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by Jonathan Grant (Author), James Smith (Foreword by)
Christianity Today Book Award Winner
The digital revolution has ushered in a series of sexual revolutions, all contributing to a perfect storm for modern relationships. Online dating, social media, internet pornography, and the phenomenon of the smartphone generation have created an avalanche of change with far-reaching consequences for sexuality today. The church has struggled to address this new moral ecology because it has focused on clarity of belief rather than quality of formation. The real challenge for spiritual formation lies in addressing the underlying moral intuitions we carry subconsciously, which are shaped by the convictions of our age.
In this book, a fresh new voice offers a persuasive Christian vision of sex and relationships, calling young adults to faithful discipleship in a hypersexualized world. Drawing from his pastoral experience with young people and from cutting-edge research across multiple disciplines, Jonathan Grant helps Christian leaders understand the cultural forces that make the church's teaching on sex and relationships ineffective in the lives of today's young adults. He also sets forth pastoral strategies for addressing the underlying fault lines in modern sexuality.
Back Jacket
Faithful Discipleship in a Hypersexualized World
"There are few issues in life that confront each of us like human sexuality. Every person struggles with making sense of relationships, eros, and longings, emotional as well as physical. Every man and woman wrestles with the lies of sensualized culture while holding at bay the effects of pervasive isolation and intense loneliness. In Divine Sex Jonathan Grant guides us through this journey with wit, grace, and honesty while being both wholly theological and profoundly real."
--Chap Clark, senior pastor, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, California
--Craig M. Gay, Regent College, Vancouver "Grant compassionately exposes the powerful influences that orient us away from the heart of the Christian story by disordering our desires, explores the Christian reality of our shared life as sexual human beings in communion, and encourages us toward practices that embody the wholeness of cruciform life together--and he does so with candor, wisdom, and hope."
--Cherith Nordling, Northern Seminary "In the intensely sexualized culture of the secularized West, Grant's thoughtful treatment is a valuable contribution to our understanding not just of our cultural conditioning but of God's design and the true sexual liberation we can experience as followers of Jesus."
--Sam Metcalf, CRM-US, Fullerton, California "This is a book that needed to be written. . . . Absorbing Grant's insight, analysis, and constructive argument should not only deepen how we are talking about sex and discipleship; it should also give us new intentionality about the church as a formative community, enabling us to live into a different script that is good news--that our sexual lives are hidden with Christ in God."
--James K. A. Smith (from the foreword)
Author Biography
Jonathan Grant (ThM, Regent College, Vancouver) is the leader of St. Paul's Symonds Street, one of the largest Anglican congregations in Australasia, located in the heart of Auckland, New Zealand. After beginning his career in law and investment banking, Grant pursued ordination training in the Church of England, serving in pastoral ministry at St. Mary's Bryanston Square, London.
