Detail:
Everything in our society is now viewed as disposable and not just things we buy but relationships and undesirables too, including the unborn. The great commandments to love God and our neighbor, which are greatly ignored, stand opposed to the disposing of people and relationships, while offering us a better way of living.
These commandments should prompt us to completely rethink the subject of dating and relationships. In particular, since the dominant dating culture is based on selfishness, it needs to be replaced by a culture in which friendship and love of neighbor are paramount. In doing this, we will come to realize that almost everything we’ve heard about dating and relationships is wrong. It’s really not about techniques and methodologies that promise us that special someone.
Topics to be discussed:
- characteristics of the dominant dating culture
- how Christian teaching and practice differ from that culture
- the history that led us to this point
- a better approach to relationships, in view of the great commandments
- the need for sexual morality and purity
- constructing a godly counterculture
About the presenter/author:
Daniel E. Johnson studied math and physics at the University of Virginia and earned a PhD in physics from the University of Illinois. (You can call him “Doctor” after he performs his first operation; until then, it’s “Dan.”) After that he served as an officer in the US Air Force and worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Würzburg in Germany. He currently works in the legal field in Silicon Valley (California), where he is the happy husband of one wife and the proud father of their son.
He is a scientist by profession and a philosopher at heart, a Christian who believes in an ordered universe. For him, faith and reason are complementary, not contradictory. He believes they allow us to think about things from different perspectives, to explore the world of ideas, and to arrive at deeper understanding, thereby impacting the culture.
One topic at the intersection of faith, reason, and culture that has always fascinated him is how men and women treat each other. The subject of his first book (“Disposable: When Dating Is Not Loving Your Neighbor”) is something he has been thinking about almost his entire life, although most of its content grew out of his thoughts and experiences as a young adult, prior to getting married. He has been able to test those ideas over time, arriving at a presentation that he hopes is insightful, helpful to the reader, and true to Christian values.
Recorded June 15, 2021.