This is my second post on reflecting on Bronwyn Lea's new book, Beyond Awkward Side Hugs. This second post is borne out of a love for Christian friendship. Not just friendship between women and men but out of a love for friendship as a peak experience, as the apex of love revealed in God. When I found out that Bronwyn--an egalitarian--was writing a book on cross-gender friendship I was hoping to see her shine the light on friendship in a way that Aimee Byrd could not because of Byrd's commitment to ordination as a male-only club experience.
Before I go further, I want to reiterate something I said in my first post: I gladly welcome Lea's book into the front-line conversation about friendships between the sexes. None of what I write below diminishes my gladness that she wrote the book. I am happy that both Byrd and Lea as post-Freud evangelicals have come forth out of a nervous and jumpy evangelicalism to advocate for a shift in friendship-sexuality boundaries.
"Post-Freud" for me in the sense that they acknowledge we are sexual beings. We have sexual identities. We don't enter any friendship as asexual beings and we don't flourish in friendship by neutering our sexuality. Part of acknowledging a post-Freud awareness is that we could experience--either man or woman or both--sexual attraction in our friendship. That's what I mean by post-Freud here.
Make no mistake about it.
Evangelical egalitarians were fidgety, nervous, scanning for danger approach to the friendship part of the shift in friendship-sexuality boundaries before MeToo. Tish Warren's seemingly middle-ground approach to friendship before ChurchToo became a cultural force revealed her limited comfort zone back then. I applaud Warren for her boundaries. Do not misunderstand what I am saying. I'm not pressuring her to conform to my boundaries. But part of a healthy, flourishing mutuality in this boundaries conversation is a robust recognition of friendship's fullness, the love of friendship, and peak experiences of friendship-sexuality boundaries.
So let's get back to Bronwyn's book.
Although I was hoping she would give us a rich, healthy, robust look at friendship-sexuality boundaries through a friendship hermeneutic, she joins Aimee Byrd as a strong female presence-leader to interpret friendship's boundaries through family's boundaries. I totally get it. It was my greatest hope in the initial years when I began affirming cross-sex friendships. That was before I saw friendship's fullness and learn that friendship could stand on its own two feet with differentiated boundaries.
The book starts with a foreword by Christine Caine. You know what I was hoping to see before I read it? A surprise. I was hoping to be pleasantly surprised by it. I was wondering if Caine would reveal that she's had a close male friend who has become closer to her than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). I was wishing to see Caine make this sort of thought-provoking observation that this close male friend has contributed to her flourishing and that he's become a healthy intimate companion to be with. Someone she cherishes to be with when no one else is around. That would have been a lovely recognition into a hermeneutic with "friendship-power" as evangelical theologian Chloe Lynch has reflected upon.
But Caine didn't go there. While lamenting some of the power-over dynamics she has experienced she was excited to see Bronwyn address friendship through a family lens. She writes, "My hope is that this book will help us to 'move beyond awkwardness and become familiar with each other--well acquainted and comfortable in our interactions--as family ought to be."
I had a huge inkling before I began reading the book that Bronwyn was going to go the family model by reading the subtitle: "Living as Christian Brothers and Sisters in a Sex-Crazed World."
So, in her introduction, we read: "God has given us a fundamental truth that puts all our relationships into a new light: we are brothers and sisters in God’s family. That means we find a way to be close without being sexual. We can move beyond awkwardness and become familiar with each other—well-acquainted and comfortable in our interactions—as family ought to be." From that point on, this is not a popular book unfolding a hermeneutic of friendship--standing on its own boundaries--but a popular book from an egalitarian leader about family togetherness.
Throughout the book, she appeals to a family ethic as a higher ethic for love, respect, and closeness. In chapter two she observes, "In God’s family we get to live as brothers and sisters—intimate and close as men and women—without it being weird." And then in chapter three, "It was always God’s plan for us to live and thrive in families."
Without denying the biblical emphasis on family or language about family, I was hoping to see an egalitarian point us to Christian friendship's differentiated boundaries. In her sixth chapter, entitled "Can Men and Women Be Just Friends," she finally arrives at the friendship question. Her prioritizing marriage and the nuclear family boundaries meant that the previous five chapters needed to be there before fleshing out friendship issues.
Now, again, I'm glad she gets there.
I'm glad she makes some of her pushback points against forbidding male-female friendships. But its embedded in this higher family boundary ethic: "Friends who are functioning as healthy siblings in a relationship want their brothers and sisters to have thriving marriages." I heartily agree with her and gladly cheer such Bronwyn insight. Yes! But I could have just as clearly affirmed what she was saying within a friendship hermeneutic without ever appealing to a family ethic.
Indeed, throughout the entire book I could do that in a healthy way with friendship's differentiated boundaries.
So it is not at all surprising that not once in her entire book does she mention or even reflect deeply on the biblical wisdom of Proverbs 18:24 "One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." Another consequence then is how little she refers to outstanding scholarship--thinkers and researchers on Christian friendship. No mention of Martin Culy's superb theological analysis in his book, Echoes of Friendship in the Gospel of John. No mention of Catholic Edward Vacek's deep reflection in Love, Human and Divine. She doesn't mention any of Paul Wadell's beautiful reflections on friendship. And like I said in my last post she doesn't mention several evangelical works on theology of friendship including Chloe Lynch.
I think she is missing out on the richness and glorious beauty of differentiated boundaries in friendship. Just as therapist F. Diane Barth proclaims in a book on female friendships, "Boundaries protect our friendships," there are glorious boundaries within Christian friendship to inspire men and women to come together as friends. I applaud Bronwyn for wanting to separate herself from an anxious evangelical "boundary overkill" (thank you Danielle LaPorte for that phrase). But one doesn't have to appeal to a family ethic as an exclusive superior ethic to get there.
First, friendship doesn't get any hermeneutical respect when we appeal to a family ethic like Aimee and Bronwyn do. Their nervousness-anxiety avoidance about embracing a shift in friendship-sexuality boundaries through a friendship lens translates friendship itself has poor boundaries. It translates into this When Harry Met Sally anxiety that closeness means a loss of boundary-intelligence. It translates into a shaky, unsettled feeling that "relaxed boundaries" between friends opens the door to entitlement behaviors.
It gives this implication that friendship has weak boundaries--weak physical, emotional, intellectual, and sexual boundaries--when there is a relaxed closeness.
Second, the higher family model doesn't help separate in a robust way, egalitarians from complementarians. The moment Bronwyn chooses the family model she chooses the route Aimee Byrd does. Aimee doesn't support a fullness of male-female ecclesial intimacy that encourages ordained female leadership. The most obvious psychological issue is that while the brother-sister sibling relationship was arguably the closest relationship in biblical times it too, was embedded in patriarchy!!!
While I gladly welcome Bronwyn's book to the front-lines on this conversation, her book did not establish robust differences between her family model and Aimee's model within ecclesial intimacy and power-with. This neglect of egalitarians to integrate a fully differentiated friendship hermeneutic means they are unable to set boundaries between their family model of togetherness and Aimee's. Or the embedded issues of power-over under "Eve's curse" in adult sibling relationships in the past. Indeed, this is the issue that egalitarians like Bill Hybels, David Fitch, and others did not address for years in their ecclesial intimacy.
Yes, Bronwyn brings her unique contributions to the subject that Aimee doesn't. But I tell you, I was struck how Bronwyn's family model could not separate itself from Aimee's sibling model in regard to healthy, robust friendship-power boundaries. At no point did I sense in Bronwyn's book, did I sense this bold psychological yes for peak experiences in cross-gender friendship. There was nothing in her book like evangelical boundaries guru John Townsend's statement: "I believe that with two willing people, the potential for intimacy in any relationship — be it romance, family, or friendship — is almost unlimited, bound only by the constraints of time and energy. Intimacy is a part of love, and we are designed to continue growing in love." Aimee didn't offer one either.
Okay, in my next post, I do want to address friendship's differentiated boundaries within Townsend's "two willing people" that neither Aimee or Bronwyn address. The peak experiences of Christian friendship boundaries.
