Singles at the Crossroads

• One of the 1998 Academy of Parish Clergy Top Ten Books of the Year

Nearly half of adults today are unmarried. But most churches emphasize marriage and family, leaving many Christian singles feeling marginalized or alienated. Though they look to Jesus and Paul as role models, many suspect they would be more acceptable to the church--and God--if they settled down and got married.Albert Hsu challenges this view. Christian singles don't need tips on finding a mate or advice on suffering through the single life. What they need is a truly Christian understanding of singleness--a biblically grounded, theologically informed perspective that honors singleness equally with marriage and family.Moving beyond pat answers, Hsu

• debunks the myth of the "gift of singleness"
• chronicles how the church has overemphasized both singleness and marriage
• works through discerning God's will as a single Christian
• explains why searching for the right marriage partner can be misguided--even unbiblical
• grapples with loneliness, aloneness and community
• warns of common mistakes regarding dating, love and sex

Hsu draws insight from an interview with John Stott as well as from the stories of other Christian students and professionals. Ultimately, singleness is not a problem to be solved by marriage, he says; rather, like marriage, it is an opportunity in which to follow Jesus. Singles at the Crossroads points the way to a Christian community where all members are valued, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, married and single.

Albert Y. Hsu (pronounced "shee") is senior editor for IVP Books at InterVarsity Press, where he acquires and develops books in such areas as culture, discipleship, church, ministry and mission. He earned his PhD in educational studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. Al is the author of Singles at the Crossroads, Grieving a Suicide and The Suburban Christian. He has been a writer and columnist for Christianity Today and served as senior warden on the vestry of Church of the Savior in Wheaton, Illinois. He and his wife, Ellen, have two sons and live in the western suburbs of Chicago.