If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
JRR Tolkien
Today concludes this 4 part series. However, we have many stories that have been shared by our readers. So, we plan to post one or two of these stories on some Tuesdays and Sundays until all of them have been posted. Also, I am planning on contacting the local Catholic bishop to get his views on the role of singles and the church. I was surprised at the number of comments we received which indicated that the Catholic church welcomes and utilizes singles in their ministry. Of course, the entire church hierarchy is single and celibate which may be the reason for their success with singles. Also, if we have forgotten a particular topic or if you would like to write your story, please let us know.
I found an interesting resource for single Christians on line and I am not talking about a dating service! It is called Table For One Ministries link and is run by PJ Dunn who has a calling to serve single adults. Here is how this site is described.
Home alone and hungry? Single adults will go as far as eating meals in their cars after picking up take-out, scouring their pantry to hope to find something edible or reach for a frozen meal that now comes in “single serving” just to avoid the table for one scenario. As a Christ follower, this should not be the case! With Christ we are never alone and never forgotten. Table for One Ministries exist to build community for single adults through discipleship. Our goal is to see single adults come to Christ, follow Him, and build communities that accept single adults. While marriage may be in the plan for some singles, the fact is that while you are single your mission should not be marriage. Your mission is to grow your relationship with God and go on mission for Him! Join Table for One Ministries as we seek to educate singles of God’s Word in context of the single life and connect singles to communities of believers that also seek to do the same.
PJ impressed me with his goals for this ministry. He calls himself a tentmaker, meaning he will not collect a salary through this organization. (What a breath of fresh air- may your tribe increase!)
According to the 2010 Census, the average age for men to marry is 29 and women 27. This has only increased in the past 20 years to record level highs. The local church wants to reach out to ”young adults” yet they don’t understand it is the single adults who make up the majority of that population now. It is no longer young marrieds or young families. And when it comes to older single adults, the church does not know how to handle messy divorces or singles who may never marry. Out of this situation came Table for One Ministries. A ministry focused on singles and awakening local churches to the need for single adult ministry awareness.
My heart for this ministry to reach singles for Christ, equip singles with Word, empower singles to be bold for Christ, and awaken churches to the need to reach singles. I have chosen to be a “tent maker” in this journey, meaning I will earn a living for me and my family outside of this ministry. That way every dollar given goes directly to singles who need to hear about God’s love.
There is an interesting page on statistics regarding singles that should capture the attention of churches.Here are a few points.
102 million: Number of unmarried people in America 18 and older in 2011. This group comprised 44.1 percent of all U.S. residents 18 and older.
53%: Percentage of unmarried U.S. residents 18 and older who were women in 2011; 47 percent were men.
55 million: Number of households maintained by unmarried men and women in 2011. These households comprised 46 percent of households nationwide.
33 million: Number of people who lived alone in 2011. They comprised 28 percent of all households, up from 17 percent in 1970.
13.6 million: Number of unmarried parents living with their children in 2011. Of these, 10.0 million were unmarried mothers and 1.7 million were unmarried fathers, and 1.9 million were unmarried couples with at least one shared child.
There is a developing resource page link with suggested reading materials as well as a blog link.
Sacred Friendship
The blog portion of the website had an intriguing post on The Discipline of a Sacred Friendship. Here is how he introduces the post.
One of the few things that Hollywood has gotten right over the past few years is tapping into the “friendship factor” among young single adults. On any given evening, you can find numerous TV programs that depict a community of young adult friends (male and female) sharing life together as a “family” in a postmodern world; these shows may have different titles, but the setup is always the same. While the lifestyle and moral choices of these characters are certainly not biblically informed, the fact remains that they represent a generation of adults who are longing for committed friendships.
In this post he discusses the relationship between David and Jonathan.
The last characteristic of a sacred friendship is the result of a relationship built on a spiritual foundation, expressed in unconditional love, and sustained openness and honesty. This is a description of covenantal commitment. Even though David and Jonathan had drawn a formal covenant (1 Sam 20:16), their friendship was a testimony to the covenant even before it was sworn. Sacred friendships persevere over time, trials, differences, and distance. Every moment in David’s life was influenced by his relationship with Jonathan, and David remained true to their covenant even after his dear friend’s death.
Intentional Communities
When I met with Justin Lee of the Gay Christian Network, he discussed how difficult it is for some to remain celibate beyond the sexual aspect. He said that it is hard to go home every night and be alone. There is often no one to talk to over the dinner table and no one with whom to share your day to day life. One may be invited to homes for holidays but that does not make up for the daily solitude.
Justin brought up the idea of a covenantal community which would be made up of people who are single and committed to celibacy. It would be a home for those who want some sort of committed family-like relationships. I searched the internet and was unable to find a distinctly Christian community that reflects this sort of living community although I am sure they are out there. However, there does some to be some interest growing for intentional communities in a broad spectrum of society link.
Communities come in all shapes and sizes, and share many similar challenges — such as defining membership, succeeding financially, distributing resources, making decisions, raising children, dividing work equitably, and choosing a standard of living. Many wrestle with questions about right livelihood, spiritual expression, land use, and the role of service in our lives. At the same time, there is limited awareness of what others are doing to meet these challenges — and much to gain through sharing information and experiences with others exploring similar paths. The Fellowship documents the visions and experiences of life in community, and actively promotes dialogue and cooperation among communities.
This sort of community might not be for everyone. However, it is one more possibility that churches might explore.
I want to end this post with a story of singleness by Natalie Trust. She has a wonderful blog about her life link and often comments at TWW. I promise to post all of the stories that were sent to us.
Pain. Greeters and coffee. Smiles. Pain. Handshakes and names. Pain. Sermon and communion. Pain. Get in the car and drive home. Relief.
I’m not doing this anymore. This is crazy. I think this same thought over and over. But I’m a Christian, and Christians are supposed to go to church, right?
After the dissolution of my marriage, I began to panic about Sunday morning around 3:30pm every Saturday afternoon. I also stressed over the whole church situation throughout the week at sporadic times, and especially during that awkward exchange that happened every now and then, and went something like, “So, Natalie, where do you go to church?”
“Oh, I’ve been going to Imago Dei.” My response wasn’t quite a lie because I had been going…I had been going at one point in the not-too-distant past. “It is a really great church. Where are you going to church?” I quickly tried to deflect the question and place the burden of an answer on the other person. This process would repeat itself, and I would always get out of explaining the truth.
The truth was that going to church, as a once married, now newly single person was incredibly painful. I didn’t feel comfortable going to worship in the same place that I had gone week after week with a man who had led a double life. I couldn’t take communion because it triggered me; I had an immediate flashback. I didn’t want to see other young couples in front of me during the service, and I didn’t want to pass by them as they strolled hand in hand through the parking lot. I was simply trying to survive every day, and if I was going to make it then I needed to stop reopening wounds when it wasn’t necessary. I needed to walk away.
If I couldn’t go to the actual church service, maybe I could still find support from the church body at Imago Dei, at least that’s what I hoped when I went to try out a group called, “Women’s Healing Journey”. I had heard that the group helped to support women who were involved with someone that had an addiction to pornography or who had been abused or had experienced a myriad of other issues. It just so happened to be my 23rd birthday when I attended this group for the first time. I had no idea what to expect when I arrived at the church, but I certainly didn’t expect to leave feeling more alone than before.
For starters there was no welcoming. It was awkward even attending a meeting such as this, but then to just silently sit in a pew wondering what the hell you’re even doing there, the anger boiling within you toward the person who caused you to seek out a meeting like this in the first place; it just didn’t get off to a good start for me. So, I’m sitting there feeling horribly alone and embarrassed, and a woman starts passing out programs with worship song lyrics.
Seriously? Great. My discomfort grew, as I held the piece of paper in my hands. Another woman went up on the stage with a guitar and started singing. I really wish there had been something said to acknowledge why we were all there, but nothing was said. Half-hearted voices filled the air. My voice was absent. It hurt too much to sing.
Once the singing was over, a woman (who ended up being the leader of the group) got up to share her story. The short of it was this: Her husband had been in church leadership (not at Imago Dei), and had affairs with several women in the church. Apparently leading with integrity and God’s heart wasn’t working out so well for him; he decided to give the role of God over to his penis. I continued listening to this terrible story, and she shared from her heart about how difficult it was to be betrayed. Yet, in the end, their marriage was able to be restored and she was encouraging the rest of us that God can do miracles in our lives.
I agreed with her, in that I believed that God was capable of miracles, but her words also made me feel alone. I felt alone because I wondered, “What about people like me? What happens when there is no repentance? What happens when there is not a ‘miracle’ in the broken marriage?”
Thank heaven we didn’t break into small groups after that to discuss her story, but she did open up for questions or comments. I listened as other women spoke. Each woman that said something made me feel ill, some more than others. Not ill because I felt they were stupid or because I was envious that my own marriage had no hope for repair, but ill because all I heard was codependency and doubt of their own moral compass.
One woman, she must have been in her late fifties, early sixties said, “Well, you know, I have known for years and years that my husband has been involved with pornography, strip clubs, adultery, you name it. And I’ve come to realize that all I can really do is pray.” I wanted to leap over the pew and rip the wedding ring off of her finger. I wanted her to get a reality check. I wanted this woman to know that her marriage ended when her husband chose lust, other women, and addiction over her and over God repeatedly without repentance of any kind. I wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to continue living like this.
The leader of the group responded to this woman’s statement with a knowing nod, and this incensed me even more. Why wasn’t anyone speaking up? Why didn’t someone take a stand and say, “No, prayer isn’t always enough in certain situations. It might sound like the Christian thing to say, but you need to examine why you are allowing him to disrespect you, repeatedly, in such an intimate way.”
When the meeting was finally over, I caught the group leader’s attention to let her know I wouldn’t be filling out any of their forms or returning to the group; it just wasn’t the right fit for me. The leader was polite, but didn’t engage me in conversation about why I wouldn’t be returning. She never offered another way that the Imago Dei community could support me. That was that.
Now I do know that the “Women’s Healing Journey” group is still in existence, and perhaps it is far more welcoming and beneficial to women who really need the church to rally around them. Hurting women need to be loved and supported exactly where they are at. They need the church to walk with them through their journey…whether there is a miracle in the end or not.
What were my other options in that church community? Well, sure I was college age, but that didn’t sound like a fit; most twenty-three year olds hadn’t been through a failed marriage. I wasn’t a mother so I couldn’t be in a moms group. I wasn’t grieving the death of a loved one so one of those groups wouldn’t work either. Where was I to go?
Someone who is single, and dealing with intense emotional trouble has nowhere to go in the Evangelical church. Nowhere to go. At least, this was my experience. I’m not exactly sure what the church can do to address this issue but here are a few of my suggestions:
A) Don’t assume every single person desires to be a part of a singles
group-no matter their age!
B) When a single person, whether they have been through something as
painful and life changing as I had or not, comes to you and gives feedback about a group, don’t just tuck the feedback in the back of your mind. Please ask them to coffee or lunch or something to hear more of THEIR story. We need to be heard in the church.
C) Don’t point us to a home community before knowing more of our story first, without knowing it; you may be pushing us into another awkward and painful experience, putting a spotlight on our single situation in front of more strangers.
My absence from the church lasted for several years until one day I found my way home. But that’s another story.
Lydia's Corner: Joshua 7:16-9:2 Luke 16:1-18 Psalm 82:1-8 Proverbs 13:2-3
Eagle,
I saw Owen’s post yesterday. Ugh!
Eagle
There are about 5 people who have already taken him to task for this.I think someone at Christianity Today is onto it as well. If I hadn’t needed to finish up on the singles post I would have as well. What a pile of malarky.
Eagle, that’s a beautiful story — thank you for sharing it. My husband and I are deeply thankful for the single Christians in our lives. There is one young lady we are close to who considers herself not to be an ex-christian exactly, but who struggles with many aspects of fundagelical christianity as you, and many of us here, do. She is one of the most honest people we know and I wouldn’t trade her friendship for anything.
I wish I had had more committed friendships in my early 20s when I went through an extremely painful break-up with my fiance (he joined an SGM-like cult in Austalia and I was clearly and suddenly not spouse material any longer). It felt like no-one knew what to do with me anymore — so the easiest thing was to pretend I didn’t exist. Church folk were visibly embarrassed in my presence and quite obviously didn’t know how to talk to me. Some of my old friends were still there, but, all-in-all, I would say that about 1/2 the people I knew just dropped off the map. It was particularly galling a few years later when I did marry a great guy that I immediately became “persona grata” again — just when I actually HAD love, support, kindness etc. from my dear husband. I wanted to ask where everyone had been when I was sad and lonely. Or shout that, as a single woman, I ALREADY was a whole person — I didn’t suddenly become one at the altar.
Wow. Natalie, thanks.
During the seven years that I was a member of my former church (2 1/5 of those as a leader), I can count on one had (with an exception I’ll get to in a minute) the number of times I was asked out to lunch/dinner or asked over to someone’s house. Often, after church, I would sit in my car, watching groups leaving and feel so alone. Many times, I just sat there and cried.
The exception: About six years in, two people who, during my time there had both gotten divorced, spouses left, and then these two got married. And I was happy for them. They began having me over on Saturday nights for dinner and prayer. It was great. He was also a guitar player. We played together on the praise team. But after a couple of months, he essentially told me I needed to find different friends and the Saturdays were over. No explanation. No warning. I felt so inadequate – like I had somehow failed the friendship test. I see now that I’m not the one who failed that test, but that hurt.
About the original post: it’s true that Hollywood sometimes shows friends supporting each other, but Hollywood also frequently supports the myth that single people of opposite genders can not remain platonic friends, and that a single woman and a married man will always have an affair.
These views are also common in American Christian culture.
The results is that unmarried woman (and men) remain very cut-off and alone.
When every one assumes you (a single woman) will have sex with a married man, what happens is that married men will not even say “hello” to you, and some Christian wives treat you with suspicion. So you usually do not get invited over for a cup of coffee by these people. There is no fellowship.
Some preachers and Christian dating advice authors advise Christian single (as well as married men) to never associate with single Christian women, because it will always lead to sex (it is assumed).
Christian single women are therefore portrayed or suspected as being harlots who are just waiting to pounce on married men for lusty affairs (we’re not).
I’m very sorry for what Natalie went through.
Regarding her comment:
One common stereotype by some Christians of unmarried Christians is that we cannot resist sexual desire. We singles are assumed to be sexually impure.
Comments like that by Natalie are a reminder that sometimes Christian married people fall into sexual sin.
Being married does not make a Christian immune from sexual sin, but many pastors act like it does.
@Jeannette Altes:
That’s so horrible! It makes me wonder if what @Daisy said applied to the “friends” who dumped you that quickly.
It seems to go back to the issue that, while some of us single people would love to associate with the church as a whole, some churches are so repressed (in that way) that they assume the singles are horny, lustful beings who will quickly and inevitably tempt married persons to stumble. Thus, they must be isolated into a singles’ group (or just isolated all by themselves in some cases).
Thanks, Natalie, for sharing your experiences.
It’s sad when everything gets so segmented that, in what should be a safe place for anyone to fit in anywhere, we end up being reduced to a series of labels so that some of us fit in nowhere. I’d like to think I’m more than a string of automatic sort codes for being slotted into “appropriate” ministry programs. But some churches I’ve gone to, that’s the way it is and The People In Charge simply don’t know how to engage people like me who are straddlegories not one category. Tis a shame … when “unity” is about beliefs and not behaviors or relationships or discipleship.
Eagle wrote:
To me, the topics are kind of related, so it’s not too off topic, IMO.
Unmarried Christian women over 30 years of age are relegated to “Non Person” status in lots of Christian communities because most churches only have room for the so-called “biblical womanhood” model, women who are married with children.
From RHE’s page:
Shades of Falwell’s Tinky Winky’s purse controversy.
When I was about five years old, I defended a boy in my class who brought a female baby doll with him to school and played with it.
Other kids were picking on him for it, he began to cry, and I stood up for him. I didn’t think it was okay to hurt his feelings because he liked to play with a doll.
RHE also quotes Strachan as saying,
How bizarre. Also, I think he is investing Sesame Street with too much credit. It’s a kid’s show with puppets, for crying out loud.
@ Jeannette Altes:
Oh Jeannette, I am so sorry for what happened to you. The actions alone would be hurtful, but then no explanation? So painful, especially when you thought you had found community.
@ brad/futuristguy:
brad/futuristguy wrote:
Yes, very well said. It is so hard to feel like you don’t belong anywhere.
@ Josh: My experience – such as it is – is that single people over a certain age are viewed as more or less asexual beings.
At least, that’s how I feel that I was treated.
numo wrote:
I agree. That does happen.
There are also assumptions by lots of Christians that singles over age 30 / 35 are either sexually promiscuous, ranging to the other extreme, to the view that we lack any and all sexual desire, or are not interested in sex at all.
Some Christians assume if you have not married by 40 years of age, that God lifts and removes all sexual desire, or desire for marriage, completely away. None of that has been true for me or other older singles I’ve met online.
There’s also a fairly common assumption by Non- Christians that older, Christian single celibates do not want sex, or never did want to have sex, and those assumptions are untrue too.
Just because I have remained sexually pure this long does not mean I am against sex, or that I don’t want to have it, or that I always find it easy to resist sexual temptations / urges, or that I never experience those urges.
http://kinnon.tv/2013/02/church-livestock.html
great read
Thank you for your story, Natalie. Are you by chance in the Portland, OR area? I only ask because we have visited Imago Dei in Portland a few times. If so, you’re welcome at our house any time (we live on the west side). Or, if you’d like to meet up and talk, I’m more than willing to drive into Portland. Please feel free to ask for my email to contact me. Whoever works behind the scenes, please pass it on.
@ Kathi:
Yes, I live outside of Portland. How kind of you to welcome me into your home! If you’d like, send me your contact info through my contact page( on my blog), and we’ll connect in person!
@ Dee
I think you did a great job putting this series together. I appreciate that you opened up your space to converse about singles and the church. I sure was surprised by some of the directions that spun, and I appreciate your effort in covering as many aspects as possible.
Also, thank you for the chance to share part of my story here. I never thought the day would come when I would be brave enough to publicly share. Thank you for providing the opportunity to exercise courage.
Per Strachan’s doll article:
I read all the responses linked by Evans and they were all great…esp. Murray’s as he is a dad. What was sad, however, was seeing a commenter on Murray’s article jump down his throat. “So did God screw up when he gave men and women different parts? There’s something feminine about nurturing children” (paraphrase). He also objected to Murray’s description of his wife riding a Harley and lifting weights (more weight than Murray can) because this violated a “gentle and quiet spirit.” And yes, the objecting commenter was…(drum roll please)…male.
I honestly cannot see how these guys can object to a boy playing with dolls as practice for his future fatherhood…and then simultaneously say, “Well, yeah, husbands can help around the house and change diapers.” If you encourage your boys to reject “girl stuff” and go play with trucks and guns for their own sake, guess what? When they have to do “girl stuff” later in life, involving their real child and not just a doll, they won’t want to do it because you’ve ingrained it into their brain that it’s “not for boys.” Thus the source of the cultural assumption(s) that produced Strachan’s post.
And no, I don’t buy the argument that somehow nurturing training is inherent in “watching their father lead his family like Christ,” at least not the way that’s often played out in real-life, on-the-ground comp homes.
Also, I’m CBMW’s worst nightmare because I’m the only thing worse than a boy who plays with a dolls…a girl who couldn’t stand playing with dolls and played with dinosaurs instead. : )
Eagle
Beautiful email. I am so gald that he, and you, stuck with it.
Hippimama
This was insightful
” Church folk were visibly embarrassed in my presence and quite obviously didn’t know how to talk to me. Some of my old friends were still there, but, all-in-all, I would say that about 1/2 the people I knew just dropped off the map. It was particularly galling a few years later when I did marry a great guy that I immediately became “persona grata” again”
Jeannette
I am so sorry. I cannot fathom anyone dropping a friend like that.
Hester
“He also objected to Murray’s description of his wife riding a Harley and lifting weights (more weight than Murray can) because this violated a “gentle and quiet spirit.” And yes, the objecting commenter was…(drum roll please)…male.”
This commenter must drinking at the well of Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood which has some of the most bizarre comments within! Piper’s totally off kilter and bizarre view on the problems with muscular women come from this book.
Women should be lifting weights according to most physicians. After the age of 40, bone stength and density decline and weights, along with Calcium are considered routine medical advice.Once these people leave the rarified confines of their comp seminaries and churches such statements would be laughed at.
As for me, I am one of the few females that loved The Three Stooges.
I’m convinced that Swanson and these CBMW dudes went to the same school. They are looking for anything to push their agenda. It always cracks me up and maddens me at the same time when I start seeing their tweets promoting the latest biblical manhood/woman” agenda-pushing article. If you look at the retweets and favorites, 90% of them are from men. Hmmm, wonder why?
Boy are they trying hard to resurrect the old strict gender role gravy train. The way they do it is to insult. And Owen is perfect for the job. He is young, been trained in the bubble so his thinking is ghetto. He is Bruce Ware’s son in law and no one is more insulting about women than Bruce Ware. He is the one that teaches that women are made in the “indirect image of God” They are a “derivitave”.
Think about that one long and hard. Could it not be gleaned from that he believes men are the real direct image of God and women secondary in image? Their image really comes from man? He uses a bizarre interpretation of 1 Corin 11 to back it up. Right. A cultural passage about head coverings.
After he preached that at Denton Bible church a few years back, Denny Burke did a post on it (affirming it, of course, and there ended up with `1000 comments. The comments were making Ware look like a wacko nutcase. There were Greek/Hebrew scholars on there refuting everything. Denny finally deleted everything. The comment section was not going well.
So, they are going to try this again. CBMW is up and running. They have their well trained boy sychophant to be the voice of maturity.
Social media is not exactly great for this movement. Too many Greek and Hebrew scholars do not agree with their exegesis. Guess they will have to try and make sure to call it gossip to read other sites that rebut them and not have comments themselves. Good luck.
Julie Anne, This movement attracts men who are not real secure in themselves. The way they elevate themselves is to ingrain a pecking ordern into everything that elevates them. They do it under the guise of “love”.
The bottomline is from Gen 3 on, Satan has a special hate for women. These guys simply help Satan carry that out evoking it as godly. They are blind guides.
They have taken what is sin from the fall and repackaged it to sell it as virtue to elevate themselves. That is all it is.
And if you disagree, you believe in androgyny and homosexuality as the norm. It is the typical propaganda ploy.
Anon 1 wrote:
Heh heh heh, that’s an understatement. 🙂
Having these buffoons exposing themselves as unscholarly misogynists via social media is just too wonderful for words! May they all keep typing their little fingers off and creating a target-rich environment.
Thanks so much for linking to our page! Table for One Ministries was created to build community for single adults though discipleship! So glad you have read our page and seen that conveyed in everything we do. Please e-mail me at tableforone@tableforonenministries.com and I would love to help you in any way we can. 🙂
-PJ Dunn
http://www.tableforoneministries.com
Anon 1 wrote:
doubleplusgoodthinkers doubleplusbellyfeel INGSOC.
Anon 1 wrote:
They LOVE to be the ones on top, Penetrating, Conquering, Planting, while the Little Woman (with Handmaid on lap) gasps and praises them for being such Studs.
Wasn’t there a chapter-and-verse about “Woe to you who call evil good”?
Just like a high school locker room. “FAAAAG!!! FAAAAAAAAAG!!!!! FAAAAAAAAAAAAG!!!!!!!”
@ Natalie:
Natalie, I Love the way you tell your story, and how you invite us who read it into our own story with your insights & questions.
@ Jeannette Altes:
How awful. I bet it was his problem. Makes me angry.
Dee and Deb,
I posted a link in the comments for Tuesday’s post to Challies’ new post about SGM/Mahaney. It seems that the Gospel Coalition silence has broken, slightly. Very very slightly.
I was married, but was made to feel as if I was a dangerous woman when I met with my ex pastor, I had no problem that he left the door to his office open when he was counseling me, but there was some nonsense going on back in the day that a man shouldn’t look a woman in the eyes when he was talking with her. It was bizarre, as I look back on it, there I was pouring my heart out and he is looking at the book shelves or whatever. I can just imagine what that would do to someone who is single. Makes one feel like a non-person or a seductress who is not to be trusted.
From Strachan:
“This carries all the way through the Scripture, with the apex of this distinctiveness seen in marriage, the picture of the gospel, as a man loves his wife sacrificially, in essence undoing the curse that fell upon humanity after Adam failed in this regard.
Gender distinctions, in other words, carry all the way through, and are the foundation of the social relationship that speaks of the love of Christ for his church.”
It’s the “Marriage Preaches The Gospel” argument. So you poor saps er uh singles can ONLY hope to get married some day so that you, too, will be privileged to “picture” the gospel and “speak” of the love of Christ! 🙂
Deb and Dee, thanks for this series.
Anyone thinking about joining an intentional Christian community should do some research on similar communities which existed from the 1960’s through the 1980’s. That will make you think twice before joining one. I’d also recommend reading Julia Duin’s most recent book, Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community, which focuses on the late Graham Pulkingham, a leader of charismatic renewal in the Episcopal Church, and communities he started in Houston, the UK and western Pennsylvania. Sadly, Pulkingham also led a double life and was under inhibition (suspension) at the time of his death in 1993.
http://www.juliaduin.com/books/daysoffireandglory/
From Strahan’s article: “God makes mankind distinct from himself, of course, which is our foundation for differentiation. Beyond this, the very first fact of humanity is that man and woman are distinct.”
There it is, people: he is actually drawing the parallel of Man-God and Woman-notGod. According to Strahan, men are different from women not simply biologically, but functionally in the same way that God and creation are different. (I wonder what he says about intersex people – those born with both male and female genitalia. Maybe he things that they don’t exist and are just confused because of the feminist and homosexual agenda???)
@ Dee:
Oh yeah, definitely drunk deep from the well. He objected because Murray basically said his wife was stronger than he was and rode a motorcycle. Frankly, she sounded kinda ripped from his description. Apparently a woman being athletic and riding a motorcycle was not “gentle and quiet” enough for the commenter. I think Murray sensed that arguing would be pointless because his response was quite short. Overall, I was heavily reminded of Piper’s odd statements about muscular women at the gym.
Another blogger who rebutted Strachan told how her son, when he was a toddler, used to carry around a doll on his shoulders like his dad had carried him around. Now I’m sorry, but that is adorable and heartwarming and I don’t care who you are. Anyone who would condemn that and still honestly claim to reflect the fatherhood of God in their teaching is nuts. And that kid will probably make a great dad if that instinct isn’t squelched out of him later on by dumb notions about manhood and nurturing.
Addendum @ Dee:
Also, I have a feeling that I would be out on the “gentle and quiet” count…as would you, Dee. We are entirely too loud and passionate. Blogs = NOT gentle and quiet. ; )
And let’s just not mention that one of the fruits of the Spirit is gentleness…which means men should be gentle too.
He is either getting his point across very poorly or he is saying that marriage, as a picture of the gospel, and a man loving his wife sacraficially IS the vehicle that undoes the curse ?!?!? Someone tell me I’m reading that wrong, otherwise he is saying the “gospel marriage” saves! Does he not know there is only One who undoes the curse.
@ TAGD:
Yep, that definitely reflects Ware’s “derivative image” teaching. Very telling since, as Anon 1 pointed out, Strachan is Ware’s son-in-law. And if women are as different from men as humans are from God, shouldn’t expect men to be incomprehensible to women? God, after all, is to some degree incomprehensible/unknowable to humans. And if this holds true, then how come so many men complain that they can’t understand women? Shouldn’t they be able to see right through us poor, simple creatures?
I’m sure the above is a little bit of a reductio ad absurdum…so to put it more simply: Strachan’s idea is nowhere spelled out in Scripture. Just like the comparison of husband/wife to Father/Son in the Trinity.
@ Bridget:
Someone should tell him that the curse is only truly undone in heaven (“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”)…at which point there is no marriage and thus no gender roles. Ergo if he wants to have the most accurate rendition of a curse-free environment in his house, he should become a celibate egalitarian. : D
Addendum @ TAGD:
Intersex people don’t exist in their world. I’d love to see the response (and the facial expression) if they were ever asked about them or were confronted by a real live intersex person.
And if they somehow think they’re a “new” thing – I read a story once about a “true hermaphrodite” (historical terminology) from the Virginia colony in the 1620s/1630s, in a book about the Martin’s Hundred site. He/she caused quite a lot of consternation, as you might imagine.
Hester wrote:
I’ve deleterated parts of that quote as I simply don’t deign to waste my time answering a fool according to his folly (we all know of whom I speak here). I simply wish to add my own variation on this theme – our son, who is now 13, used to push a toy pushchair around the garden when he was two, copying both me and Lesley pushing him around in a rather bigger one.
It’s true that he didn’t do that for long, and now spends much of his time playing Zombie Alien Splatfest Wars Of Doom in collaboration with his friends on Skype. But hey.
Oh, and a bit of unrelated good news: earlier this week I replaced both 1-GB memory modules with 4-GB ones and our Mac now goes like the clappers again!
Yes, I thought you’d all be excited about that.
Speaking of people educated in bubbles and invested with unrealistic levels of glamour, prestige and credibility, can anybody think of an anagram for the following phrase?
Ah… screw-on tan…
Or
kick NBC blue
When my son was little he liked to play with his big sisters dolls and she didn’t. He now is in law inforcement and she’s in early childhood education.
brad/futuristguy wrote:
I so apologize for the thread diversion, but seeing as some of the Catholic TWWers have posted on this thread, I felt compelled to say (as a Protestant) how deeply moving it was to watch the coverage of the (now) Pope Emeritus’ departure from the Vatican and arrival at Castel Gandalfo.
The closing of the doors at the summer home, the changing of the Swiss guard for the Italian police, and the news that his gold fisherman’s ring was turned over and will be burned – again, quite moving to me.
I would imagine that many of the Catholic faith, if I may go out on a limb here, are feeling a bit, I don’t know … off kilter at this transition? It’s certainly bittersweet and cause for relection I’d assume. God bless you guys.
I am a twice-divorced 50-something flaming heterosexual with no kids. After reading the stories over the last few days, I consider myself blessed beyond measure by the fact that when I ventured back to church after a 20-year absence (having fled a church where the pressure to pair off was intense, and we did, and soon discovered one could be unequally yoked even with a fellow believer), I found a place where the only mention of marriage ever is the announcement of another session of Divorce Care starting up.
The only “ministries” we have are kids’ church, middle schoolers, high schoolers, and a relatively new college-and-20-somethings group. Everyone else is strongly encouraged to join a small group, of which there are plenty to choose from to meet everyone’s needs. There are women’s groups, men’s groups, mixed groups, and I think for a while there was a couples group but it may have disbanded. I am in a women’s group; some single, some married, some divorced, some with kids, some without, and all but one of us is ::ahem:: over a certain age, but we didn’t plan it that way, it just happened. A never-married male friend of mine is a singleton in a mixed group that is mostly couples, again by accident. Neither of us feels the least bit marginalized by our lack of marital status, and until I read these recent blog posts and comments, I had no idea just how far some people have taken the “if you’re not married, you’re not complete” theory since I was in the middle of it 30 years ago.
I went through Divorce Care a while back. That too was a mixed group, co-led by a man and a woman, both divorced (and not from each other), and by mutual consent, we split the sexes the week that the topic was sexuality.
Just a comment re the idea single women and married men, or single men and married women cannot be friends.
Of course they can.
But for many of us, part of what makes our marriages special is being each other’s best friend.
I have many friends, and some are male. But I will never give close intimate friendship to any man except my husband. He is the same way with friendship with other women.
We don’t apologize for that. We don’t worry that the other will fall sexually. But intimacy is far more than sex. It is intimacy that we reserve for each other.
So no, I’m really not going to be there for my male friends if they need to pour their heart out to a woman about something, nor will he be there for his female friends in that manner.
I should add that the female co-leader of my Divorce Care group told the story of how she was a Young Life leader at another church, and when her husband ran out on her, she got GRILLED very invasively by the church leadership about the nitty-gritty of the breakup of her marriage. They wanted to be sure she was still fit to lead the yoots and not corrupt them with her filthy divorced self. I think they finally gave her a clean “bill of health” on her divorce, but by then she’d had enough and bailed out.
Rafiki wrote:
Thank you so much for your response- yes, I know we are WAY off from the original topic of the post. However, since we are off track, I will add that with the exit of the Pope I am indeed sad. Given the silence of many Christian leaders about abuse in the church right now, I go back to the Pope’s words:
“It is never permissible… to steal away and to wish not to have seen it and to let the perpetrator continue working. It is therefore necessary for the Church to be vigilant, to punish those who have sinned, and above all to exclude them from further access to children. First and foremost, as we said, comes charity toward the victims and efforts to do everything good to help them cope with what they have experienced.”
I know many think he could have done more- maybe he could have. Yet, I am grateful he spoke of abuse and abusers in such a direct way.
@ StillWiggling:
StillWiggling wrote:
WRONG. So very, wrong. I would have gotten out of that environment too.
Bridget wrote:
I’ve heard of the phrase “Salvation by Marriage Alone” (coined on a 2006 Internet Monk thread about singles), but this is the first time I’ve seen it so blatant.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
I do think he’s just getting his point across very poorly, and means “Christ loves his wife, the church, sacrificially” as undoing the curse. But even if he’d said it better… It’s not a given that the passage which compares husband/wife with Christ/church is about marriage being a picture/example of the gospel. I see it the other way around– IF I’m a husband, then I should follow Christ’s picture/example to me and love my wife as he loves us. And even if I’m wrong and marriage is A picture, it’s still not THE picture! And what’s he mean by “Adam failed in this regard”? I think he means Adam failed to stop Eve from talking to da snake, or stop her from usurping Adam’s authority, or some such. If that was Adam’s failure (rather than failing to eat from the Life tree and eating from the Death tree) then singles are unable to fail in the same way, and unable to fully experience/speak of Christ’s grace!
@ Gail:
Thank you, Gail. I truly appreciate hearing snippets of your story and all your contributions to my blog. Going to be asking for help from readers/friends of readers as I put together a book proposal that needs to be finished the end of March. I know you’ll be there to give your input!
Internet hugs for you, Natalie, and for what you went through.
Your story also got me thinking of someone I’m friends with on Facebook who I need to thought-apologise to (only thoughts, because I never said anything, am not close to them, and I think actually bringing it up would just be hurtful). She’s someone I went to high school with, a Christian, who married fairly young, had kids, and then got divorced. I know no details of what happened, and I never made a comment, but reading your story reminded me that when I heard she’d divorced those really judgemental thoughts ‘but isn’t she a Christian?’ did enter my head. And reading your and other people’s stories, I now feel so ashamed of having even thought that. She’s a lovely person and it is no business of mine to tut-tut about her life, and I wish I could take back those gossipy thoughts.
Thanks for posting this!
I don’t know how many of you read Rachel Held Evans, but recently she was discussing the book “Washed and Waiting,” a book written by a gay celibate Christian man. In the comments section, a few folks who have also chosen this path jumped in to give their two cents. One of the biggest topics discussed was the loneliness of the singles life (which, of course, applies to much more than just the celibate gay community). One man said that he had not found his choice to be crushingly lonely because of the support of fellow Christ-followers who treated him like family.
Someone else immediately jumped on and speculated that this young man’s opinion would change in a few years when all his “friends” had “turned inward” to their own families and left him out in the cold. I don’t know that the person was trying to be hurtful or cynical; I think whoever it was was simply giving a warning. But it BROKE MY HEART to read it for several reasons. One, that within the body of Christ, singles would legitimately have to worry about their brothers and sisters being too busy or distracted to take care of them. (Seriously people…that’s the best we can do??) And two, it made me worried for my own life and friendships once hubs and I finally get around to having kids. I don’t want to be one of those people who assumes that my own insular family’s lifestyle is the only thing that matters. My husband and I are definitely less like that than other married couples we know, so I’m hopeful this trend will continue for us.
So yeah. Anyway. Single, married, old or young, with or without kids, we are all part of one family. And we should start acting like it.
@ sad observer: Unfortunately, what the commenter was talking about (turning inward toward their own families) is pretty much par for the course.
In saying that, i do *not* mean to blame anyone – people have their lives, and when they have kids, their lives get lots busier.
But it does help to make time for “outside” friends/friendships, which we all need – a spouse cannot fulfill all of their partner’s needs for human contact, nor should they be expected to. Nobody could live up to that kind of job description!
Also… I have seen – sadly – some of my elderly relatives end up without much support in old age, in part because they simply did not keep up old friendships (or pursue new ones) after getting married.
Another point I wanted to mention:
There are stereotypes about Christian single people’s sexuality, held by some Christians, that are false.
The predominant, false stereotype seems to be that unmarried Christians have raging hormones and are very promiscuous, and we are having sex all the time, with lots of different people*.
So, some preachers teach that Christians need to get married very early, so that they can have sex with a spouse.
This in turn suggests that married Christians never, ever commit sexual sin, which is untrue.
The amount of divorce among Christians has been pretty high for a while.
I’ve seen a lot of testimonies, confessions online, and on Christian television programs, and discussed in online Christian magazines, of married Christian people (usually the husband, but sometimes a wife) admitting to having extra marital affairs, or to having an X-rated site, magazine, or movie addiction.
Some Christian married men have admitted to seeing prostitutes for sex.
Being married and having a sexually-willing spouse does not keep any Christian automatically out of sexual sin.
Christian married people are not automatically more sexually pure than unmarried Christian adults just by sheer default of being married.
Here is a video of a 50 year old married Baptist pastor (Schaap) who was arrested for having a sexual affair with a teen girl from his church.
In the video, he is simulating a sexual act during church, and I read in an article there were teen agers present during this:
Jack Schaap “polishing a shaft” (warning: suggestive material)
Many preachers act as though all older, single Christians are out of control sexually.
I’m a celibate Christian (I’m over 40), and I would never, ever simulate a sex act, certainly not during a church service and not on video, and not with kids in the audience! But here is a married Baptist pastor doing so.
Yet, Christian singles get depicted pretty regularly as sexual deviants, or as out- of- control sex machines, in a lot of Christian literature or sermons, on occasions singles are even mentioned.
—–
*The other, lesser false beliefs about Christian singleness sexuality, that crop up on occasion, is that all (or most) Christian adults who are celibate enjoy being celibate, experience no sexual desire at all, or are against sex.
Hester wrote:
That’s like me. I didn’t find dolls appealing.
I was more a tom boy. I liked running, climbing trees, and I loved motorcycles when I was a kid. My Mom was more the stereotypical homemaker, feminine type and tried to make me like that.
I tried for years to pretty much live up to the feminine ideal that was presented to me by Mom and Baptist churches, but it never felt like me.
As I got older, I began wearing dresses, heels, and make up, but I still enjoyed shows and pursuits considered more “boyish” by some Baptists.
Bridget said
I’ve mentioned this in one of the threads on singleness, but there are already some Christians who teach that only married Christian people can fully, totally know God, and that unmarried people cannot, or some suggest that unmarried people are not as fully formed in God’s image as the married people are.
Some go further and teach this in context of marital sex, that the (married) sex act itself is how married Christians can know God, or how they reflect Him.
Some of these views are mentioned in the book “Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented in Today’s Church.” The Christian authors quote excerpts by these people. Their views are so strange, I don’t know how to describe them accurately.
The Christian Reconstructionist groups are saying that marriage is “normative,” which implies that singleness is not.
Based on one or two quotes I heard and read online (I gave links in another post about this), the Reconstructionists seem to believe that an unmarried man is one half the image of God, an unmarried woman is one half the image of God, and it takes them both in marriage to equal One(to fully be in God’s image).
As HUG put it on some thread, some Christians teach or believe “Salvation Is By Marriage Alone.”
I think he was trying to be “ha ha” funny, but there is some sad truth to it.
There are some Christians who think that unmarried people are not quite “as Christian” as married people.
That perspective sometimes comes out in other ways, like some churches who think even unmarried people over the age of 35 are too immature to lead or teach classes. Singles of any age are regarded as being less mature, trustworthy, or responsible than married couples.
Hester wrote:
Christian men and women who have never married who are past the age of 30 or 35, and who have never had children, don’t seem to exist in their universe, either.
linda wrote:
Nobody was arguing other wise – to a degree, at least.
The point is that unmarried women are isolated from any and all social contact because of the secular and church based views that all interaction between the genders will end in sex, and that all unmarried women are harlots and sexual temptresses who want to steal a woman’s husband.
I disagree with you a little about not thinking it okay to listen to an opposite gender friend pour out their heart to a married person.
This is the kind of thinking that keeps unmarried people divided from community, and the support they need.
Every thing is viewed through a prism or lens of suspicion of single people and their motives.
A married woman can steal your husband away as easy as an unmarried one.
To be truthful here, unmarried women are NOT isolated from any and all social contact because of the secular and church based views you state.
Single women–and men–are very welcome to participate in work, school, church, political, and family and friend activities.
Of course married people can steal other married people. No one said only the singles pose any risk at all.
But one thing some–certainly not all–singles seem to miss is that they are–HELLO–single! So no, they don’t have a person of the opposite gender with whom to share their most intimate emotional moments.
When either of us is confronted with the issue of someone of the opposite gender choosing one of us for “best friend and confidant” is to steer them to our mate. If a guy wants to pour his heart out over something ripping him apart emotionally, he can share with my husband, his pastor, his brothers/sisters/mother/father/girlfriend, or any number of people besides me.
Ditto if a gal wants to pour her heart out–usually asking to just be held while she cries–to my husband his stock answer is “let me call my wife for you.”
Pure myth that unless HE holds her she has absolutely no one in whom to confide.
Right up there with the thought a certain piece of fruit would taste good, was pretty, and would make us wise.
linda wrote:
Yes, they are, that has been my experience.
Not all singles have wide social networks -especially older singles, where one or both parents are dead, your extended family is in nursing homes or dead, siblings (if you have any) live out of state, etc.
I said nothing about a single woman asking a married man to hold her while she cries. That (physical contact like that) would be over stepping some boundaries.
The fact remains that single women get viewed very suspiciously, especially by married people, which keeps them even more socially isolated.
You said, “Single women–and men–are very welcome to participate in work, school, church, political, and family and friend activities.”
No, none of those are avenues if you need deep emotional support. Socializing and getting deep down social support are different things.
You should never share personal issues on a job. Your co workers are not your friends – many will throw you under the bus if they have an opportunity, and some are nasty office politicians who will use any personal info you share with them against you at a later time, to get you fired, etc.
Many of the places you listed, you would be expected to wear a mask, be pleasant, not let your guard down. Even at churches, you have to be careful not to get too personal, because some Christians are judgemental when you tell them your personal business.
Singles are very isolated, even in churches. We don’t have anyone to confide in or go to unless we are fortunate enough to have a few very close friends. Some of us do not.
You said, “But one thing some–certainly not all–singles seem to miss is that they are–HELLO–single! So no, they don’t have a person of the opposite gender with whom to share their most intimate emotional moments.”
That does not mean singles cannot or should not share personal problems with married people.
Linda and Daisy, I think were the problems come in is at what time the friendship is developed. Too often the friendship develops during the sharing of personal problems, then this becomes the basis of the friendship. Which points back to a lot of the problems being discussed, exclusion of certain peoples.
Now if churches would stop idolizing marriage, family and sexuality maybe we could get somewhere.
My wife talks of starting a square peg group in the church for those who don’t fit into the round holes our church has chosen to focus on. We have talked of narrowing the focus of such a group but the reality is that maybe 1 in 4 of the individuals who fall outside the church groupings would attend, which is exactly the difficulty churches have with forming groups.
Doug Wilson Ned yesterday http://www.dougwils.com/Sex-and-Culture/sex-and-smithereens.html#JOSC_TOP
about priestly celibacy and the upcoming new Pope. This highlight, “In short, a man may not lawfully vow to do something forbidden by the law of God. Neither may he bind himself with a vow to a sin of omission — as when men dedicated as Corban the resources needed to take care of parents (Mark 7:11). To vow celibacy outside the will of God is to wrong a future spouse. And last, he may not vow beyond his abilities to fulfill. It is a superstititous snare for a man to believe he can get along without a woman, absent an unusual gift from God.”
I’ve heard before of *wronging a future spouse* you MAY have (through fornication), but never heard of *wronging a future spouse* you’ll NEVER have (through celibacy)! For some Catholics, celibacy may be next to godliness, but for Wilson, it’s next to impossible!
He concludes by recommending that the next Pope be a “brawler”– precisely the characteristic my KJV says would disqualify him from being a bishop! (Titus 1:7)
DaveAA
Doug Wilson lost a recent debate with Andrew Sullivan on gay marriage according to Denny Burk who is putting a positive spin on it.
http://www.dennyburk.com/why-doug-wilson-lost-the-debate-with-andrew-sullivan-on-gay-marriage/
Perhaps he is just reeling from the fact that the world did not fall at the feet of his superior logic?
Pingback: Singles and the Church: New Ideas and Better Theology Wanted … | Church Ministry
@ Dave A A:
@ dee:
According to the page Dave AA linked to (“Culture and Politics – Sex and Culture” by Wilson), Wilson wrote,,
“The men who drafted the Westminster Confession believed, as do I, that a lifetime of celibacy for a man not specially gifted by God for that calling is an impossibility”
Why does the Bible teach to abstain from sex outside of marriage if it were impossible?
I have not had sex yet, and I’m in my 40s. I’ve met a few other older Christian virgins online, male and female, who are in their 40s and 50s.
I’m mystified that so many Christians, who out of one side of their face, teach “celibacy until marriage” is right and preferable, but then turn around and say a moment later, “celibacy until age X (or life long) is impossible!”
They have just undermined their own (and the Bible’s teaching) on the matter.
Just because this guy personally cannot conceive of living without sex himself does not mean others cannot live without it.
BTW, contrary to Wilson, I (and most celibates) don’t have a “special gifting.” I desired to get married and have sex. God did not strip those desires from me.
Re: “To vow celibacy outside the will of God is to wrong a future spouse. ”
Say what? I’m not so sure how that works out, it seems to teach that God has willed only a single, special, unique Soul Mate for each person, and if that one special person vows celibacy or gets eaten by a shark, you’re out of luck?
I don’t think so, because I’ve seen Christians whose spouse dies or divorces, and they manage to get Spouse # 2.
Wilson again: “It is a superstititous snare for a man to believe he can get along without a woman, absent an unusual gift from God.”
There is no “unusual gift from God” for most of us celibates. I do wish this myth about Christians who remain unmarried and have refrained from sex have “special gifts” would die.
Does Wilson not realize that God calls Protestants and Baptists to life long celibacy if they do not marry, it is not just a “Roman Catholic” thing?
@ dee:
I just read over the page you linked to (“Why Doug Wilson lost the debate with Andrew Sullivan on gay marriage”).
While a lot of Christians keep expressing worry or outrage about the legalization of homosexual marriage, or high divorce rates, they remain largely clueless or devoid of sympathy for the many Christian women over the age of 30 today who wanted marriage, but who could not find a Christian man to marry, so they remain single.
That Christian women who want to get married are not even able to get to the altar to start with, because there are no Christian men to marry or those men are not dating/ proposing marriage, is, IMO, more (or just as) worrying and concerning than the fact that some homosexuals want marriage.
I also find some traditional moral arguments against homosexual marriage troubling, such as, ‘God created marriage for producing children, so homosexuals don’t fit this.’
That may be in part true, but there again, what of Christian women who never marry, or Christian couples who are infertile and are therefore incapable of pregnancy?