Should Christian Leaders Now "Advocate" Singleness to their Congregations?
Captain Sensible writes: “Single women – A challenge to the church?” by Kristin Aune is the most frightening book I have ever read.
Never have I come across a Christian book on singleness that has sent chills down my spine as much as this one has (and bear in mind I have read Carolyn McCulley, with her chapter on “Esteeming the gift”, which seems like a Disney picture book in comparison).
The first chill came as soon as I opened it and read the following quotation:
“Single woman is not just some cultural oddity. She is our future.”
(Jay Rayner, “We want to be alone”, The Observer, 6th January 2000)
The second major chill came on reading the stark statistics from the 1998 English Church Attendance survey, although they came as no surprise. This survey stated that of the almost half a million single evangelical Christian in the UK, some 334,000 of them (0.7% of the population) are single evangelical women. Yet there are only 153,000 single evangelical men (0.3% of the population).
But the greatest chill of all came in the author’s “recommendations” towards the end of the book:
“Christians should not try to matchmake and should not endorse dating agencies (Christian or otherwise). Instead of encouraging dating couples to marry, the benefits of remaining single should be pointed out...It is more justifiable biblically to advise against marriage than to promote it, and the church needs to begin to practise this...Christian leaders must begin to advocate singleness to their congregations. While there is a temptation to sympathize with those who want to marry but cannot find a partner, to do so is not biblical. Single people need to be taught what the Bible says about the advantages of singleness. Single Christians should be challenged not to reluctantly accept the gift of singleness but to embrace it. Since single people make up such a large proportion of the church, singleness needs to be taught about as frequently and in as much detail as is marriage...Positive teaching about singleness can never begin too early, and children and young people also need to be taught its value...Young women may enter adulthood with a biblical perspective on the need to save sex for marriage, but they rarely consider the prospect that they may not marry, because they have not been taught a biblical view of the gift of singleness. It is not until they are in their twenties that the realization dawns that there are far fewer single Christian men than women and that their expectations of marriage may never be fulfilled. By this time, it can be difficult for them to get rid of the mindset which views marriage as a probable, if not definite, part of their future.”
Does anyone else feel the need to pray that these recommendations will be bound up in the name of Jesus -- or is it just me?
I have been wondering when to share on this blog a dream that was recounted to me by a woman that I trust, and I think now is that time.
Here is the dream:
“In our passion to cultivate our own land to satisfy the need in our soul, we focus on a very small patch of land and we are not heeding the call to work this expanse of land that we need to be cultivating. The harvest from the small patch of land will not satisfy our need; we need to expand our horizon.”
Through a particular ministry involvement, it has become very clear to me that there is a harvest of men that I believe God has prepared in the world. The problem has been that there are not enough ministries which reach out to them.
Here in the UK, and I believe to a lesser degree in other western nations, we face a very stark choice.
Do we agree with Aune that "It is more justifiable biblically to advise against marriage than to promote it" and that “Christian leaders must begin to advocate singleness to their congregations” and “Single Christians should be challenged not to reluctantly accept the gift of singleness but to embrace it”?
Or do we believe God to be a God of order, not chaos, and as such it could never have been His plan that the Body of Christ should be so lacking in masculinity, to the degree that not only is His creation mandate thwarted, but the Body has become so dysfunctional that it is ineffective in our culture?
Can we even imagine any other religion being so stupid as to "advocate singleness" instead of increasing their ranks?
I pray that we make the right choice and act upon it as a matter of urgency.
Never have I come across a Christian book on singleness that has sent chills down my spine as much as this one has (and bear in mind I have read Carolyn McCulley, with her chapter on “Esteeming the gift”, which seems like a Disney picture book in comparison).
The first chill came as soon as I opened it and read the following quotation:
“Single woman is not just some cultural oddity. She is our future.”
(Jay Rayner, “We want to be alone”, The Observer, 6th January 2000)
The second major chill came on reading the stark statistics from the 1998 English Church Attendance survey, although they came as no surprise. This survey stated that of the almost half a million single evangelical Christian in the UK, some 334,000 of them (0.7% of the population) are single evangelical women. Yet there are only 153,000 single evangelical men (0.3% of the population).
But the greatest chill of all came in the author’s “recommendations” towards the end of the book:
“Christians should not try to matchmake and should not endorse dating agencies (Christian or otherwise). Instead of encouraging dating couples to marry, the benefits of remaining single should be pointed out...It is more justifiable biblically to advise against marriage than to promote it, and the church needs to begin to practise this...Christian leaders must begin to advocate singleness to their congregations. While there is a temptation to sympathize with those who want to marry but cannot find a partner, to do so is not biblical. Single people need to be taught what the Bible says about the advantages of singleness. Single Christians should be challenged not to reluctantly accept the gift of singleness but to embrace it. Since single people make up such a large proportion of the church, singleness needs to be taught about as frequently and in as much detail as is marriage...Positive teaching about singleness can never begin too early, and children and young people also need to be taught its value...Young women may enter adulthood with a biblical perspective on the need to save sex for marriage, but they rarely consider the prospect that they may not marry, because they have not been taught a biblical view of the gift of singleness. It is not until they are in their twenties that the realization dawns that there are far fewer single Christian men than women and that their expectations of marriage may never be fulfilled. By this time, it can be difficult for them to get rid of the mindset which views marriage as a probable, if not definite, part of their future.”
Does anyone else feel the need to pray that these recommendations will be bound up in the name of Jesus -- or is it just me?
I have been wondering when to share on this blog a dream that was recounted to me by a woman that I trust, and I think now is that time.
Here is the dream:
“In our passion to cultivate our own land to satisfy the need in our soul, we focus on a very small patch of land and we are not heeding the call to work this expanse of land that we need to be cultivating. The harvest from the small patch of land will not satisfy our need; we need to expand our horizon.”
Through a particular ministry involvement, it has become very clear to me that there is a harvest of men that I believe God has prepared in the world. The problem has been that there are not enough ministries which reach out to them.
Here in the UK, and I believe to a lesser degree in other western nations, we face a very stark choice.
Do we agree with Aune that "It is more justifiable biblically to advise against marriage than to promote it" and that “Christian leaders must begin to advocate singleness to their congregations” and “Single Christians should be challenged not to reluctantly accept the gift of singleness but to embrace it”?
Or do we believe God to be a God of order, not chaos, and as such it could never have been His plan that the Body of Christ should be so lacking in masculinity, to the degree that not only is His creation mandate thwarted, but the Body has become so dysfunctional that it is ineffective in our culture?
Can we even imagine any other religion being so stupid as to "advocate singleness" instead of increasing their ranks?
I pray that we make the right choice and act upon it as a matter of urgency.
posted by Captain Sensible at 8:25 PM
7 Comments:
Hmmm - Kristin Aune has written a very revealing article that ends with this paragraph:
"But (Germaine Greer) even has capitulated to the tyranny of sexual coupledom. ‘Celibacy is better than really bad sex’ she declared in The Whole Woman, that illuminating book which is the nearest British women have got to a new feminist call-to-arms. But a third wave feminism must go further than this. Until women are able choose celibacy and say, like Adele from Big Brother, but unapologetically, that it can be better than sex full stop, they will not be free."
So now her recommendations to the church with regard to single women make a lot more sense.
It is also important to keep some sense of perspective.
In her book, Kristin acknowledges that "The vast majority of the women in the sample (eight out of ten) want to marry."
When you consider that the sample includes widows and divorced women under the umbrella of "single", one can assume that this "vast majority" is even bigger amongst the never-marrieds.
Frankly, some people have no business writing books because they only put people into further bondage.
Hey Captain,
Yes I agree with you. I felt a slight chill too. Actually, her viewpoint isn't really all that surprising. It sounds like the doctrines that Paul warning about. I also read a couple of her articles, and she does have feminist leanings.
It was interesting that as I read this post, I was also half-listening to a minister on Christian TV talking about how singleness is addressed in his own church. He quoted Paul's famous words about it being better to marry than to burn, and that he wished all would remain single as he himself did, but, unlike so many, he was careful to note the context in which Paul was speaking - i.e., the present and coming persecution that Christians would face. He described also how Paul indicated that people should carefully consider what season of their lives they were in before considering marriage - something I don't have the exact verse for, but which I had never heard. His main point was that singleness is for a season, and a season only, for the vast majority, and then there is a season for marriage - and that this is exactly what he teaches the singles in his congregation.
I am curious as to several things about Ms. Aune's book. First, how old she is and whether she had any struggles in coming to terms with what I am guessing is her own "gift" of permanent singleness - was she simply born a "eunuch" or was she simply never pursued, so is now trying to make lemonade out of lemons? Second, how does she reconcile her prescription for lifelong celibacy on the part of so many with the very real need for sex and physical intimacy? I am also curious as to what publisher produced this book, which I would regard as un-Biblical at best.
And yes, Captain, I agree that any religion which advocates, in essence, fewer members due to natural attrition is off course. I'm reminded of the Jewish faith, which is not only "more practical about the need for sex," according to one Jewish observer, but which encourages its members to marry within their faith and produce Jewish offspring.
Captain,
Aune's musings on this subject are like The Handbook from Hell. When I was in the UK, I spoke a little bit about the consequences of what happens when the Christian population shrinks, but I actually didn't speak on it at length for I assumed that most of the audience already knew what awaited Christendom. However, most of the hearers that came up to me later commented that they had never thought about the spiritual impact on society on Christians stop having babies. I have a feeling that is also where Ms. Aune is-- not realizing the consequences of what she recommends. I don't care which wave of feminism is now being advocated, subversive virginity (as if it were possible), any time there is tinkering with being fruitful and multiplying through any other channel but actual children, there is trouble on the horizon.
Debbie Maken
Holy Moses, I wanted to scream "HERESY!!!" when I read those exerpts! The first thing that came to mind was, These teachings are an attempt to kill the church. If the church is a body, and the body continues to live by replicating the cells in its many systems, a teaching like this attempts to stop replication, and the body will DIE, and how can that be considered biblical in any way? How can we be salt and light if there aren't any of us left?
Plus this leaning would also examine Song of Songs and say that it's about the relationship of God to the church.
Bull crap. How come God gets to enjoy that kind of intimacy with the church and the members within it don't get to at all?
Nonsense, anyone?
Kristin Aune has written radical feminist articles in the Guardian, the F-word and elsewhere. She is committed to radical feminism and is obsessed with the singleness issue.
For a single Christian women to say that it is wrong for Christians to encourage marriage and matchmaking is a serious sin, because it is sinning against other women. It is a total slap in the face to the majority of Christian women who DO want to marry.
Christian women should be supporting and encouraging each other in their desire for marriage. If they don't want to marry or can't, that is fine too - but the latter women are the minority in the church and should NOT be allowed to dictate the policy of churches towards marriage. Frequently such women in my experience are suffering from a bad case of sour grapes. There should be people ticking them off publicly from the pulpit and in the Christian media.
And another thing: visit the major Christian dating sites and you will find that there is always a handful of single women who insist, against the Bible, that God or Jesus is their husband or lover or boyfriend. They often use Isaiah 54 to back this up, when in fact 'your maker will be your husband' is addressed to Zion metaphorically, not to single women!!! Such narcissism!
I've tried to argue with some of these women that their viewpoint isn't based on the bible, but had rude answers. Oh and these women often complain that they don't get men writing to them on dating sites, surprise surprise. One woman even advised all other women who had difficulty finding a man to see God as their husband.
Frankly women who believe this are mentally imbalance and projecting desperation onto God.
One last thing; advocating the gift of singleness to Christians entails in practice asking men to suppress their sex-drive. Too many Christian men give the impression of doing this to the point of being unhealthy and hating themselves. The result is that men do not want to pursue women. And who is to say that 'the gift of singleness' is not a way of hiding a nasty porn habit or an unresolved problem with sexuality ?
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