In this installment, I need to provide some operational stipulations:
(1) This is directed toward those singles who ARE otherwise inclined to marry. I am not in the mandatory marriage crowd, and–if you wish to remain single–that is your call and I am cool with that.
(2) I am not an egalitarian with respect to marital roles. That understanding is nowhere to be found in Scripture.
OTOH, let’s look at the common complaints of the single women in the Church:
(a) The men won’t commit. In my discussions with Debbie Maken, she had seen that dynamic at all of her church experiences: the women outnumbered the men, and the men used that to their advantage.
MrsLarijani–during her time at Covenant College–also tells me that this dynamic was prevalent, as the women outnumbered the men. (Oh, and from what I saw from my few times on the campus, I believe her. There was quite a selection. And those gals are overwhelmingly from conservative Christian backgrounds.)
Right before we got married, MrsLarijani and I were at a singles forum at Covenant. The room was pretty evenly distributed with single men and women. The women ranged from very good looking to moderately attractive. I’ll bet I could have torn a page from Sun Yung Moon and paired every guy with a gal and everyone who wanted to be married could have been married. And yes, everyone in that room wanted marriage. That was obvious. And yet, there was zero pursuit going on, in a forum where the men were expected to be pursuers.
So yes, I do not doubt the accounts where the women complain of men not committing or pursuing.
(b) The men are spending too much time looking at porn. Again, this is not surprising. I could devote several posts to this very topic alone. It is a serious problem, and the men need to face it front and center.
(c) the women complain that the single men aren’t going to church. While I’ve had the opposite experience in my single life, I am seeing more of that dynamic now that I am married. I’m seeing some single women in my church, and there aren’t men for those women at that church. The single men I know in the church are already dating or engaged.
(d) the women complain of the “player” culture among the men. This is a problem, but–sadly–the women are part of it. Still, the men have some soul-searching to do on this one. I’ll address that.
To the men:
ONE ONE HAND, YOU HAVE BEEN SCREWED!!!
If you grew up in the church, you probably have been sold an emasculated Jesus. Your sorry excuse of a pastor was probably a total wuss who doesn’t have the stones to stand up to his own wife, let alone the women whose tushies he kisses, who sit on the committees that can fire him.
You have been taught to be nice Christian boys, who never get into conflicts, are always agreeable, and never fight with anyone. When you deal with the ladies, you are on eggshells, not wanting to disagree in fear that you will lose her. Your idea of “servant leadership” means you do whatever she wants.
If you keep that up, you will either (a) remain single, as no decent gal will be remotely attracted to you; or (b) end up in a very unhappy marriage if not divorced.
(One of our small group leaders–an Army chaplain who has extensive experience in marriage counseling–says that a lot of women, in divorce, have a chief complaint: that their husbands never disagreed or held the line, and merely acquiesced at every turn.)
Just as Adam lacked the stones to contest his wife as she was deceived by the serpent, many men lack the stones to pursue conflict when it is the right thing to do. As a result, they lose any respect they hoped to get from the women before they even get out of the gate.
You can complain of the women being engulfed in feminism. And while that complaint is not without merits, the proper response to feminism is not passive indifference, but rather strength. Fact is, even a panty-waist feminist liberal will otherwise want a strong man in the house.
How do you project strength? That’s easy: show utter contempt for their displays of feminism. Even if you’re not interested in dating them, you’ll gain their respect.
I can vouch for this firsthand. From my days at Southern Seminary, I often went toe to toe with feminists over a variety of issues. What’s funny, though: those feminists knew who to come to when they needed tutoring for their upcoming exams.
Another way to show strength: pursue the gals. Some of you are on eggshells and worry about rejection. In this case, you have two choices: do nothing and be GUARANTEED to remain single, or ask a gal out and have the POSSIBILITY of getting married. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE! If she says no, you’re no worse off. Put off the fear and go with the LOGIC.
What else can you do? Well, many of the things I recommended for the women ALSO APPLY TO THE MEN.
(1) Get involved in a good church, and start building a network of friends. College or no college, you need to do this.
(2) Just as with the ladies, study your Bible often. Especially Proverbs and the Epistles. Many people grow up in the Church, but never get a full look at books like Proverbs, which is a shame because the wisdom literature of Scripture has a treasure trove of practical insights that–heeded–will save you from blunder after blunder.
(3) Be diligent. Get a job, and work at it. Again, it doesn’t matter if you’re flipping burgers, delivering pizzas, or building a company. What matters: earning your keep, being gainfully employed, making an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Much has been said of female hypergamy–their tendency to want to “marry up”. While those asssessments are correct, we must not always count it as a negative thing, although it often is. For example: an aspiring SAHM would be right to want a man who demonstrated the capacity to be hard-working and gainfully employed. That brand of hypergamy is a good thing.
(4) Just as with the ladies, so it is with the guys: make every effort to get and stay out of debt! If you must take out student loans, take a very small amount, something you can pay off within a few months after graduation or–better yet–in the summer in between terms. If you use credit cards, keep them paid off every month.
(5) Even more so for the guys: STAY OFF THE PORN! While its use among women is rising fast, porn still does most of its damage on the men. This is because of the way men are wired: the effect of porn on the brain is similar to that of cocaine. Dr. Judith Reisman has dubbed that the erototoxin effect.
For the men, it is like adding liquid hydrogen to a barbeque grill. The worst case scenarios are nasty: every year, a couple hundred deaths occur due to autoerotic asphyxiation. This is overwhelmingly fueled by pornographic activity.
Even if you aren’t even close to the worst-case, if you’re a user of porn, you need to get out of that culture. I realize that every red-blooded male reading this has had some porn exposure, and I also realize that porn–combined with the hormonal full-court press known as puberty–can have a devastating effect on a guy that can take years to learn to master.
I’m not here to shame you–other evangelical leaders already do plenty of that–but the sooner you learn to master this, the better off you will be. If you are having trouble in this area, please do get some help, sooner rather than later. You’ll be better-off for it, and your future wife will also appreciate that.
(6) I don’t care how much you get razzed, or looked down on, regarding your sexual inactivity, DO NOT PLAY THE FIELD OR ENGAGE IN THE HOOKUP CULTURE! BTW: one way you will know if a Christian gal is a good catch: if you are sexually inexperienced, she will not look down on you for it. Moreover, as Susan Walsh has recently pointed out: male promiscuity is also potentially damaging to a future marriage. (I say this because men often point to female promiscuity as high-risk behavior. While this is true, it is also true that male promiscuity is low-percentage behavior.) So, just as with the ladies, eschew non-marital sex.
(7) Be willing to challenge the women. This is where knowledge of Game can help. Sometimes, women will screen men out–using “tests”, also called other things in less polite company–and this will cause the “nice guys” to move on. In fact, what she is often doing is telling you, “If you have the stones, I’m available!” In that case, she is actually giving you the green light to pursue her!
(And yes, a woman can do that even if she is not part of the hookup/player culture. This is because women are hard-wired to “test” men: they are in fact trying to make sure that a potential suitor is unflappable.)
How do you know if she is really saying “no”? If you ask her out more than once and she tells you she’s not available at that time, then she’s not interested. Don’t worry about it: just move on. If you ask her out and she says “no”, the it’s no. It’s no skin off your back. Just move on. You’re no worse off than you were before.
You need to adopt the mentality of a top baseball player. The best hitters in the game are those who bat .300 or higher. You know what that means? It means they fail almost 70% of the time! But you have it better than they do: you only have to be successful once to get married.
(8) You need to cultivate your leadership skills. If you aspire to be a husband, you are aspiring to a leadership role. Even if she has feminist leanings, she still will–most of the time–want her man to be strong. Leadership isn’t about being “large and in charge”, but rather about being able to exert influence and persuasion.
Sometimes, that means being able to deal with difficult people, because–women, laugh all you want, but you know I’m right–the gals can be difficult at times. They will get discontent easily; that comes naturally. They will challenge your authority to lead; that comes naturally. They will challenge your knowledge of everything from laundry to Scripture; that comes naturally. They will challenge the wisdom of many decisions; that comes naturally.
If you want to respond to such challenges with a “Screw you, I’m in charge!” type of retort, that will go over like a fart in a church service. (Complementarian does not equal one-way autocracy. She is called to submit to you as to the Lord if she is your wife; that does not, however, make you Omniscient and Omnipotent.)
OTOH, if you respond by asking them why they are questioning this, or asking them what they would recommend–then, after they give their say, discuss the merits of the approaches with them–that is higher-percentage. This gives them at least part-ownership in a decision, and they are going to respect you more.
While there are times where–as a husband, I have to pull rank on my wife and say, “Honey, I’m going to invoke Ephesians 5 on this and you need to trust me”–those times are rare. In a little over two years of marriage, I’ve probably done that fewer than three times.
Think of your potential relationship not so much as General vs. Private, but rather Lieutenant vs. Sergeant. (Any good officer will tell you that, if you want to be a good leader, you had better be ready to take lots of feedback from your sergeants.)
IF YOU HAVE BLUNDERED ON ANY OF THOSE MATTERS:
Like the ladies, all is not lost. Generally speaking, the ladies–ceteris paribus–are going to look for evidence that you are being responsible.
Consider these three things:
(1) If she’s interested in you–and women fall for men with blunders every day–and you are making good progress in cleaning up your messes, then past blunders won’t matter.
(2) If you’re on her bubble, then demonstrating ownership of past junk is higher-percentage.
(3) If you’re not even on her bubble, then keep cleaning your mess up anyway, and don’t worry about her non-interest.
Still, what can a man do, even if he has blundered?
Most of the same advice for the women also apply to the men, especially regarding financial and sexual blunders. I won’t repeat all of those here. Still, there are some things that I’ve observed that men need to keep hearing:
(a) Always maintain a learning disposition. Be willing to accept counsel and feedback. As you read Proverbs, you will find a great emphasis on the value of seeking counsel, making prudent plans, being deliberate in decisions. Seek wisdom and understanding. Learn from your blunders.
(b) Always keep your head. If you are single for any long period of time, you are going to go through periods where it will seem like the whole world is against you. You may find hostility in the Church; certain authors will blame you for the problems of others; certain authors may even call you a “cad”. You are going to be tempted to walk away. That is when you need to fight back and stay the course. The rantings of Debbie Maken aren’t God’s words: those are her opinions. She’s entitled to her opinion, but you can’t let bitter women like her drive you out of the Church. You can’t afford to get rattled by feminist shaming tactics, either.
In the Bible, Abram (later named Abraham) had a major blunder: he got kicked out of Egypt for lying to the Pharaoh. It was his own fault, and he had to own that junk. Did Abram respond to this by wallowing in pity, getting drunk, and doing other stupid things? No. He went back to Bethel and called upon the name of the Lord.
WHAT IF YOU HAVEN’T BLUNDERED ON ANY OF THOSE MATTERS, AND STILL ARE SINGLE?
In that case, I would offer you the same advice as the women, with one exception: don’t quit pursuing.
If there are women in your path, whom you have previously passed over, you may re-assess your reasons. Like the women, this is not about right versus wrong, but about reasonable versus unreasonable. There are no perfect answers here; these are matters for you to asses between yourself and God. I pass no judgments here, but merely call you to examine it for yourself.
Also, you may consider some unconventional means in your search. Toward that end:
(1) Maximize your mobility. If you do this, you can look into moving to other cities. If you find someone, you will be in a better position to relocate if need be. Toward that end, you may want to ensure that you are not too locked down in any particular job, to the extent that this makes sense for you. One thing I wish I had done was not buy a house. That hurt my mobility.
(2) Look outside your denomination. Expand your network to include folks outside your church. Strongly consider other denominations, provided that they are on the reservation.
(3) Don’t be afraid to attempt to hijack a cradle. The available gals in my age group were giving me the short shrift from eHarmony. Well, I killed my eharmony account after that experience in futility. Not too long after that, I took aim at Christina–almost 18 years my junior–who was receptive until she found someone in her ZIP code. After that, I landed MrsLarijani, who is 14 years my junior.
(4) Don’t be afraid to jump from your church. While I hate the “church-hopper” tag, I also believe that, if the people in your church are not helping you find a mate–and the prospects don’t look good where you are–then there is no Biblical rule that says “THOU MUST STAY AT XYZ CHURCH!!!” I’m not saying you HAVE to jump ship; I’m just saying that you may consider doing this if the situation is sufficiently exigent.
(5) Never forget that you must keep cultivating the qualities that are conducive to a successful marriage, in your singleness. As a single, I studied the Bible more than the average bear: I did a lot of teaching, and was a heavy participant in Awana. But ya know what? As a married man now, I look back and still wish I had studied the Scriptures more.
“Dude, Where’s Your Brain?” My Answer to Kevin DeYoung, Part 1. . .
Kevin DeYoung has decided to pull a page from the Mohler-Maken playbook and take aim at the men over the complex issue of protracted singleness.
As a result, what we get is not only nothing new, but rather a recycled, regurgitated variation of an argument that is even LESS compelling than those offered by Mohler or Maken.
First, a few disclaimers, though:
(1) I am married. Happily. For a little over 2 years now.
(2) Before I got married, I was single. For almost 43 years. Doing the math, that adds up to almost a quarter-century of single adulthood.
(3) During my single years, I was (a) VERY involved in the Church, (b) gainfully employed for all but 15 months, (c) did not shy away from the women who were in my venues, and (d) cast a very wide net in my choices of women. In other words: I did not exclude divorced women, or women who had varying forms of baggage. I merely excluded those who were proven to be unstable or catastrophically overweight.
(4) I did not “play the field” during my single days.
(5) I was involved in a variety of churches–both small and large, including the largest Baptist church in Kentucky, where Al Mohler serves as a “Teaching Pastor”.
(6) I served as a teacher in various capacities: including children, youth, young adults, singles, and couples. I had a chance to see–firsthand–what goes on among the various groups.
Ergo, I think I’m qualified to speak to the issues here.
First off, we need to deal with the sterotypes that each sex has of the other.
The women often complain–not without merit–about three types of men: (a) the schlub who plays video games and downloads porn, and otherwise lacks ambition; and (b) the really cool “Alpha male” who won’t commit; and (c) the nice, quiet guy in the pews who “doesn’t take enough initiative”.
The men, in turn, will complain–again, not without merit–of three types of single women they observe in the Church: (a) the overweight gal who eats like a pig at those potluck events, (b) the pretty 24-year-old gal who will tell you how spiritual she wants her man, and yet changes boyfriends every proverbial five minutes, and (c) the otherwise cute, “Biblically divorced” 24-year-old gal with two kids.
While these are serious problems–and I’ll get to them later–they don’t fully account for the problem of protracted singleness. Yes, those are deep-rooted problems that are prevalent in the ugly, dirty world of Christian singles; and yes, those need to be addressed. But they are only part of the story. That is why I am going to start with the OTHER part, which has no simple answers.
With that, back to DeYoung.
In building his thoughts on the matter of protracted singleness, Kevin DeYoung has fallen for what is best-described as a false dichotomy. He looks at this exclusively in terms of single men versus single women.
While his treatment of THAT dichotomy–false as it is–has problems, he leaves out at least two key players here: (a) families that raise these men and women, (b) the Church culture that nurtures their views in childhood, youth, and adulthood, and unwittingly makes it MORE–not less–difficult for men and women to get married.
Moreover, he totally ignores demographic factors that work against singles in a way that they did not 50 years ago, and which are exacerbated by the fragmentation of the Church.
If there is a place where a Christian–male or female–ought to be able to go, express a desire to be married, and be encouraged rather than discouraged in that pursuit, it ought to be the Church. And yet, that is not the situation on the ground.
Contrast that with the Jewish community. If I am a Rabbi in Philadelphia, and a young single gal comes into my office, all I have to do is make a call to a Rabbi in Newark or Cherry Hill or New York, get the families together, and we’ll be having a wedding within 15 months. Jews are not the most resilient people in the world by accident: their networking skills are the stuff of legend.
Ditto for the Indian community. As an IT professional, I’ve known many Indians over the years. I’ve worked with them; I’ve played sports with them. When it comes to networking, and setting people up to get married, the Indians are up there with the Jews.
But Christians aren’t so good at this, and the reason for that can be summed up in one word: FRAGMENTATION. The Body is fragmented badly. One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, and God-only-knows-how-many denominations, the vast majority of which are non-cooperative.
What that means: you may have a couple of good, upstanding Christian gals at First Baptist Church in Anytown; you may have a couple of upstanding Christian guys at Reformed Presbyterian Church in a nearby city; and those guys and gals will never meet, unless they manage to connect through other social circles or online venues.
I’ve been in several churches in which I was the only single adult–of either sex–in the building. Did those pastors lift a finger to help in the networking capacity? Nope. Did any of them know of a pastor who knew a gal who was marriageable? Nope. And yet, we seem to have no small number of marriageable Christian gals who can’t seem to find a guy.
Distance is also a factor. MrsLarijani and I know some marriageable Christian gals. One is in her 40s–divorced with a 5 year old–in the Cincy area; two are in the Louisville area, both in their 20s and never married; one–in her 20s and never married–is in the Chattanooga area; one is 40–never married–in central Kentucky; another is 26–and never married–and goes to our church. Each of these gals ranges from reasonably attractive to very attractive. Each would probably make a nice match for someone. While each has baggage of some sort, those are not irresolvable.
I know some marriageable Christian guys. One–50, never married–is in the Louisville area. One–37, never married–is in the Nashville area. One–a 48-year-old retired Air Force pilot, whose wife left him after 16 years–is in the Memphis area; one–in his 20s, never married, and is in the Army–in the Louisville area.
But each of these guys and gals comes from various Christian backgrounds: some are Baptist; some have Acts 29 backgrounds; some are Pentecostal; one is with a Vineyard church; one is a PCA Presbyterian; one is an evangelical with Reform leanings; one has Catholic leanings.
And that doesn’t account for the folks we know online. There are Christian ladies scattered across the country–Lisa Anderson and Martha Krienke of Boundless are in Colorado; S/C is in Cincinnati; Savvy is in California; Catwoman is in Canada; LadyElaine is in DC (I think); Renee (who blogs at Boundless) is in California.
Single Christians are scattered geographically and denominationally.
Even worse, with the job market being what it is, mobility–or, shall we say–the lack of it, can be a serious issue.
(Let’s say, for example, a good guy–John Doe–was interested in Lisa Anderson, whom I’ve encouraged guys to pursue at Boundless. But let’s say his financial and job situation made relocation prohibitively difficult for him, and he lived in Florida. Would Lisa be able to uproot herself, leave a good job at FotF, sell her house, move to Florida, and marry John Doe? Maybe…maybe not. Only Lisa can answer that one. Jack and Renee–bloggers whom I hoped I could connect–were unable to make the pursuit because of their distance from each other.)
Why do I spend such time on these matters? DeYoung does NOTHING to address those issues, and yet they are very real ones for singles who wish to traverse the logistics of meeting, getting to know each other, doing due diligence, and–ultimately–getting married. Addressing them requires more than the stupid, pat answers like, “if only men would be men…”
And so far, I have only addressed logistical, circumstantial, and denomination issues that impede singles. While those are huge, there is a very large internal problem within the Church.
That is where we come to the Church culture, and the families.
The Church is locked in a very difficult battle over what real masculinity is and is not. This goes to the heart of who Jesus is according to Scripture, contrasted with the modern understanding of Jesus as presented in seminaries and pulpits. This also extends to how the Gospel is preached and fleshed out in the Apostles, in how they lived and admonished men and women in the Early Church. Men and women are in the crossfire in this battle, as a very false presentation of the Biblical Jesus–and the Apostles–has been prevalent for over a hundred years.
That false Jesus is known by the moniker “Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild”, or–as I call him–the “Metrosexual Jesus”. Here is how it goes:
Jesus was this really gentle man who called everyone to be nice and kind, never get involved in conflicts, never argue or contend about anything, never get angry, do lots of kind things for your community, be cheerful in church even if your life is falling apart, and never take any form of self-interest.
What this ends up producing: men who (a) lack a backbone, (b) lack the ability to negotiate basic things such as salary with an employer, (c) refuse to intervene in exigent circumstances, (d) avoid conflict even when moral duty requires engaging it directly, and (e) exude character that–rather than attracts women–actually drives women away. Moreover, this culture drives men away from the Church because the Church is utterly disconnected from men due to their jaded understanding of masculinity.
What this also ends up producing: pastors who have not the first foggiest clue how to counsel men or women, because (a) they don’t understand the masculinity of Jesus, (b) they don’t understand the masculinity of Paul, (c) they have no backbone of their own because they are products of the jaded understanding of masculinity, and (d) they refuse to stand up to their wives as well as those women who dominate the committees in the Church.
The end-result: their children often grow up and RUN–NOT WALK–from the Church. Everyone here knows a few pastor’s daughters who want nothing to do with the Church today. This is because they grew up in families that everyone else looked up to, only to see that their families were rife with hypocrisy.
Now, does any of this excuse single men or women for their sins?
Not by a long shot.
At the same time, for the Church to provide an effective answer, the Church is going to have to get dirty and engage the cesspool that is the world of Christian singles. That means addressing the vices of men and women.
The hookup culture–which is sullied both sexes–is a serious issue.
Serial monogamy–a polished variation of promiscuity–is a serious issue.
Game–or, more accurately, the abuse of it for the purposes of sexual conquest–is a serious issue.
Pornography–the use of which is on the rise among women whereas it was once exclusively a male vice–is a serious issue.
Addictions–from food to alcohol to porn to romance novels–are very serious matters.
Prudence and diligence–or the lacks thereof–are very serious matters.
Addressing them is not simply a matter of preaching hard sermons, although I’ll not discourage that. It requires getting to know these men and women, fostering the relationships that allow you to get into their business without being a Gestapo agent, and helping them make high-percentage decisions that allow them to pursue, in Godly fashion, the desires of their hearts.
It requires men to man up, but also for women to put on their big girl panties.
It does not require men to get married in order to prove masculinity, but rather that those who wish to marry should act that out in Biblical masculinity, and for those inclined to remain single to do so likewise.