To ask why Christians live together, writes Tom Breidenthal, is to ask what a Christian household is and what kind of householding Christian faith inspires. In the church today we find many different kinds of households: married couples with and without children, single parents, same-sex couples, monastic communities, people living alone. In constructing a theology of the Christian household Breidenthal begins with New Testament texts on the family and goes on to develop criteria by which we can tell the difference between households that are holy, households that fall short of holiness, and households whose basic premises rule out any possibility of holiness. He thus sheds considerable light on the essential and vexing questions of our time concerning intimacy, sexuality, community, childrearing, and the sanctifying nearness of others.
