Dennis Hiebert - Sweet Surrender: How Cultural Mandates Shape Christian Marriage

I remember well the author who, in his acknowledgments, observed that above all others, he needed to acknowledge himself, without whose help his graduate students could never have written the book. Most honest authors, I surmise, have a profound sense that they do not write alone, that they are merely the synthesizer and scribe whose fingers happen to be the last on the keyboard, and that theirs is simply the name and face at the end of an indeterminately long line of inputs. I cannot possibly acknowledge adequately all whose voice and wisdom are re-presented however inadequately here. I cannot even cop out and say they know who they are, because they may not. I can only, as I must, name but a few.

I have taught a course in Marriage and Family at Providence University College in Canada for over twenty years, with visiting stops in Russia, Ukraine, Kenya, and other institutions along the way. First acknowledgment must therefore go to the administrators of Providence UC, who have not only granted me the professional opportunity to research, write, and teach, but more specifically granted me my most recent sabbatical leave, during which the skeleton of the following pages first came together. The many students over the years who absorbed the brunt of my pedagogical passions and helped me refine these ideas deserve equal salutation.

Other groups, forums, and conferences, such as the Association of Christians Teaching Sociology, have heard earlier, partial iterations of these ideas, and provided useful feedback. The most informative and formative feedback came from a benevolent and faithful cadre of readers who critiqued earlier drafts of chapters as I completed them. Al Thiessen, Kurt Armstrong, Scott Monsma, Michael Gilmour, Patti Parker, John McNeill, Al Hiebert, Marilyn Neufeld, Chris Summerville, and Jeff Wheeldon all read significant portions of the drafts and offered valuable comments and suggestions, each from their own unique perspective. All have enhanced what in its limitations remains mine.

My former student and now friend Jordan Ross exercised his attention to detail in providing invaluable editorial assistance. My colleague and friend Val Hiebert (no relation) served as the primary sounding board for the content as it took form and voice, and her more practical wisdom is woven throughout. She also buttressed my will whenever it wavered, and without her encouragementno, insistencethat I write this book it may well not have happened.

My wife, Judy, has been the primary enabler of this project, being generous in time and space and support. That is probably true of the spouses of most writers, but doubly so when the topic is marriage. Judy has been my sole, personal, lived experience of marriage, not just the first reader of my thoughts on marriage. Despite initial misgivings about the project, her growing enthusiasm freed and fueled my own. This book is not our story, but it is now part of our story, and I could not be more grateful to her and for her, and for so much more.

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