"Knuckleheaded Christian leaders"? Surely not! (Ahem!)
Captain Sensible writes: There are a number of very good comments on Debbie Maken's blog at the moment. I particularly appreciate this comment by a reader called Paul (and how refreshing it is to see a Christian man writing about the evils of protracted singleness!), so I have reposted it here:
Amir said: "...Actually, the Church undermines its own [otherwise correct] position with respect to reserving the sexual act for marriage.
They do this by encouraging late marriage, and discouraging singles--who express the need for a spouse--from finding mates."
Bingo.
Our Christian leaders just can't seem to understand how this phenomenon of widespread, protracted singleness affects the morality of the Body of Christ.
I remember listening to an interview with Tim LaHaye several years ago in which he was discussing the declining moral condition in the Church - with men hooked on porn, women having abortions, rampant adultery and pre-marital sex. LaHaye attributed much of the problem to the fact that we have so many more unmarried people in our churches than we did a generation or two ago.
He then said something to the effect of, "It's fine to preach abstinence and True Love Waits to our kids when they're teens, but we also need to start encouraging them to get married much younger than what the culture at large is saying." It was so refreshing to hear a Christian leader who actually "gets it" on this issue, yet it was also sad because there are so few of them.
It irritates me to no end whenever I hear some preacher who got married while he was still in Bible College acting like it's no big deal for the singles in his congregation to remain celibate for decades while they wait for the Lord to bring them "the person He has for you." The odds are, if that preacher ever lost his wife, or if she ran off and left him, he'd start searching high and low for another woman and would probably be remarried within two years.
The Body is already in a moral free-fall as it is due to the influence of our Godless culture, and then we have knuckleheaded Christian leaders telling our young people not to get married until they're in their late-20's, at the very earliest.
I guess it comes back to something else Amir said - many of them just don't know how to deal with this issue, so they just fall back on the clichés they've heard a thousand times.
Amir said: "...Actually, the Church undermines its own [otherwise correct] position with respect to reserving the sexual act for marriage.
They do this by encouraging late marriage, and discouraging singles--who express the need for a spouse--from finding mates."
Bingo.
Our Christian leaders just can't seem to understand how this phenomenon of widespread, protracted singleness affects the morality of the Body of Christ.
I remember listening to an interview with Tim LaHaye several years ago in which he was discussing the declining moral condition in the Church - with men hooked on porn, women having abortions, rampant adultery and pre-marital sex. LaHaye attributed much of the problem to the fact that we have so many more unmarried people in our churches than we did a generation or two ago.
He then said something to the effect of, "It's fine to preach abstinence and True Love Waits to our kids when they're teens, but we also need to start encouraging them to get married much younger than what the culture at large is saying." It was so refreshing to hear a Christian leader who actually "gets it" on this issue, yet it was also sad because there are so few of them.
It irritates me to no end whenever I hear some preacher who got married while he was still in Bible College acting like it's no big deal for the singles in his congregation to remain celibate for decades while they wait for the Lord to bring them "the person He has for you." The odds are, if that preacher ever lost his wife, or if she ran off and left him, he'd start searching high and low for another woman and would probably be remarried within two years.
The Body is already in a moral free-fall as it is due to the influence of our Godless culture, and then we have knuckleheaded Christian leaders telling our young people not to get married until they're in their late-20's, at the very earliest.
I guess it comes back to something else Amir said - many of them just don't know how to deal with this issue, so they just fall back on the clichés they've heard a thousand times.
posted by Captain Sensible at 11:24 PM
2 Comments:
Well said. Ministers on the whole have got married by their mid-20s because they're normal men, OR because a lot of women want to marry ministers. I meet a lot of ministers due to my work. There is a widespread tendency for them to become complacent about sexual ethics after getting married, which gives away the fact that they were concerned before marriage because *they* wanted to marry virgin women. But once they are married, they lose their inhibitions and don't empathise with the plight of single Christians.
I always remember raising the problem of singleness with a pastor, only to be met with an expression of surprise: "Singleness isn't a problem. I enjoyed my time when I was single."
He got married at 20 years of age.
Actually "knucklehead" is a compliment. If the nonsense that is spouted is not a result of stupidity, then the alternative explanation is far worse: Unsympathetic. Uncaring. Lazy. Cruel...
I would rather be described as stupid than any of those things. At least then there is an element of maybe nature/nurture to excuse it! ;-)
Post a Comment
<< Home