Review of The Intimate Mystery: Creating Strength and Beauty in Your Marriage by Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III
Oren Martin and Barak Tjader
This book review appears in the Annotated Bibliography for Gender-Related Books in 2005, JBMW Volume 11 No. 2.
Category: Egalitarian - classifies evangelicals who see undifferentiated equality (i.e., they see no scriptural warrant for affirming male headship in the home or the church).
This title looks to Genesis to unpack the "leave-weave-cleave matrix" of marriage. Allender and Longman seem to be on solid footing as they suggest that the relational aspect of marriage is reflective of intra-Trinitarian relationships that are ontologically equal yet different in function. However, by this the authors simply mean that marriage should be lived out in a self-sacrificial and giving framework. Allender and Longman then develop a model of marriage that is strictly egalitarian in decision-making and structure.
