From popular teacher and writer Bronwyn Lea, a biblical invitation to healthy male-female relationships by creating a vision beyond stilted and unhelpful don't-touch/don't-talk rules.

When it comes to relationships between men and women in the church, we've got more questions than answers. How can men and women be in community when not married? Or if married, with people not our spouses? Can men and women be "just friends"? How can we date wisely and well? What does it mean to be a woman if you're not a wife? Or a man if you're not a husband? How can we be in healthy, close relationships if we're single?

In Beyond Awkward Side Hugs, Bronwyn Lea lays out a biblical vision for relationships between men and women in the church. Jesus' pattern for church living was one of family, of brothers and sisters living in intimate, healthy community with each other. Doing so calls for character and wisdom, for charting a path toward relationships that acknowledge gender but aren't sexualized, that go beyond the awkwardness of simplistic don't-touch/don't-talk rules.

Rooted in Scripture and attested by personal and pastoral stories, Beyond Awkward Side Hugs is an invitation to relationship theology that moves beyond unhealthy, eroticized, fear-based patterns and toward gendered, generous relationships between men and women of character, loving one another as Jesus did.

The Braziller Series of Australia Poets continues with the acclaimed poet, Bronwyn Lea, deemed "the brightest light to emerge in Australian poetry" in many years (Geoffrey Lehmann, Weekend Australian) Lea's work is a brilliant mapping of the overlapping regions of our sensual, psychic and emotional worlds, presented with a linguistic and intellectual bravura that makes this a captivating collection.