Title: Double-Minded: How Sex is Dividing the Australian Church
Author: Dr Mark Durie
Paperback
Price: AUD $24.99
Release date: 1 December, 2023
ISBN 978-1923067004
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In Double-Minded, Mark Durie explores the impact of the sexual revolution and changing sexual ethics upon Australian Christians, and how diverse responses to these changes are informed by differences in church governance and theology. He argues that a parting of the ways among Christians is driven by divergent understandings of what it means to be human. This timely book draws attention to deep ethical challenges facing Australian society.
Dr Mark Durie is Founding Director of the Institute for Spiritual Awareness and Senior Research Fellow at Melbourne School of Theology. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1992.
COMMENDATIONS
This highly accessible book reflects the deep scholarship and insights of its author. As we all seek to understand massive changes in our culture it superbly sets out the extraordinary divergence between modern and traditional Christian worldviews, which accounts for so much of the profound confusion that characterises our times.
– John Anderson, Former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia.
Mark Durie has provided a welcome resource on how Christians have reacted to the sexual revolution in our times. He covers the varied spectrum of Christian denominations and movements, so there is bad news and good news. While he writes calmly, describing a complex time of transition, we are confronted by the urgent question: Where do we go from here?
– Bishop Peter J. Elliott, Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus in Melbourne, and author of The Sexual Revolution, History, Ideology, Power.
This book is a masterly description of the rules and regulations of prominent Christian denominations in Australia. It reviews the sexual policies of these denominations, especially with regard to same-sex marriage, which became legal in Australia in 2017. This very useful text will enable its readers to assess relevant contemporary developments, for example, the push to adopt government-sponsored proposals to eliminate exemptions for independent religiously affiliated schools to hire people who adhere to and respect schools’ ethos and values. This book describes how proponents of secularism seek to impose their preferred sexual ethical standards on Australia’s religious groups. It also details the responses of religious denominations to these secular pressures. I strongly recommend this book to all people, progressives and conservatives alike, who are genuinely interested in the protection of religious freedom in Australia.
– Gabriël Moens, Emeritus Professor of Law, The University of Queensland.
Since the beginnings of the sexual revolutions of the 1960s, sex has assumed the centrality of a religion in Western sex-saturated societies. As Malcolm Muggeridge said, “Orgasm has replaced the cross … as the image of fulfilment”. To accommodate the new morality some denominations have adjusted their doctrines in attempts to remain socially relevant, only to discover they are now spiritually irrelevant. The evidence is in their acceleration toward oblivion. Read Mark Durie’s Double-Minded to discover what went wrong and how to avoid the death of your church.
– Stuart Robinson, Founding Pastor, Crossway Baptist.
Mark Durie has given us a great gift in combatting the religious illiteracy so prevalent in our world. He plainly and carefully outlines the Christian landscape in Australia with respect to how different church groups view human sexuality. With careful research and characteristic clarity, he makes the complicated simple and understandable to all. This will be a useful reference for those inside and outside the church alike as we navigate the future.
– Bishop Richard Condie, Anglican Diocese of Tasmania