Whoa, this was a sort-of divisive book in our group! Some took very strong offense to some of the very-Catholic ideas in the book; perhaps I'm just numb to them as we went through Catholic pre-marital counseling along with other, much more helpful courses...I've learned to just roll my eyes / ignore the Catholicisms when I see them. That said, it's sometimes dangerous to "pick and choose" what you're going to take away from a book. I thought there were some really good points made here, and the whole basis of "Theology of the Body" from whence it came, but there are some other questionable conclusions reached.
In any case, one of the small "ooh, interesting!" experiences was when it talked about gender and genitals all sharing the same root as the word "generate" - as in generating life.
"...genitals are meant to generate, and a culture that fails to respect this truth will de-generate."
From the conclusion (not sure if this was a quote or my paraphrasing answer to a Colson book-summary question):
We must recover a sense of primordial wonder at the divinely inspired beauty of the human body. We must come to recognize in the human body the revelation of the human person whose dignity demands that he or she never be used, exploited, manipulated, or discarded. We must rediscover the treasure of human sexuality and gender as a stupendous sign of the divine image in our humanity and as an invitation to use our freedom to live this divine image through the sincere gift of one’s life in marriage or in celibacy for the kingdom. And we can do all of the above precisely by pondering the profound understanding of masculinity and femininity found in the Bible, found in God’s Word made flesh in Jesus, the Christ.
03/15/2024 // NF // Kindle