There are already plenty of books in the marketplace on marriage and its problems, as author Douglas J. Brouwer, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Wheaton, Illinois. But when he taught and researched for material on what do Christians really believe about marriage, he found nothing. This book is to fill that gap.
Christians who think they know all there is to know, including all the Bible references may be in for surprises. The chapters on marriages as covenants, and as sacraments, and the difference between the two was new to me. Somehow I'd thought they were the same.
The history lesson on marriage over the centuries was also an eye-opener. We make a tradition out of anything we see repeated a few times, and think it's always been this way. Even the thinking on the role of sex in marriage has gone through interesting cycles of emphasis; refraining, reproducing, and refreshing. You need to read that for yourself.
I appreciated the leaving and cleaving chapter, and also the perspective on singleness, and the suggestion of mediation with a third party before rushing into divorce is excellent. Brouwer should do another book on that topic next.
This book will be a great help to pastors, but also to couples and those about to be, with its examples of a marriage covenant, and a renewal ceremony, and the bit on divorce mediation.
Ruth Marlene Friesen
The Responsible One
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Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
