brennan

Reflections on Sexuality, Friendship, and Community

It's getting close to Christmas and the end of the year.  That means I'm not that far away from turning 50.  Egads a half-century!  It is easy for me to reflect back on the year when we get into the first week of December.  The prospect of hearing from a publisher soon has me looking forward with anticipation.  But this has been a significant year for me.

Attraction, Sexuality, Marriage, and Community

Dennis Hiebert writes, "Sexuality is not merely some physical impulse contained in a safe-box to be let out only on special, appropriate occasions.  Humans are not sexual when they participate in sexual acts, and asexual at all other times...cross-sex friendship cannot be asexual, but neither can cross-sex acquaintance, association, or spousal relations. All cross-sex interactions are inexorably sexual in some form or dimension, and subject to sexual attraction of complementarity, just as all same-sex interactions are sexual and subject to the sexual attraction of similarity.  Morally, there is no asexual plateau of safety; all human interaction occurs on the slippery slope of sexuality." (Journal of Psychology and Theology, "Toward Adult Cross-Sex Friendship").

Do you want to revisit the conversation on attraction?

I picture my conversations here on attraction to like Jesus Creed does evolution, you know?  I don't know how many times the evolution topic has come up on that blog (that's just one repetitive example).

Incarnation, Sexuality, and Spirituality

I think its possible for the incarnation, sexuality, and spirituality to intersect.  They did at least at one point in history, didn't they?  :-)  I push the proverbial envelope in my manuscript.  If the fall comes into play (when it comes to physicality, sexuality, and spirituality) into sexuality (i.e. broken sexuality--sexual abuse, aggression, rape, or the other extreme, sexual isolation) where does the incarnation come into play?  

Mixed Ministry: Men and Women Working Together in Ministry

Mixed Ministry: Working Together as Brothers and Sisters in an Oversexed Society

by Sue Edwards, Kelley Matthews, and Henry Rogers is one of the best books yet by conservative evangelicals who long for something more for men and women working in ministry than fear-based, sex-segregated sexuality. This is a welcome addition to my library.  The title of the second chapter points to the direction they want to go, "Not Segregation, but Transformation."  This book suggests there is something more for church leaders than Saddleback's Ten Commandments.  I will be reviewing this book in future posts but with leaders contributing the conversation of female-male relationality in this book, there is more conversation and hope for close cross-gender friendships among Christians.