Theology That Bites Back
Knowing Christ by Mark Jones is a worthy companion volume to J.I. Packer’s classic Knowing God. It is a work of devotional theology or, if you prefer, theological devotion. Nancy and I read this one together aloud, bit by bit, and that was a good way to work through something as dense and as hand-packed …
I don’t have a great deal to say about this next chapter—on Christ as our Elder Brother—because most of it is very good. The mistake that Aimee Byrd is making is the same one again. She says a number of valuable things about the biblical relationship of brothers and sisters, some of them even glorious …
Introduction: Aimee Byrd is very aware of a mistake that would, in this kind of cultural analysis, be a very easy one to make. I am glad she is aware of it because it shows she is actively trying to avoid making it, and that is all to the good. Unfortunately, this awareness has not …
Introduction: And so—as we continue to work our way through Aimee Byrd’s book, Why Can’t We Be Friends?—we continue to find stuff to talk about. In part I suppose that this is because life between the sexes is variegated and complex, and not a simple and straightforward relationship, like that which exists between Point A …
In her fifth chapter, Aimee Byrd helpfully offers some qualifications (and/or exceptions) to what she has been generally arguing for. She makes the important general point that temptation and sin in this area is devastating and really bad. And she also says some really good things in this chapter about how the law does not …
Introduction So I want to begin my review of this chapter of Aimee Byrd’s book with some agreement. Although I differ strongly with her overarching thesis, I also want to make it clear that I believe she is reacting to some genuine problems in the “purity world.” I have seen some of those problems myself, …
My review of Aimee Byrd’s third chapter of Why Can’t We be Friends? is going to be brief. It is going to be brief for the excellent reason that this is supposed to be a critical review, and this particular chapter contains very little to criticize. It was, in sum, an outstanding chapter. Put another …
Introduction: Just as in the first chapter, the second chapter of Aimee Byrd’s book on male/female friendships contains a real tension at the heart of it. And given how she states her concerns, I can’t see any way of resolving that tension. Another way of putting this is to say that Aimee Byrd has complaints …
Introduction: In her latest contribution—Why Can’t We Be Friends?—Aimee Byrd has raised the question why Christian men and women have such trouble and difficulty being friends. Why are we in such a pother about it? She knows that it will be a controversial book (Loc. 155), but undertook the risk anyway. In the first chapter …
This small book was simply a lot of fun, and for various reasons. If I had read it the way you are likely to do, it would have been a lot of fun on its own terms. But I have had the background privilege of knowing all the principals involved in it. Every year, four …
