Thursday, July 12, 2012

Real Marriage – Mark & Grace Driscoll


Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together©2012 Thomas Nelson, Nashville 

In a society that is filled with preachers who are trying to re-invent church in order to appeal to a new generation, Mark Driscoll seems to have found a voice—at least in his home of Seattle where he leads one of the faster growing churches in one of the most un-churched areas of our country. The popular trend today is for some of these pastors to publish books based on their teaching concerning sex and marriage. So Mark and his wife Grace have teamed up to present their take on answering some of the formerly unaskable questions.

Quite frankly, the book does a good job of sticking with Scriptural basis for finding the answers to these questions. But also quite frankly, the authors sometimes deal a little more frankly than polite society would like for this topic to be dealt with. I think that there is an audience for this book, although it may not be the audience that the authors and the publisher thought of when producing and marketing this book.

It is not for the general public at large. I know that this is the way that it has been approached, but I believe that this book, along with others like it, will serve best as reference books in the hands of ministry leaders, Christian counselors and the like.

Even having said this, the advice they give concerning coming to grips with one’s physical past is sound, though sometimes over-generalized. At times the authors assume that every person inside and outside the church has some deep dark hidden sexual secret that must be exposed. The method of exposure advised is a “rip the bandaid off” approach that can lead to more scars than healing. Does such hidden past need to be brought out into the open? In most cases, yes. But this should be done with great care so as not to destroy the relationship that you are trying to heal.

Would I recommend this book? Cautiously. Do I think it could be helpful in certain situations? Probably. Do we need to use a “group study guide” to include this in our on-going church curriculum? I would advise against it. Therefore, I give this book 3.5 reading glasses out of five.

—Benjamin Potter, July 12, 2012

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