“A War of Loves” by David Bennett was originally reviewed on my personal Instagram page on August 7th, 2020.
This book was mentioned by someone at Alive in Christ. When I saw it is available through the library’s audio book app, I thought I’d give it a listen.
This is a very good book! I contacted a ministry friend from Australia (where the author is from) to ask if by chance she might have met David. She said they “got on like a house on fire!” (That’s a good thing, by the way 😀)
I agreed with 90% of this book, perhaps even more. David Bennett is extremely solid on theology. I even recommended this book earlier this week to a friend who has a gay loved one. If we believe in traditional biblical sexuality, isn’t that unfair to him, that he never gets to experience romantic love? David has a solid answer to this as well as many other questions. He also added new things to this conversation (and that’s saying a lot because I’ve read a lot of these books!).
What I’m noticing about the younger generation (I’d say mid-30’s and younger) is they are not as concerned with or even interested in whether or not there might be contributing factors to their same-sex attraction. They seem to mostly view their sexuality as a fixed orientation. I believe all areas of our lives should be open to the transformation of Jesus Christ (I write about why transformation matters in our March/April 2025 newsletter). I’m not saying David doesn’t believe this as well. It’s simply less clear in the way he discusses the topic. David also uses the term “conversion therapy” often, which makes me hesitate for the reasons I mentioned in my thoughts on the book “Born Again This Way.” And I don’t love Christians identifying as gay (here). That said, I felt David gave the most thorough explanation for why he chooses to identify as a gay celibate Christian. It made a lot of sense to me, more than any other reasons I’ve heard, even though I still land in a different place.
All in all a worthwhile read for sure 🙂
You can read other book reviews here.