Part 1: Courtship? More Like Legalism!
The third and final issue I shall address is that of making
marriage more important than it actually is. This problem isn’t isolated in
Umstattd’s post, but he certainly takes this problem to an even higher degree
than I have ever seen. I wonder if his personality is the sort to exaggerate
things.
He puts this things he calls ‘Traditional Dating’ on a
pedestal, making it out to be the panacea of our apparently courtship-ridden
society. Here is what he says:
“We need a system to help young people make good decisions.
Fortunately, we have one: Traditional Dating.”
“There is nothing new under the sun and no new temptation
that is not already common to man. This is not the first time Christians have
lived in a sexualized culture. If you study history, you will find that this
actually happens often. In each of those generations God provided a way out. I
believe that for our generation that way is Traditional Dating.”
“Find a church with lots of single people. There are still
churches out there with a healthy culture of traditional dating. If no one in
your church got married last year, don’t expect to break that trend. You can
always move back to your parent’s church after you find your sweetheart.”
Dating does not help people make good decisions. The vast
majority of the highly-divorced Generation X dated before they married. They
still decided to divorce, over things like ‘irreconcilable differences.’
Regarding moral decisions, many of the dating couples I know have not made
God-honoring choices, which led to a breakdown in their relationship.
Good choices are rooted in conviction and the will, not in
dating, and are guided by prayer and Scriptural truth. (Tweet this.) “Count yourselves
dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus,” Paul wrote to the Romans.
“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil
desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of
wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought
from death of life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of
righteousness.” Saying that ‘Traditional Dating’ is a system that helps people
make good choices is just…immature.
I agree, this is not the first time Christians have lived in
a sexualized culture. In fact, the church in Corinth had to deal with much the
same environment we have now. You know what Paul told them? GET MARRIED. Not
‘date around to find out what sort of person you want to marry.’ Not ‘stay
non-exclusive to avoid temptation’ (that would have been scandalous). Not ‘embrace
courtship and have a ton of chaperones and group dates.’ Get. Married. How’s
that for ramping up the intensity? And then he warns married couples not to
deprive each other except when they both agree to ‘fast’ from sex for prayer,
lest they be tempted.
Our way out of temptation is Christ. (Tweet this.) God himself sacrificed
his own life so that we would be free from sin. To say that ‘Traditional
Dating’ is the way out of sin elevates it to the level of salvation and
reflects a view that holds the work of Christ on the cross in contempt. Did
Christ come for nothing? Was he crucified for nothing? Are we redeemed for
nothing? Apparently, since ‘Traditional Dating’ is all we need to escape our
sin nature.
It’s nice to know that serving the body of Christ doesn’t
have to be our priority when we go to church. Instead, we can shop around
churches a bit if we don’t like the singles pool at the church we grew up in.
At least, that’s what Umstattd implies. I shall reiterate, since that was quite
a few paragraphs ago:
“Find a church with lots of single people. There are still
churches out there with a healthy culture of traditional dating. If no one in
your church got married last year, don’t expect to break that trend. You can
always move back to your parent’s church after you find your sweetheart.”
For the love of all that is sacred, NO! There are so many
things wrong with this paragraph. Firstly, church is not a singles mixer. Not
ever. It is a priesthood of believers. (Tweet this.) Secondly, how has it been established that ‘Traditional Dating’ is a
healthy thing? One may argue that it is what paved the way for our hookup
culture to take over.
Thirdly, trends change all the time and to say that you
shouldn’t expect to get married just because other people didn’t is really
discouraging as well as illogical. Should I not expect to remain a virgin until
my wedding just because other people didn’t? Should I not expect to remain
married to only one person for the rest of my life just because other people
didn’t? People have a will to exercise and choices to make. Marriage is
something you pursue, not something you expect God to dish out to you while you
sit around doing nothing except extolling the virtues of dating/courtship. (Tweet this.) I am
beginning to wonder if Umstattd was taught that waiting on God means a passive
approach to life, because passivity is what I’m sensing here. Earlier in his
blog post he says that “Bible-reading, small-grouping, mission-tripping
Christian young people [are] common in evangelical churches,” which I take to
mean that they are common in the church he grew up in. So out of that pool, why
hasn’t he just chosen a girl of good Christian character to pursue?
Fourthly, church-hopping to find a spouse to take back to
your home church is just selfish. You’re leaving an opportunity to serve your
congregation in order to (maybe) serve temporarily at another church until
you’ve attracted and married a spouse, which leaves a gap wherever you had
found a role in either church and takes a servant (your spouse) away from their
ministry in their home church. And if neither of you were ministering in either
of your congregations, then that is a different problem to be addressed in an
entirely different post.
I understand that twentysomething singles struggle with
loneliness. That is normal. Many thirtysomething singles struggle with that
too. That is to be expected. But just because we are designed for companionship
with a spouse does not mean we should put marriage on a pedestal. God created us first and foremost to seek and worship him. (Tweet this.)
A single person may fall into the trap of thinking that
their needs will be fulfilled by a spouse. If that is how you think, here are
some hard truths for you to consider: your needs don’t go away in a
relationship, they just change; if you really have that expectation on your
spouse, you are putting an impossible burden on them; and if you are relying on
your spouse and not God to satisfy your heart, you will never find
satisfaction.
Am I being too blunt? Fine. Such is the nature of difficult
truths.
Think of loneliness as an opportunity to draw yourself
closer to God. Singleness also has the advantage of more freedom. If you think
you want to see the world, go on mission trips. If you want to serve others in
your church, you can afford to be generous with your time. Part of dying to
self is that we don’t wallow in ‘woe is me,’ but rather choose to act above how
we feel in order to obey and serve the Lord. Marriage has its purpose, but we need
to put it in its place as a gift from God that we might sacrifice in order to
advance God’s kingdom.
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