"Attractions to certain persons can be a powerful way God acts in human ordinary life. Holiness doesn't consist in Buddhist detachment from every single desire, but in fine harmony of discerning which desires are the stirrings of the Holy Spirit so that one might do God's will passionately, yet indifferently."
Terrance McGoldrick reflecting on Francis de Sales and how passionate desire is a virtue in Christian friendship
Wow!
Sheila wrote the foreward to my book over the weekend.
It is in wow territory.
No, it's not The Lost Symbol or The Shack.
At least in some sense.
It's print on demand publishing.
According to Bowker, there were more books published through print on demand than there were with traditional publishers. That's amazing when you think about it.
Some traditional Christian publishers are wanting a piece of the action. After all, traditional Christian bookstores are struggling. While it may be true that some Christian books (like The Shack) have been making it to the mainstream bestseller list, Christian publishing as a whole is struggling.
So, evangelical publishers like Bethany House have added a print on demand option for aspiring authors who could not make it past Bethany's traditional gatekeepers. This morning Michael Hyatt of Thomas Nelson announced that Nelson is adding a POD option for authors who couldn't make the coventional cut. The Christian publishing market (just like the secular market) of course, follows the money. But then again, many of your recognized Christian publishers are owned by secular companies.
I have immersed myself in the world of POD options the last three weeks. POD publishers are creating a buzz in the industry and in some media outlets. In a recent AARP, article, the writer described the POD alternative as an "earthquake" shaking the publishing industry.
If anyone would have told me four weeks ago that a future option for Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions would be print on demand, I would have said, "Huh? What is that???"
As a matter of fact, I did say that.
The hottest trend in the book publishing industry is indeed, print on demand publishing. Dive into the subject a bit more and you'll find all these new authors doing POD. The overwhelming majority of the these authors don't sell many books though; most of the authors never sell more than 50. There are reasons for that which I may explain in my next post.
But you can crunch the numbers. All the "successful" POD companies are making their profit on the upfront charges these aspiring authors pay for particular packages. This includes Christian POD alternatives. It's another way to make a profit in a sagging economy. I don't hold it against anybody for trying to make a profit on their hard work.
But in order to persuade first-time authors or aspiring authors to choose POD, these companies have convince them it's cool to invest in them. The phrase self publishing carries with it so much baggage and stigma--especially when the author has to pay to get her book published. So, it's a bit of irony that traditional Christian publishers are now advocating first-time authors to publish through nontradtional methods. Of course, these publishers are charging for their packages and face no risk for publishing with print on demand.
But print on demand technology has opened up a whole new world for first time authors. For me, the first couple of weeks was like buying a used car. I have had plenty of phone conversations with sales staff pitching to me why I should buy their package.
I am confident that Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions is going to be published. It is going to be with POD technology. A small publishing company named Faith Dance publishing is going to take it on. :-) I am really excited about it.
This brand new book is an important groundbreaking study on male friendship in the colonial and revoluntionary periods in America. It is an important book on the breadth and depth of sexuality and friendship. There have been a number of books recognizing the passionate depth of same-sex friendships among women in recent years. This book unearths for us the depth of passionate, tender, friendships between men during America's infancy.
The Overflowing of Friendship: Love Between Men and the Creation of the American Republic by Richard Goodbeer.
John Winthrop Jr. (son of the well known Puritan John Winthrop) had several close friendships with men. One of them writes to him, "I long for your company as much as the teeming earth for the rising sun...Oh how my heart is with you." He assured John that he loved him with a "dear heart" and loved him "as mine own soul." In one letter he declared to John, "Oh that I were to die in your bosom."
Another one of John's friends describes him as "the joy of my life," and the "best and most desired friend." He tells John that John "kindled" in him "such a true fire of love." He assures John that the "great Western Ocean" could not "quench" his love for John.
When Thomas Wait had to endure the absence of his friend, George Thatcher he lamented that pen and paper were "vile interpreters of the language one's heart." He writes, "As to my friendship, you must know, my dear G.T. Esq. and if you don't God Almighty does, that I love you more fervently than did Prince Jonathan the little riddy Captain David." He continues, "to say what I have often said--I love you very much." He signs his letter with, "yours for ever--and--ever and ever." Thomas was having physical heart problems and in one letter, he writes, "this heart of mine, however feeble and however soon soever it may cease to move, its last pulsations shall vibrate for you."
In another example of deep friendship love, a friend writes, "I have frequently thought of you by day and dreamt about you by night." He writes of his response in reading his friend's letter, "with raptures which I shall not attempt to describe--so full was it of affection, love, benevolence, friendship, and zeal...You know not how necessary your presence is to [my] happiness." He ends, "Goodnight, my dear Walter--Love me always and believe me to be affectionately and unalterably your friend."
In writing a book on the depth of male friendship love and the deep emotional bond and commitment men had towards each other, Goodbeer of course, has to immediately address the issue of sexuality and deep friendship. No one on this side of Freud can overlook the immediate issue where we have so sexualized friendship, emotion, desire in our culture. The immediate challenge I face with some Christians (thank God not all!) in advocating deep transmarital opposite sex friendships is their assumptions that deep desire, emotion, and passion for another are eroticized--even in friendship.
Goodbeer spends a significant time highlighting how Christian spirituality shaped this passionate love between men: "For a man to love a male figure such as Christ and to express that love in language that was intensely passionate and romantic would not have struck colonists as problematic. Indeed, early Americans welcomed and respected love between men on earth as well as in the spiritual realm, just so long as it was nonsexual. Declarations of love by one man to another would not automatically have suggested to relatives or neighbors that sexual relations might be taking place....Acceptable expressions of love between men included not only words, either written or spoken, but also physical affection....Male friends often referred to the pleasure that they took in touching and holding another; they delighted in the proximity of each other's bodies."
Without naming it as incarnational spirituality, Goodbeer notes, "The Anglo-Amercian men about whom I am writing clearly perceived the body as an appropriate medium for the expression of love....early Americans did not assume that physical affection necessarily expressed a desire for sexual intimacy."
A few important observations about this book:
1. This book honors the deep, rich, emotional depth in men and between men in friendship. Goodbeer's work challenges any narrow or stereotypical views we may have of men and their emotional capacities in friendship. These men thought that deep emotional and physical connection were foundational in friendship and to society.
2. This book provides for us an account for how Christian spirituality/sexuality may shape deep social attachments and bonding. Men were encouraged by their wives, biological families and society to pursue such emotional commitment and depth in their friendships. Ponder my quotes above--in light of the fact that all the passionate expressions were made by married men.
This fact does challenge us to reconsider how contemporary Christians view emotional depth in friendship (either same sex or cross-sex) as a threat to their "one flesh" vows and fidelity.
How much have we Christians accomodated to sexualization in our culture? How much have we unintentionally contributed to our sexualized culture by linking emotional/relational depth with extrabiblical assumptions to "one flesh?"
On this side of Freud, we can no longer speak of emotional intensity/commitment in friendships (cross-sex or same sex) without seriously considering how we have so narrowly constructed sexuality in our sermons, how-to books, conferences, etc. Have we given into our culture by promoting and advocating narrow cultural conceptions of "emotional purity?" Are we contributing to the fragmentation and sexualization of our culture (and Christian community) by ignoring rich and complex historical accounts of philia, agape, and even broader accounts of eros??
Think of how we contemporary Christians have so romanticized and/or eroticized into the modern schema of "one flesh" the language like, "yours for ever--and--ever and ever." How many of us feel, believe, with a God-anointed conviction that emotional commitment is uniquely reserved for marriage?
Goodbeer writes, "early Americans took it for granted that loving relationships between men--and also between women--could coexist with heartfelt love for a person of the opposite sex."
3. This book revives fresh hope for the future that the depth of our immediate relationships including emotional intensity (i.e, marriage and friendships) nurtures qualities for transforming culture and society as a whole.
These Americans didn't believe that friendships were isolated from the larger public context. They believed that immediate, deep, and close friendships shaped public discourse and behavior. Friendships were personal, private, deeply affectionate in words and physical expression, yet had a much broader social significance.
In other words, passionate friendships are not apolitical.
"Use of the word love in our dominant cultural context can ring all sorts of bells. Love easily brings to mind sentimental and romantic connotations; love, from this perspective, refers to our private emotional lives and desires. Christian love does not negate desire. In fact, as David B. Hart has emphasized, divine beauty inflames desire, stretching one 'out toward an even greater embrace of divine glory." She adds, "Education has to do with cultivating the right kinds of desires, the right kinds of loves...That we are created for communion with God and others means that we are part of a tradition in which we are dependent on others (including those not explicitly within our tradition) to demonstrate to us what we are to be. Such a politics does not depend on individualism but rather on friendship. In fact, education made possible by friendship can be described as the circulation of gift...what matters is that we delight in the politics of belonging to each other and Christ, a politics that certainly might make us look strange to the modern/postmodern world."
"Rather, our created bodies, male and female, were created to be in communion and fellowship with each other. This means looking less at the roles we play and more at the ways in which we help each other live virtuous lives while striving toward God."
Jana Marguerite Bennett
I emailed someone the endorsements/reviews I have had for Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions. It was a blessing to read them afresh today:
Jack Balswick, professor of sociology and family development and family research at Fuller Theological Seminary read my entire manuscript and responded, “Thanks for the opportunity to read your manuscript, you are an excellent writer, have done a good job of researching relevant writing on the topic and have produced a work that deserves and needs to be published. I appreciate you anchoring your thinking in Trinitarian theology. You know of the fear within evangelical Christian culture of this topic, but hopefully publishers will be open to it. I wish you well in bringing your work to a needful audience; bless you for your hard work!”
Edith Humphrey, professor of theology at Pittsburgh Seminary also read the manuscript and wrote, “First, you are engaging and fun. You have a nice turn of phrase, and think from various angles, and that is great. I think you are right that Christians are far too suspicious of cross-gender friendships.” She said, “I concede that this kind of love is an important one, and believe that the book is worth writing.”
Lillian Calles Barger, author of Eve’s Revenge, wrote, - Dan Brennan provides a provocative path to rethinking our sexuality and cross-gender friendships. It may be that sex scandals and broken marriages among Christians is the result of a famine in cross-gender friendships. With sensitivity and insight Brennan explores an often uncomfortable topic and what might be the Achilles' heel of Christian relationships. A must read for people seeking to build authentic Christian community."
Mike Morrell, freelance publishing marketer and publicist, says “Dan, you’re onto something here. Cross-gender friendships are here and no one’s talking about them – certainly not in the evangelical church. You take a volatile subject and handle it provocatively, yet pastorally I think. (The writing’s good too!) Even if your readers don’t agree with all your conclusions, this book needs to be published and read. Nothing less is at stake than our full liberty, creativity, love and apprenticeship to Jesus Christ in the 21st century. I feel that strongly about it.”
Carole Hallundbaek, author of Saints in Love, writes, “Dan Brennan opens a spiritual treasure chest and peers into an untapped resource that has been largely hidden from our sight: the gift of agape between the sexes. In Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions, he encourages Christians, with tenderness and thorough scholarship, to reach beyond fear of sexuality and engage the cross-gender friendships in their life that can help ignite their spiritual growth. -Rev. Carole Hallundbaek, author, Saints in Love.
Catholic theologian John Forstin writes, "I find the subject matter fascinating. Your treatment of it is robust, thorough, balanced, well-researched, and thought-provoking. It offers a biblical foundation for its thesis, which I think is most important. It is also most definitely provocative."
I have a publishing possibility for my book! I appreciate your prayers. I am somewhat encouraged about this direction. I will keep you posted!
I love this quote--it could be a fitting summary of my book:
"Our trust in the Trinity's embrace frees us to love others more fully with triune kinds of love--fostering deep relationships that involve solid friendships without sexual innuendo" From Marva Dawn's new book, In the Beginning, God
I haven't had a chance to post much here in the past few days. God is continuing to shape me. I had someone last night share a picture she had from God for me. She could see clay being molded like the shape of a heart and she could see a thumb (God's thumb) pressing in on it. She sensed it was the Lord's way of pressing in on me in such a deep way of His presence shaping my heart as of late in the midst of stuff.
It seems like I've been in the trenches in recent weeks in the midst of community where iron sharpens iron. It has been good for me. I see God working in me; it hasn't been pleasant. I've had to face some fears and look them square in the eye and trust God who is bigger than the fears. I see God is working in some great ways in our midst.
"If a husband plays tennis with a neighbor's wife on Saturday mornings, he need not be a candidate for incipient infidelity...Only those who suspect that every friendship between a man and woman has sexual intercourse as its natural goal will label every friendship as adultery of intent. The line between tolerable friendships can be recognized not by rules but by imaginative discernment."
Lewis Smedes