On Being Family

Book excerpt: In this book, Ray S. Anderson, a pastor theologian, and Dennis B. Guernsey, a family sociologist, explore the connections that produce the marvelous, complicated and often contorted human family. The central thesis of the book is that God has placed human persons in a created order for which the covenant love of God provides the fundamental paradigm for parenting, sexuality, and marriage, and the formation of family life. From the perspective of the church as the new family of God, the human family is liberated from its own failures and fears, and each person is affirmed as having a place in God's kingdom. Through Jesus Christ, to whom we are connected by grace, we are all brothers and sisters. We are family.