Faith Dance

Singled Out: The Problem of the Marriage Metaphor

In their chapter on "Covenant & Inclusion" Field and Colon identify the problem of exaggerating the marriage metaphor in evangelical churches.  They refer the readers to Stanley Grenz's observation that while the Old Testament uses marriage as a metaphor for Yahweh's relationship to his people, the New Testament shifts to "Christ's union with the church." 

They believe that "relying solely" on one metaphor diminishes the richness of God's character.  "We have all probably heard sermons that refer to the metaphor of marriage as an important image of God's love, but how many of us have ever heard a sermon discussing what celibacy may reveal about God and the truths of our Christian faith?"  Field and Colon point to a new intimacy in the New Testament.  It is not the glorification of individual marriages but of the great communion between God and his people: "This new intimacy not only takes the place of marriage here on earth but also allows singles to participate joyfully even if they never received a spouse."    They note both the metaphors of marriage and singleness "are necessary to help reveal the complexities of God's love for us."

I found this chapter to be a helpful, positive, theology for singleness or celibacy.

Musings on Mark Sanford and Belen Chapur

For those of you haven't heard of Mark Sanford, he's the South Carolina governor who disappeared without a trace for a week and when he resurfaced, it was discovered he had been to Argentina to visit his mistress.  Sanford is married--has been for twenty years.  The press confronted him on his return from Argentina in the Atlanta airport.  He revealed where he had been and why: Belen Chapur.  Someone hacked her email account (they were greedy)and now we have a lot of sizzling information about their once secret relationship.  Sanford met Chapur in 2001.  They began corresponding through email.  

What steers my attention to this newest tryst is their friendship of seven years (at that point) "developed into something more than that" in 2008 while Sanford visited Brazil.  He told the press, "I will be able to die knowing that I have met my soul mate" meaning Chapur of course, and not his wife of twenty years.

1. Opposite sex friendships take another hit in pop culture.

Some are quick to point out that the danger is opposite sex friendship and how it quickly can turn into extramarital affairs.  Ruth Hudson for example, "Most people underestimate the danger of close friendships with members of the opposite sex, because they start out innocently, and in the early stages, no sex involved."  She writes, "If cultivated and nurtured over a period of weeks, months, and years, an innocent friendship between close friends of the opposite sex can escalate into an extramarital affair...Today's opposite sex friendship can quickly become tomorrow's extramarital affair."  She continues, "Very often, the person involved in this type of friendship does not realize how much of a threat it can be to his or her marriage or relationship."

Now I am sure there are well intentioned pastors will use this in their conversations and sermons on the dangers of opposite sex friendships--especially in South Carolina where this friendship turned into a sexual affair must be consuming the media's attention.  Whatever one's view is on cross-sex friendship, this is a clear example of an innocent friendship turning into an adulterous relationship. 

2.  Romantic love/lust is not the be all end all.

Others are saying, hey, if he has truly met is soul mate, by all means, Sanford should get divorced and marry his soul mate.  This is the advice of Huffington Posty columnist, Bonnie Fuller.  She asserts, "People who deny love and stay in loveless marriages become bitter and sad...Repressing your feelings and forcing yourself to attempt to patch things up with Jenny will only end in disaster." 

The sad thing of course, is that Sanford after twenty years, has not formed and culitvated a soul mate friendship with his wife, Jenny.  Our Western culture has so romaticized and sexualized the concept of "soul mate" it is devoid of character, loyalty, reverence, honor, and renewal of desire for the good and beautiful.  Instead, our culture submits to intense desire and delight as current boundary markers between what is "authentic" love and what is loveless.  The glory of "authentic" romantic love for some is deep sexual chemistry and connection between two people--not a maturing, loyal, between a husband and wife. 

This kind of thinking has no imagination for ebbs and flows of mature, loyal love between flawed human beings--the stuff of deep loyal friendships.  It has no imagination for deep, passionate reconcilation and forgiveness between husband and wife.  It has no imagination for God to do a new work in a new season of marriage where trust has been broken and destroyed. 

More thoughts to come....

Cross-sex Friendship Quote of the Week

"With sexuality, the competition between the demands of erotic love and the hopes of friendship might trouble relationships of all shades of affection and, if it does, eros often seems to hold sway.  But if a passionate as opposed to a merely sexual element in the relationship gains the upper hand, and the desire to get to know the other person in mind and spirit grows, then the possessive love of lovers can give way to the wider aspiration of friends."

Mark Vernon, The Philosophy of Friendship

Devil's Lake Fun

I've been away for a few days because we've been having problems connecting to the internet at home.  We needed a new modem.  Its amazing how fast the summer is going.   Jennifer and I have been planning to go up to Devil's Lake State Park on July 2nd and sure enough we did--and its hard to believe its July 3rd already! 

It's amazing--considering the vast, flat, midwestern geography of Chicago, that one can travel a couple of hours and soak in the beauty of God's nature:

Singled Out: Deconstructing Evangelical Romantic Idealism

 

When I started to write a book on cross-gender friendship, I knew one of the things I had to do was attempt to deconstruct the romantic idealism usually embedded in the evangelical language and practice of "one flesh."   Colon and Field in their new book, Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented in Today's Church observe that we often "find ourselves confrontedly repeatedly with the messages that affirm the value of marriage over almost everything else." 

 

Moving Towards a Maturing Friendship

"Marriage, friendships, small groups, congregations and organizations all go through cycles of community and sometimes divide or fragment in the midst of dissonance and transition" (Gareth Icenogle). 

If we really desire a deepening, mature, healthy, relationship (in friendship, marriage, small group, or church community) sooner or later we will get close enough to see each other's dark sides, flaws, and weaknesses.   

In sexual intimacy (and here I am using the term "sexual" in the broadest sense of the term that embraces not only sex in the bedroom but also nonromantic but close relationships between male and female) and spiritual intimacy we have to face periods of conflict and differentiation.  Its not just marriages that face this challenge. 

Opposite-sex friendships will inevitably face this challenge; yes, same-sex friendships face this challenge--any interpersonal relationship or community that evolves towards intimacy is going to face the option of maturing towards the levels of deeper relational and spiritual maturity. 

The Sexualized Child

While I was aware of the rampant sexualization in our pop culture and advertising, I was not privy to the sexualization of children until I came across two books: So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Child by Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne and The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It by M. Gigi Durham. 

Both books were real eye-openers to me. 

Cross-sex Friendship Quote of the Week

"Intimacy does not mean the absence of boundaries.  Intimacy means boundaries are more fluid and permeable because there is trust between two people."  Marie Fortune

Singled Out: Singleness, Friendship, and Marriage Pt. 6

 

This is the sixth post in a review of the new book: Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must Be Reinvented by The Church.

In their chapter on "Happiness and Maturity" Colon and Field identify four messages firmly embedded in evangelical ecclesiology:

1. Great marital sex is the reward for being chaste.

2.  Sex is sacred and necessary for spiritual maturity.

3.  You have the right to be happy, and you must be married in order to be happy.

4.  Marriage is God's primary institution on earth.

Moving Beyond Evangelical Sexual Fundamentalism

Although Colon and Field do not describe it in these terms, what they address in their Lust and Avoidance chapter is a certain kind of evangelical sexual fundamentalism that reduces all sexuality and sexual drive to eros and genital fulfillment.  Not all evangelicals are sexual "fundamentalists" but many evangelical communities embrace it. 

This is something to really ponder:

"If you look at the messages singles receive regarding relationships between men and women, is it any wonder that we have so much trouble connecting, even as friends?  When Christian singles are repeatedly warned to avoid all temptation from the opposite sex, how are they supposed to get to know each other, let alone develop a relationship deep enough to lead to marriage?"

Evangelicals, Social Order, Eschatology

"Christians have long insisted that the journey toward that state of perfection begins in the present.  The same is true where things social are concerned.  While the specifics of their accounts certainly have varied, most Christians through the years have allowed that divine social order is somehow breaking in even on this side of the eschaton....This is the greatest point of tension for evangelical deliberations on social hope.  For a tradition that invests so much in the idea of human depravity (and the resultant expectation that God alone will bring redemption), it is difficult to say much about what might be realized short of the divine reconstitution of the social order.  To do so is to raise the suspicion that one is placing faith in what humans can achieve on their own."

Daniel Johnson, "Contrary Hopes" Evangelical Christianity and the Decline Narrative"  in The Future of Hope

Their is no question one's view of social order breaking in upon the present influences one's view of social order and cross-sex friendships in the present age. 

If you don't read another blog post....

this year, you have to read this one, by Molly.

Seen through the lens of mutual, life-giving, intmate cross-gender friendships, her post has so much to ponder.

Christians, Lust, & Authentic Sexuality

One of the best quotes from this chapter is towards the end of their chapter on "Lust & Avoidance: Dangerous Messages about Sexual Temptation."  Colon and Field write, "This idea that sexuality is just sexual intercourse is a common misperception that often leaves singles wondering how they can be sexual without having sex." 

This chapter is centered around three dangerous messages about sexual temptation running rampant among evangelicals:

Singled Out: Popular Culture and Positive Views of Celibacy

Although we live in a sex-obsessed culture, in the secular world there happens to be positive portrayals of celibacy and chapter two focuses on these examples.  The authors remind us that, in response to the sexual revolution psychologist Gabrielle Brown believed that sexuality "is a conscious, voluntary behavior which is learned, rather than an instinct over which one has no choice."   This challenges the idea as sex as a biological imperative.  Her ideas line up with what many Christian have believed for over two thousand years.  Brown thought that "abstinence is a response on the outside to what's going on, and celibacy is a response from the inside." 

Cross-sex Friendship Quote of the Week

"I haven't experienced sexual intimacy, but there's other ways of being close.  You sharing your dreams, your thoughts, your feelings.  That's being intimate too."  Prejean (Susan Sarandon) in Dead Man Walking

Singled Out: The Narrative of Sex and Repression in Pop Culture

I believe this is a valuable book for conversation not just for singles but for married Christians as well.  The issues here so overlap with cross-gender friendship in the Christian community.  This is not just a book for those who are single. 

Christine Colon and Bonnie Field assume that all unmarried Christians should practice celibacy.  "This is not to say that all single Christians should experience an undeniable 'call' from God or that they should make a life-long commitment to a living single, celibate life.  It does not even mean that we believe that single Christians should not date or desire marriage.  It simply means that Christians should abstain from sexual relationships for as long as they are single, whether that is for a short period of time of for their entire lives.  We use the term 'celibacy' rather than 'abstinence' because the focus on abstinence tends to be on waiting for a future marriage.  The type of celibacy we propose is focused on our relationship with God rather than a future marital relationship."

Chapter One: Repression & Neuroses: Negative Secular Views of Celibacy

Singled Out: Singleness, Friendship, and Marriage

Singled Out: Why Celibacy Must be Reinvented in Today's Church is a book I want to spend some time exploring here.   For a while now, I have been wanting to do a series on singleness, friendship, and marriage and this book is a great place to jump off.  

 

My thinking about singles in the evangelical sub-culture began to change significantly when 1) I started doing serious research on spiritual friendship and in particular, friendship between the sexes a few years ago and 2) I formed an intimate friendship with a single woman.  Number one (same-sex or cross-sex) has almost been totally ignored by evangelicals in their eccelesiology, discipleship, and spiritual formation.   As Eugene Peterson has commented, "Friendship is a much underestimated aspect of spirituality" and this is especially true in Protestant and evangelical spirituality.   

I think this underdeveloped, undervalued, underestimated spirituality of friendship in evangelical spirituality has contributed to the married versus single dichotomy in the contemporary Church life.  After several years of researching spiritual friendship, I don't believe these are unrelated facts:  while there have been endless books on marriage and family, the number of books on either singleness or friendship in the evangelical community are incredibly few in comparison.  I don't think that's a publishing "coincidence."  Yet, nearly almost half of the adult population in the evangelical world is unmarried and the number continues to grow.