Hannah Felsbourg
23 August 2024
A quest to revive the theological significance of singleness in the church has culminated in Australia’s latest Christian Book of the Year.
The Meaning of Singleness offers a profound exploration of the significance of singleness within the Christian life.
The work by the Reverend Danielle Treweek was named Australian Christian Book of the Year at the annual SparkLit awards night from among a selection of 10 shortlisted works.
Dr Treweek said her pastoral ministry among single Christians revealed a lack of theological depth in the church’s teaching on singleness.
She said she suspected eschatology was an overlooked area in relation to singleness and pursued a PhD to explore the topic and write a book.
Dr Treweek said for the first 1500 years of the church, the value of the unmarried life in light of eternity was well-established, though sometimes expressed unconventionally.
She said marriage was rightly rehabilitated during the Reformation but in the process, singleness was diminished, a legacy that had persisted for the last 500 years.
She was surprised to realise that her instinct was a deep memory within Christian tradition. As she explored further, she discovered that these ideas were not new but incredibly old.
Read more: A challenge to shallow reflection on place of singleness in the Christian tradition
Dr Treweek said that while single Christians needed the church, the church also needed single Christians.
Her book explored the importance of singleness now in light of the life to come, where believers would all be single.
She said being single here and now served as a foreshadowing of what Christians’ relationships would be like as resurrected men and women who were not married.
Dr. Treweek said the book was meant to spark conversations, encouraging readers to discuss its ideas with one another.
“The book was only ever designed to be a conversation starter, a way for us to actually enter into a new, biblically faithful, yet imaginative conversation,” Dr Treweek said.
“It’s meant to exercise our theological imaginations, informing how we think about, understand, love, value, and dignify single people in the church.”
Judges praised Dr Treweek for taking on sacred cows and naming Christian leaders who veered away from the Bible to privilege marriage and devalue singleness.
“Dani presents us with a vision of the church that is far more inclusive and faithful to Scripture,” said the judges.
“Taken seriously, this book will change the way churches operate, preachers preach, Christian organizations act, friends befriend, and, crucially, how we love and are loved.”
22 August 2024
The Meaning of Singleness by Danielle Treweek has been named the Australian Christian Book of the Year for 2024.
The book offers a profound exploration of the significance of singleness within the Christian life.
Judges said it was a work of tremendous scholarship and intellectual acuity. By adopting the perspective of our destiny rather than origin Treweek demonstrated that in church history and Christian theology singleness had the same eternal significance as marriage.
The Meaning of Singleness was among the 10 titles nominated for this year’s award, including Finding God in Suffering by Monash City Church of Christ teaching minister Siu Fung Wu, and Jesus Sophia by Pilgrim Theological College lecturer Sally Douglas.
The 2024 Australian Christian Teen Writer award went to Evannah Stark for The Nightmares. The Torment. The Peace.
The 2024 Young Australian Christian Writer award went to Shannae Ku for Dusty Wings.
Read more: Uniting two worlds: Australia’s latest Christian Book of the Year
The Australian Christian Book of the Year award recognises and celebrates books that contribute significantly to the spiritual life of Australians. It is awarded by SparkLit, an organisation which empowers Christian writers, publishers, and booksellers worldwide.
Among the other works nominated for the 2023 awards were In the Midst of Much-Doing by Charles Ringma, A Curious Machine edited by Arseny Ermakov and Glen O’Brien, Mission is the Shape of Water by Michael Frost.
Other nominees included Growth and Change by Andrew Heard and Geoff Robson, Meditations on Creation in an Era of Extinction by Kate Rigby, Searching for Paradise by Charles Nombo Lapa and Janet Dickson, and The Discipline of Suffering by Katherine Thompson.
In 2023 the award went to Biblical Critical Theory by Christopher Watkin.
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Correction: An earlier version of the article incorrectly named Evannah Stark’s book as “The Nightmares. The Torment. And the pain.” The correct title is, “The Nightmares. The Torment. The Peace.”
