Love, Covenant & Meaning

Rating:
Summary: A MUST for Marriage Courses
Review: As a professor of theology at a major Catholic university, I have used this book now for three years in my courses on Christian marriage. It is quite simply the best--and only--book of its kind.(See Molloy's review for the reason why.) Indeed, I have found that students are more challenged by the ideas in this text than by just about anything else I teach. That alone makes it a rare treat for a teacher. However, beyond Mills' ability to stimulate thought and vigorous discussion, his book has demonstrated a remarkable power to change lives by assuring students that marriage is open to anyone who desires the rootedness and sense of belonging that only family life can offer. Whether one experiences sexual desire in a "hetero" or "non-hetero" way, the demands and challenges of married fidelity are the same--and so are the rewards. But the book is not merely pastorally helpful; it is as profound a philosophical critique of romanticism in its decayed post-modern form as you will find anywhere. I daresay it is the finest book on marriage and "sexuality" I have ever had the pleasure to read and teach.

Rating:
Summary: A MUST for Marriage Courses
Review: As a professor of theology at a major Catholic university, I have used this book now for three years in my courses on Christian marriage. It is quite simply the best--and only--book of its kind.(See Molloy's review for the reason why.) Indeed, I have found that students are more challenged by the ideas in this text than by just about anything else I teach. That alone makes it a rare treat for a teacher. However, beyond Mills' ability to stimulate thought and vigorous discussion, his book has demonstrated a remarkable power to change lives by assuring students that marriage is open to anyone who desires the rootedness and sense of belonging that only family life can offer. Whether one experiences sexual desire in a "hetero" or "non-hetero" way, the demands and challenges of married fidelity are the same--and so are the rewards. But the book is not merely pastorally helpful; it is as profound a philosophical critique of romanticism in its decayed post-modern form as you will find anywhere. I daresay it is the finest book on marriage and "sexuality" I have ever had the pleasure to read and teach.

Rating:
Summary: A Fresh Old Light on a New Problem
Review: Love, Covenant & Meaning is a relatively short book (only 126 pages), but Mills covers much ground and offers unique perspective on marriage in relation to "sexuality"- both heterosexuality and homosexuality.

Mills' basic point is simple and it deserves consideration. He says that every society or culture before our own has thought of marriage as the best and most fulfilling way for men to live their lives. Because all societies before ours considered marriage and family to be ways of fulfillment and meaning, they did not exclude men from marriage and family who today are considered "homosexually oriented." Only because our society takes marriage to be an expression of (hetero)sexuality do we end up in various dilemmas over how "homosexual" people should live their lives. (Mills considers the situation primarily of "homosexually oriented" men, but his book is relevant for questions relating to "lesbians" too.)

How the current view manifests itself in society is that liberals end up advocating the "celebration" of gay relationships on par with man and woman in marriage. Conservatives end up saying either that "homosexuals" must change their orientation (by prayer, counseling and so on) before they can marry, or that they remain celibate for the rest of their lives.

Mills doesn't suggest that celibacy is wrong for everyone, but that celibacy is the right way of life for only a very few men; it isn't a good way to live just because a man isn't hetero sexual- as if most "hetero" men are driven into marriage by their "sexuality." Obviously, Mills says, they are pulled out of their commitment to monogamy by their "heterosexuality." Yet he doesn't feel drawn to endorse "gay relationships." He says that probably the right place for most such men is in marriage to the women they love. Even societies that have condoned some sorts of homosexual practise between men never though that men drawn to such behaviour were unqualified for marriage.

But mills is not writing as though he is giving a green light to such men to marry and raise a family, if they think it is the right way of life for them. His view is that most such men go ahead and do that anyway- most of them denying to others, to themselves and even to God that they have strong homosexual urges. (Mills questions whether our centuries idea of sexuality" and orientation is even meaningful. If everyone exists along Kinsey's spectrum of orientation somewhere between totally "homosexual" and totally "heterosexual," how is having the right orientation a qualification for marriage anyway?) In his opinion, these men have no reason to assume (to their despair! ) that the existence of such desires in them means they aren't supposed to marry- and that they have to live out a gay lifestyle, or remain celibate for their whole life.

According to Mills it is important to realize that most men with "homosexual" desires go ahead and marry not because they are afraid and want others to think that they are not "gay." These men enjoy the love and companionship that form the basis of any good marriage. Some marriages of such men fail, but so do the marriages of many men who are entirely "hetero." Marriage is the way that most men feel they belong and have important purposes in life. Any insurance statistics will tell you that men mostly flounder around until they marry. And the way things really are in the gay world probably makes it look very unappealing as a way to live even to most men who have strong homosexual desires. Mills gives solid arguments that even though the proportion of practicing "homosexuals" in the population is quite small, it is probable that most men with strong homosexual urges don't want to express them- because homosexual activity conflicts with their beliefs about right and wrong, and because it seems meaningless anyway. They prefer love and marriage.

Love, Covenant & Meaning basically leaves the question of orientation undecided. Maybe it happens sometimes, but Mills denies that it should be considered necessary if a man is going to marry, or if his marriage is to be considered valid. He points out that Socrates was primarily "homosexually oriented" as we would say today, but that Socrates thought homosexual activity to be wrong and that Socrates married and raised a family.

A final point worth stating is that in Mills' view there is a "cultural war" going on over the meaning of gay sexuality- a war between left-liberals who advocate monogamy or at least "long-term and committed" though not exclusive relationships for gay men; and "postmodernist" left theorists who see all serious idealism about monogamy as "heterosexist" patterning by the capitalist patriarchy. Mills recommends that conservatives on this issue call on the left liberals and the post-modernists to sort this cultural war out- so conservatives can know what they are being called to endorse. Gay monogamy imitating marriage between husband and wife, or just gay sexuality whatsoever, including the kind of activities that Ashley MacIsaac celebrates and John Allemagne (editorialist for the Globe and Mail) says is routine in gay life, simply part of gay sexuality, no big deal, absurd that Macleans thought it was wrong for a man to urinate on his 16 year old boyfriend for thrills.

Right now, Mills says, it looks as if the postmodernists are winning the cultural war over the meaning of gay sexuality since the liberals are only denouncing conservatives- who have nothing to do with the self understanding of gay sexuality at all.

Rating:
Summary: Sexual identity or sexual covenant?
Review: Mills asserts that ever since Rousseau, and never once in any culture before, sexuality has been linked to identity. Mills suggests that this is the key to our current struggles over the issue of sexual identity and that making sexuality a matter of identity is very unhelpful to us. Instead, he suggests a return to covenantal loyalty as the way to think about sexuality. Not only is this biblical, but it is reflected in cultures worldwide and in the great philosophers.

In this way of thinking, no one is ever 'gay' or 'straight' in his/her identity but only in practice. Therefore, a man who has homosexual thoughts is not 'gay' because of them. In fact, it causes no conflict with his identity as a heterosexually married man to have these occasional thoughts.

Mills' dense thoughts are broken up into very brief chapters making an otherwise difficult book very accessable. This is essential reading for anyone struggling with 'sexual identity' and for pastors or friends of those who are, for it completely changes the terms by which homosexuality is generally approached.

Rating:
Summary: Five Stars worth in the first half alone.
Review: My fellow reviewers have praised this book in adequate detail. I need only add a brief comment. I recommend this book even to those who are not interested in its primary question. This book is a good book for modern men and women to understand how we have come to perceive our own sexuality. The book reminds us that our way of understanding sexuality is not the only way. Those to whom I have recommended this book have found the insights of the first half of the book liberating and life giving regardless of their overall reaction to the books main thesis.
This content of this book meets a need beyond its primary intent.
Thank you Jonathan Mills.

For the advanced reader, I would recommend reading this short book alongside Sister Prudence Allen's two volume The Concept of Woman: From Aristotle to the Reformation (Eerdman's).

ip

Rating:
Summary: Five Stars worth in the first half alone.
Review: My fellow reviewers have praised this book in adequate detail. I need only add a brief comment. I recommend this book even to those who are not interested in its primary question. This book is a good book for modern men and women to understand how we have come to perceive our own sexuality. The book reminds us that our way of understanding sexuality is not the only way. Those to whom I have recommended this book have found the insights of the first half of the book liberating and life giving regardless of their overall reaction to the books main thesis.
This content of this book meets a need beyond its primary intent.
Thank you Jonathan Mills.

For the advanced reader, I would recommend reading this short book alongside Sister Prudence Allen's two volume The Concept of Woman: From Aristotle to the Reformation (Eerdman's).

ip