Faith Dance

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."