Elaine Storkey begins by defending her assumption that there is a universal longing for intimacy, so that the breakdown of intimacy in both public and private domains makes a mockery of our deepest needs. Her survey of contemporary perspectives touches on four areas: (1) psychological and (2) sociological constructions of the nature of intimacy; (3) those which attribute more significance to the role of personal choice and (4) New Age concepts of connectedness. These provide a backdrop as she proceeds to portray the distinctive Christian concept of intimacy, which in her estimation subsumes all four but goes well beyond them.
What, then, are the obstacles that make attainment of intimacy so problematic? Having previously depicted a society ravaged by individualism and economism, so that this quest for intimacy necessarily involves a paddle upstream, she gives pride of place in this chapter to the role of ‘dominance and patriarchy’. Then follows a litany of personal attitudes which obstruct intimate relationships. The author proceeds to devote an entire chapter to ‘The Power of the Past’, exploring some relevant childhood experiences. Of the chapters dealing with barriers to intimacy, the last looks at gender differences and how they can hamper close relationships. The different relationships in which intimacy can be found are then each given a chapter. Storkey closes with the spotlight on the Church and the vital role it can play in addressing the human need for intimacy.
The author brings a wide range of personal social contacts to bear on an issue of vital importance to the Church and society today. She has listened with an open heart and mind to a plethora of persuasions, and therefore should be heard, especially by those who have found a cosy niche in a cloistered evangelical community. But her failure to address the ubiquitous breakdown of trust in both public and private domains helps to make her social comment superficial. When she says that ‘every act of adultery says something about lack of commitment, contemporary pressures and the restlessness around us’ (p. 33), one cannot avoid the suspicion that, despite her references to ‘troth’, she has, in the course of her empathetic dialogue with the world, absorbed more than a hint of the prevailing indifference to integrity in relationships, with a focus more on trusting than on the responsibility to be trustworthy. She says nothing about the impact of the sexual revolution on marriage intimacy and trust. And how can she fail to ask whether the quest for female dominance has only replicated the sins of patriarchy, so that in the current climate neither party is likely to bring self-sacrificial love into the relationship?
Maybe trust and integrity and sin are ‘big themes of the past’ which ‘are no longer interesting’ (p. 48), but they are necessary for achieving the kind of maturity where the citizen moves beyond being a passive consumer to assuming responsibility for moulding society. Storkey’s analysis of the present consumerist ethos fails to get at why even those in power seem to have been reduced to an entirely passive role determined by external market forces and internal sexual drives, where the possibility to ‘reshaping our community’ never seems like a real option.
However, it should be noted that Storkey excels in her chapter on gender differences, where she is obviously very much at home. Her easy and conversational style further makes for a good discussion book for small groups. Although those with deep problems in their relationships will have to look elsewhere, her hope that the book will ‘give many people the courage to make their relationships better’ should be justified.
