Coming into adulthood in evangelical culture one of the constant messages was that sexual sin was different and more important than other sin. Now of course the official line was that all sin was “equally” bad. This is sort of true and sort of not true and therefore super confusing.
Let’s clear up a couple of things about sin to sort of set the table for this topic.
One of the things I did a lot as a single person is pray for a spouse. That took a lot of different forms. Sometimes it was simple and relaxed. Other times it took the form of crying out (read begging) for God to bring me The One. Often when I really thought someone could be the one it was praying for God to “make it happen”, sometimes before I’d even been on a date (that hurts a little to type – Ha!).
But over and over again for years, it never happened. God didn’t “answer” my prayer.
This really begs two different types of questions. First, should we, and if so how should we, pray about gaining a spouse. Second, why is it that God doesn’t seem to answer this prayer or as I like to say, why doesn’t God just “poof” us a spouse.
One of the things that always bothers me is when we assume single people should do more ministry. This sort of thought process happens all the time for several reasons.
It comes from the pulpit because pastors either misunderstand or misuse what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7. Without going into too much depth here as I’ve written extensively about this, Paul is not saying if you are not yet married that you are therefore not distracted and able to be a better, more focused Christian. He is instead saying if you are not distracted by a desire to get married, it could be that you have the gift/calling of celibacy and that would be a good thing.
But this is where this gets really ironic is that the same people telling you to “take advantage of your singleness” in ministry don’t want you to actually lead the ministry. Perhaps what they really mean, is that while they can, they want to take advantage of your singleness.
You see it’s fine if you want to serve in the nursery or maybe the youth, on the worship team, set up and tear down, and in the rare church you might even be able to lead a small group.
But, if you want to be a pastor or elder, better think again.
I recently received an email from a reader asking some questions about a particular situation. I won’t go into the details but one of the things she said was that she was trying to leave the situation in God’s hands. This is similar to some things I’ve talked about before but I want to revisit this idea.
This message of waiting for God to bring me the one or that God will bring the right one at the right time is super problematic if not wrong entirely. And yet it comes from everywhere. I remember once sitting in church and hearing the pastor in a marriage sermon say that he knew there were frustrated singles because God had not brought them the person yet.
It’s used often as a spiritual platitude spoken to singles as well as by singles themselves. Especially women.
It’s extremely shaky.
This is my final post in response to Al Mohler’s words about the “sin” of delayed marriage. As I’ve said before, I’m not really singling Mohler out other than that I think his words represent a lot of what Christian leaders think and teach.** We’ve discussed the nuclear family idol of the Church already, but I want to talk about a part of that idol that is often left out.
Mohler sets this up by basically saying that you are made an adult by getting married and if you wait too long (however long that is) you are going to make it tougher. He states:
Delaying marriage until the late 20s or beyond often allows a person to develop unhealthy lifestyle patterns that become difficult to break once he or she is married, Mohler said.
“The corruption of delay, the injury that comes by delay, is multiple,” Mohler said.
“If we claim for ourselves, either as men or as women, the right to define ourselves as adults who will get married when we get to it, we’re defining ourselves in pretty specific terms. Let me be clear: The longer you wait to get married, the more habits and lifestyle patterns you will have that will be difficult to handle in marriage.”
Now remember, I’m for marriage. I’m for getting married sooner than later if you are called to it. But this crosses the line in several ways.
When I was an teenager in school, one of the things that I heard constantly from girls that I wanted to date was something to the effect of, “You’re a great guy, but I just see you as a friend.” In other words over and over again, I entered what has become known as the friend zone.
This is a terrible place to be. We get there a whole lot of different ways. When I was younger, (at least in my experience) there were some times when I really was friends with the girl before I decided I wanted to date her. But as you get older this is less likely.
Many guys when they like a woman start being really nice to her. We go out and try to meet her needs, help her out with anything she wants, buy her considerate gifts etc. I once bought a girl a birthday present that I wasn’t even dating. I was a 30 year old man. WTH was I thinking? I liked her. I should do nice stuff for her right? Yikes!
I want to continue today to respond to a message from Al Mohler. I’m using several posts for this because I believe that a lot of what Mohler is saying is representative of the kind of things that church leaders believe and teach. It’s not a Mohler problem. It’s our problem. To his credit – at least he flat out says it.
We’ve talked previously of the idea that our walk with Jesus is seen through the lens of marriage mainly and how that makes the nuclear family an idol as well as how using young men as the scapegoat of our society is not right and obviously not working.
Today I want to address a smaller part of Mohler’s statement that leads to total confusion and frustration in the Church’s singles.
One of the complaints I hear all the time from men (and that I used to make all the time) is that women, and in our case Christian women, always seem to choose the bad guy over the good guy. If you are a consistent reader hear then you know that I would say that is the wrong view of a real issue.
Here is what women do – they choose the guy they are attracted to over the one they aren’t.
There are a lot of men who say that women should date them because they can be a great husband, are trying to be godly etc, even though they are not, for whatever reason attractive to women. I would ask that guy, are you asking out women you know to be godly that you are not attracted to? I’m guessing no.
So rather than sit around and complain, maybe we should think about what is attractive and work on it.
We have a man problem! How many times have you heard that in the Church in the last 10 years?
I want to respond some more to a piece from the SBTS that quotes Al Mohler talking about this. This isn’t personal by the way. All Mohler is doing is putting words to what so many in the Church think about singleness and marriage.
As Mohler is discussing the “sin” of delaying marriage (what length of delay equals sin is unclear of course) he says,
“This is a problem shared by men and women. But it is primarily of men. We have established a boy culture in which boys are not growing up into men.
Guys, the reality is that God has given us a responsibility to lead, to take responsibility as a man, to be the man in every way before God that we are called to be . . . It means taking the leadership to find a godly wife and to marry her and to be faithful to her in every way and to grow up to be a man who is defined as a husband, and by Gods grace we pray eventually, as father.”
I just . . . I mean. . .
I’ll be honest. When I started writing this blog four years ago, I thought I would share some thoughts about my experience as a single for over 20 years of adulthood and specifically in the Church culture. Somehow in my mid thirties I had a sort of awakening that a whole lot of what I thought I knew about singleness, what I’d be taught and even what I had taught others was wrong. But I had no idea how wrong we were.
This is why now and then I’m responding to some posts from prominent leaders in our church culture. They represent what we teach and when it comes to this context, they come up almost unbelievably short. It’s astounding really.
In a post on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Page, they share from a speech from Al Molher (whom Time called the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S.” – Yikes) in which he addresses the “sin” of delayed marriage. I know you’re getting excited already. . .
More Than Don't Have Sex 