false 4 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun May 24 04:57:32 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 01 20:44:35 -0700 2009 Andrew Marin has on his heart to share.

But that's the nature of bridge building--connecting two disconnected sides. And from that perspective, Marin does a wonderful job.

This book was clearly written to one side of the bridge, the conservative and traditional Christian population, encouraging them to take a risk and actually love people deeply, in the way of Jesus. (What a novel idea!) Because of that, and because of the stubbornness of conservative Christians to actually take the leap of faith and the "letting go" that unconditional love requires, Marin repeats himself over and over (with minor variations on the theme) in an attempt to convey a fairly simple set of ideas.

I hope and pray it's effective, though it did make the reading a little repetitious.

Marin consistently proposes that gay and lesbian "issues" are not something that can be answered with close-ended questions and answers but rather only in the context of a relationship between individuals. I couldn't agree more.

Unfortunately I'm not hopeful that this book will have a widespread effect on the (huge) crowd of people who don't want to step outside their comfort zones and instead prefer to fire rockets of condemnation from the safety of their gated Christian communities. But to those Christians out there that are willing to ask the hard questions and be open to answers they don't expect from a God who's bigger than we can imagine, I think this book is a great field guide to help get them through the difficult part, the dive in.]]>