Relationships 101: Finding True Love in Today's World

Standing on the Threshold of an Inconceivable Age: Sexuality in the 21st Century

This lecture summarizes the fundamental argument of Dale S. Kuehne’s new book, Sex and the iWorld, where he argues that the idea of confining sexual relations to a marriage relationship between one man and one woman is good news for everyone.  His lecture addresses how this understanding of sexuality became accepted wisdom in the West for millennia, why it is being discarded, and the importance of its recovery. In short, the lecture argues that there is a way for every person, regardless of religious disposition and political ideology, to find happiness by honoring boundaries of sexuality.

Reverend Dale S. Kuehne

Rev. Dale S. Kuehne is a professor of politics at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH, and holds The Richard L. Bready Chair for Ethics, Economics and the Common Good. He is also an ordained minister and pastor of Emmanuel Covenant Church in Nashua, NH, which makes him the only ordained professor of Politics in New England. He attended Wheaton College (IL), the University of Minnesota, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and received his PhD in political theory from Georgetown University in 1993.

Kuehne’s current research focuses on the relationship between Politics, Religion and Sexuality; his recent book, Sex and the iWorld: Rethinking Relationship Beyond an Age of Individualism (Baker Academic, 2009), explores these issues. In the book, he considers the impact that post-modern society has on relationships. He examines the way that Western Culture traditionally answered questions about who we are as people, the boundaries of sexuality, and the importance of relationships in promoting happiness and fulfillment (the traditional world, or ‘tWorld’). He then examines how this has changed with the sexual revolution and the advent of the individualistic ‘iWorld,’ which gives each person permission to find happiness and fulfillment in a world with as few boundaries as possible. Finally, he suggests that we will find what we are looking for not in the tWorld or the iWorld, but rather the relational ‘rWorld’, a world where the development of meaningful relationships is essential in helping us find the love and fulfillment for which we all seek.”