This may be the most polarizing of the books I have on my 2011 Bookwi.se Books of the Year. Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions is a provokative book about why men and women, both married and single, need more cross gender friendships, not less. My wife and I have lead small groups for newly married couples for the past couple years. Different expectations and histories with cross gender friendships comes up regularly. I am convinced that healthy cross-gender friendships can do much to strengthen marriages. I have given away more copies of this than any other book this year. Even if you are skeptical about the concept I challenge you to read the book and give Brennan the chance to make the case.
Takeaway: The role of cross gender friendships is important.
I always tell people I find good books by listening to other readers. I spend a fair amount of time reading reviews and blogs by people that I have come to trust over time. One of those that I deeply respect is John Armstrong. He has a daily blog that has a fairly wide range of subjects. But most of them has something to do with his passion for Missional Ecumenicism (essentially drawing the church together). Right before Christmas he had a couple posts about this book.
Right off the bat, John laid out his hand. He started the book to find a problem with it. John actually wrote a book about sexual immorality among clergy because he was so concerned about the damage it was doing to the church. John used to and many other clergy still do to fall back to Billy Graham’s advice to never be seen alone with a woman that was not your wife. So pastors (primarily male) will not meet with woman without someone else present. They will drive separate cars to the same meeting so they do not have to be seen with someone of a different sex in the same car by themselves.