Two respected senior professors in the marriage and family field cover every issue that affects family life, including marriage, parenting, sexuality, communication, social dynamics, and family life in modern society. This proven resource for studying the most established of human institutions has been in print for over twenty years, with over 80,000 copies sold. The fourth edition has been updated to address current family-related issues and refined to reflect teaching practices for the contemporary classroom, including updated references to online resources.
Praise for a Previous Edition
"An excellent resource for preachers and teachers and an obvious choice for a text in family studies in a Christian college."--"Calvin Theological Journal"

Jack and Judy Balswick offer a vision of marriage that is both profoundly spiritual and thoroughly practical for the twenty-first century.

This proven, comprehensive resource covers every issue that affects Christian family life. It has been in print for over thirty years and has sold nearly 100,000 copies. This new edition is updated throughout with discussions of recent family-related issues. It includes a new chapter on work and family balance and a new section on the increasing role grandparents take in parental responsibilities.

Sex pervades our culture, going far beyond the confines of the bedroom into the workplace, the church, and the media. Yet despite all the attention and even obsession devoted to sex, human sexuality remains confusing and even foreboding. What, after all, is authentic human sexuality? That is the question Judith and Jack Balswick set out to answer in this wide-ranging and probing book. Informed by sociology, psychology, and theology, the Balswicks investigate how human sexuality originates both biologically and socially. They lay groundwork for a normative Christian interpretation of sexuality, show how authentic sexuality is necessarily grounded in relationships, and explore such forms of "inauthentic sexuality" as sexual harassment, pornography, and rape. Since its first publication, Authentic Human Sexuality has established itself as a standard text at numerous colleges and seminaries. Now this third edition features updated theological and social science research, insights from current neuropsychological evidence, and an expanded biblical model of authentic sexual relationships, along with updated discussion of sexual minorities, same-sex attraction, and LGBTQ issues. A new generation of students, pastors, psychologists, and sociologists engaged in counseling will be indebted to the Balswicks for this study of an endlessly fascinating and perplexing facet of human identity.

Sex pervades our culture, going far beyond the confines of the bedroom into the workplace, the church and the media. Yet despite all the attention and even obsession devoted to sex, human sexuality remains confusing and even foreboding. What, after all, is authentic human sexuality? That is the question Judith and Jack Balswick set out to answer in this wide-ranging and probing book. Informed by sociology, psychology and theology, the Balswicks investigate how human sexuality originates both biologically and socially, lay groundwork for a normative Christian interpretation of sexuality, show how authentic sexuality is necessarily grounded in relationships, and explore such forms of "inauthentic sexuality" as sexual harassment, pornography and rape. Since its first publication in 1999, Authentic Human Sexuality has established itself as a standard text at numerous colleges and seminaries. While maintaining the book's overall structure, this new paper edition offers updated discussions and bibliographies throughout, including a completely new chapter on sexual development throughout the human lifespan and a substantially revised chapter on sexual beings in relationship that incorporates a trinitarian theological perspective. A new generation of students, pastors, psychologists and sociologists engaged in counseling will be indebted to the Balswicks for this updated study of this endlessly fascinating and perplexing facet of human identity.