For Peterson, the Bible is one “manifestation of the highest transcendent pattern”—the necessary framework for human optimisation. Love is absolutely essential to optimisation, but not because God is love and he has made us in his image. Rather, it’s because without love, we would have no chance of successfully optimising ourselves.

In one sense, Bridget Eileen Rivera’s Heavy Burdens is exactly what its subtitle claims: an exploration of Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church. But in another sense, this book seeks to do much more. Put simply, Heavy Burdens endeavors to present a new paradigm for the church’s theological reflection upon and ethical response to the important but also contentious issues of sexuality and gender

Adam was the only creature made in the image of his creator. At the time, there was nothing and no one else like Adam in all of creation; he was the only human being walking on the entire face of the earth. This is what it meant that he was alone. This is what was not good in God’s sight.

When the early Christians talked about singleness and marriage, how did they talk about it? How are single adults viewed in our churches today? Is that consistent with the way they have been viewed in the history of the church? Is singleness a gift? Join Scott as we discuss these questions and more with our guest, Australian author Dani Treweek.

Dani Treweek joins Jonathan for a conversation about the place and role of sex and sexuality in contemporary Western cutlure. They examine Carl Trueman's work on the rise and triumph of the modern self, including expressive individualism, the psychologised self and the politicisation of sex. They then pivot to the place of marriage and singleness in the church, particularly against the backdrop of a culture so intent on defining humans by their sexual desires and encouraging their actualisation.

Christianity Today Mag Sept '22: There Is No One Fully Optimized, Not Even One. How a “low anthropology” pushes back on perfectionistic assumptions about human nature.

In one sense, Bridget Eileen Rivera’s Heavy Burdens is exactly what its subtitle claims: an exploration of Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church. But in another sense, this book seeks to do much more. Put simply, Heavy Burdens endeavors to present a new paradigm for the church’s theological reflection upon and ethical response to the important but also contentious issues of sexuality and gender

What does it mean to have the gift of celibacy (or singleness)? Does it mean that you don’t desire sex or marriage? Or that you’ve been given an extra booster shot of the Holy Spirit that gives you radical immunity to sexual temptation (or at least prevents you from serious spiriutal hospitalization)? What actually was Paul talking about when he said that “it’s better to marry than to burn?” (1 Cor 7:7-8).

The lessons we can learn from the ancient church about singleness are many and mighty, but they are neither simple nor straightforward. In fact, early church leaders do not offer us a singular narrative about being single. However, when we examine the Christian history of celibacy on its own terms, the conversation yields something far more complex and interesting.