More Wisdom on Singleness...(and this time it's NOT Debbie Maken!)
Captain Sensible writes: Gosh, wisdom on singleness and not written by Debbie Maken? Who'd have thought that would happen in our lifetime? (Although it has to be said that the phenomenon that is outlined here was identified first in Debbie's book as women "selling their fellowship for free" and Albert Mohler may have said something along these lines. Ok, Steve and Candice Watters possibly too, but I disregard them as any benefit from a posting on their blog is soon cancelled out by ridiculous comments that are irresponsibly left unchallenged.)
Here's a taster, and then you can read the entire thing here.
"I’m fed up with guys who are supposedly looking for a relationship that leads to marriage, but they don’t know how to get the job done. I'm more and more convinced that an untold number of Christian men are in this camp. They sign up for online services, mixers, speed dating events, singles groups – you name it – but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of practically pursuing marriage, they’re clueless. Or fearful. Or unrealistic. Or a combination thereof. Many of the men with whom I’ve spoken – and there’s been a legion – still operate within the “God will provide/I’ll just have a feeling/the Lord will point her out to me” framework. In the meantime, they’re getting older, odder and more removed from reality with each mouse click, movie night or 80s party. But they’re still there…ready for the next serial online relationship or opportunity to “hang out” indefinitely with whomever is available. And where does this leave the women? Glad you asked. We’re not blameless. We’re wasting precious time being pen pals and buddies with these guys, keeping them company in their lackluster, accountability-and-friendship-free lives and entertaining them with witty chit-chat, companionship and connection in hopes of it becoming something "more." When will it become so? When we're neighbors in the nursing home? When we're established in the New Jerusalem? Face it: we’re enabling them.
"(E)nough is enough. They won’t have access to me. They won’t get my emotional and intellectual capital. They won’t use up my time and energy."
Here's a taster, and then you can read the entire thing here.
"I’m fed up with guys who are supposedly looking for a relationship that leads to marriage, but they don’t know how to get the job done. I'm more and more convinced that an untold number of Christian men are in this camp. They sign up for online services, mixers, speed dating events, singles groups – you name it – but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of practically pursuing marriage, they’re clueless. Or fearful. Or unrealistic. Or a combination thereof. Many of the men with whom I’ve spoken – and there’s been a legion – still operate within the “God will provide/I’ll just have a feeling/the Lord will point her out to me” framework. In the meantime, they’re getting older, odder and more removed from reality with each mouse click, movie night or 80s party. But they’re still there…ready for the next serial online relationship or opportunity to “hang out” indefinitely with whomever is available. And where does this leave the women? Glad you asked. We’re not blameless. We’re wasting precious time being pen pals and buddies with these guys, keeping them company in their lackluster, accountability-and-friendship-free lives and entertaining them with witty chit-chat, companionship and connection in hopes of it becoming something "more." When will it become so? When we're neighbors in the nursing home? When we're established in the New Jerusalem? Face it: we’re enabling them.
"(E)nough is enough. They won’t have access to me. They won’t get my emotional and intellectual capital. They won’t use up my time and energy."
posted by Captain Sensible at 3:22 PM
4 Comments:
I hear you! I must make the same resolution 4 or 5 times a day - but why wait to see how many men like your picture - because frankly how many of them comment on your profile much beyond "I like your hair"?
Modern methods of communicating are sending my into a flat spin and certainly doing nothing for my quest for patience....
Maybe sweeping but: I think we have to simply remember "Faith, Hope and Love" - looking at this from a different focal point than "yeah greatest of the three - news please? I want it I want it I want it!!!" I think that the reason he put it in that order is that Faith breeds Hope, which in turn breeds Love - Faith, Hope and Love - a process?
Wow, I have no idea who is behind that post, but I sure can identify with the frustration she describes. I can picture this million single woman march, demanding their pastors stop enabling a social deviancy and stunting biblical adulthood in men. "Be a man/Define the relationship" can be the chant phrase. But where o' where would we stage this? On which church door could we post our disagreement? Much planning ahead.
Debbie Maken
And how many Theses would OUR dissension hold? ;)
I've been thinking and thinking and thinking...perhaps I need to add more strenuous prayer to it as well...but...isn't there a way for us to channel all this wisdom, passion, frustration, biblical support and righteous anger into something consolidated? How amazing would it be if singles around the world, who all feel the same way, as so many of us here do, gathered as one and really DID post something on our church doors, and wrote press releases about it, a March for Marriage or Take Back the Altar or something on some Pro-Family Sunday, something really FOCUSED, really ORGANIZED? That wouldn't have to be the beginning, it could start out slow, quiet, groups of people in similar localities going to their church leaders, or going from church to church, whether they attended or not, on weekdays or something, to approach other church leaders and ask for audiences about biblical approaches to marriage, to see if that worked; and if it didn't, plan a bigger ka-bam? Minority groups everywhere have gotten attention by being noisy and holding demonstrations, and the church is no stranger to that -- I mean, that's how the Protestant church was born!
I don't want to sound rabid or anything, but can't we organize each other and ourselves to DO something? We're all agreed that the heresy of singleness potentially spells the death of the church, is driving young women away from God, keeping men in the church complacent and doing nothing to attract young men who aren't attending, and making the faithful singles suffer unnatural amounts of misery with protracted loneliness and infertility and false doctrines. I don't know about the rest of you, but even with all that, I'm not ready to go marching solo up to the pastors of my enormous congregation and start demanding a change; but with the backing of a big group, even one centralized in the UK (I'm in the US), with others who are working on the same thing I am, I'd be far more likely to take up spiritual arms. If we could boil down Debbie's book, come up with our own kind of manifesto, have something concise and unified to present to church leaders everywhere, it might start to be taken seriously.
Maybe it's a bad idea; maybe it's not. What do you think? The people affirming the "gift" of singleness are the loud ones right now. But they're sluggish. Can we start being louder? By taking action? Together?
Actually there are several things we can do.
1)Club together via organisations like the Debs' group and insist that major Christian festivals, campus ministries and booksellers stop promoting speakers and authors that preach 'the gift of singleness'. Put pressure, boycott, censor, etc.
2)Give money to groups like Christian Vision For Men, Church For Men, etc.
3)Support groups that support the persecuted church worldwide and that stand up to Islam. Those are less emasculated than most parts of the western church.
4)Support ex-gay groups, because they support men and marriage. Exodus, Living Waters, etc.
5)Put pressure on Christian dating sites. They need to be brought to account. Too many of them allow the option of people being 'friends' or 'penpals' or whatever - including allowing married people to find friends. This is wrong. Dating sites should only be for finding dates, period.
When I used them in the past, I turned men down immediately if they told me they wanted to be 'friends'.
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