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Chapter 3 has three basic points as there is a shift in the book to a more positive description from a reactive teaching model.

I think the first point is the weakest and least helpful. The chapter opens with a description of the changes in social understanding of inter-racial marriage. This is interesting and I have just finished reading about the same thing in the book Committed. Committed, I think actually makes the argument of the changes better. When the Supreme Court decided Loving vs Virgina, overturning the Virginia ruling and allowed inter-racial marriage, 70% of the US disagreed with the ruling. But just a generation later, you will be hard pressed to find anyone that would say that inter-racial marriage should be prevented by law.

But the argument by really does not make a difference because friendship is not marriage and race is not gender. Yes, social conventions change. But the church, nor sin, is bound by societal convention.

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Takeaway: Theology has to be built on the basics.  Everything else, by definition is non-essential.

Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition

I really like the idea of this book.  Martin Theilen is a pastor.  A man he knows was an outspoken atheist.  They continued their relationship and eventually the man said he had upgraded to agnostic.  A while later the man ask “What is the least I can believe and still be a Christian?”  It was not because he was trying to minimize having faith, but instead was frustrated by variety of things that people add to their faith.

The first ten chapters are very quick looks at beliefs that are non-essential to the faith.  None of these choices are surprising or dealt with in depth.  Thielen in general looks at a view that holds the belief as essential, and a view that dismisses them and then either dismisses them or shows why we cannot really know the final answer.  I wish he was a bit more inclusive in this area.  In some cases, he is a bit harder on some of the more conservative views than I would like.   It is not because I really disagree with him on most things, but because I want to respect my Brothers and Sisters in Christ that believe differently than I do and honor them as we disagree.  He is not mean, just dismisses a bit too easily.  The topics of this section are Problems of Evil, Doubt, Evolution/Creation, Women (in marriage, authority in church and society), Environmentalism, End Times, Salvation of other religions, Scripture, Homosexuality, Judgmental Christians.

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Guest Post by Joanna, she blogs at http://joannamuses.com/ The first post in the series is here.

Our culture loves romance. Pop music is full of it, it has a book genre named after it, whole movie genres centre around it and many magazines devote themselves to the romances of the famous. Romance even has a special day dedicated to it- Valentine’s day.

Christian culture also likes romance. We may seek to present a more wholesome version of it, but nonetheless, romance is given a valued place in Christian culture. We talk about true love waiting or finding our soul mate. We preach sermons on the goodness of marriage. Christian bookstores are filled with books about getting or staying married.

On the surface these all seem like wonderful things. Some of them are good, biblical things. However, in chapter 2 of Sacred Unions, Sacred passions, Dan Brennan contends that there is an dark side to our elevation of romantic relationships.

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Over the next couple weeks a group of people will be reading and responding to the book Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions by Dan Brennan (my earlier review).  A chapter will be discussed each Monday, Wednesday and Friday until we are done.  Please come back and interact with us.  You do not have to have read the book, but it will likely help in the discussion.

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Brennan understands that he is working against the grain to suggest that not only is it possible, but it is important to have friendships between men and women that are ‘non-sexual’, but still intimate and deep.  The classic movie When Harry Met Sally has the line  “…Men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.”  And most of us believe, and are taught, that Harry is right.

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Takeaway: More unconventional ways of looking at the world around us.

Purchase Links: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook

I like economics.  Overall I like this book and the movement of micro-economics and behavioral economics books that was created out of the original Freakenomics (although I think some people need to think of some better titles.)

The method of Freakenomics is to find an issue, then think of a way to look at that issue using mathematical models.  The Freakenomics guys and their counterpart research economics that do a lot of the research are creative.  They have to be creative, and willing to balk conventional wisdom, to come up with their research ideas.  (And hope the mathematical models really explain the reality.)

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