Success Stories

God is showing us some of the fruits of Getting Serious About Getting Married: Rethinking the Gift of Singleness. Below are two interviews of former bachelors who were influenced by the message for early marriage. Chris lives in the United Kingdom, and Darren lives in Chicago, Illinois. Both men are Christians, and we wish them all of God’s blessings on their undertaking of marriage and family life.

Chris:

Before GSAGM, what had you believed about your singleness and about your future plans for marriage? Did you believe marriage would eventually happen? Were you concerned about marrying, or about marrying by a definite time?
From two years before reading your book, I wanted very much to get married and have a family. Before then I wanted the same, but didn't think it would be due to my efforts. I always thought I would get married and have kids, but as I was still single by my mid 30s, I thought I might stay that way. Over those two years I realised I needed to make more effort rather than 'wait for God.' At 38, I wanted to be married and father by 40.

How old were you when the message of GSAGM caught hold? Did the thesis of the book have an impact on your thinking, and what, if any, practical changes did you make as a result of the book?
I was 36 when I first realised that I needed to be more proactive in finding a wife. I read your book when I was 38. It was enthusiastically recommended by a woman who had just dumped me out of the blue, so, of course, at first I didn't want to know. Then she changed her mind and we went out for a few more months, during which time I read the book. It crystallised and gave a theological and biblical underpinning to what I had come to realise about marriage.
Practical changes:
It gave me a clear biblical framework for the need to get married, which intensified my sense of urgency that I should do so before 40. In other words, I really realised that it was up to me to make the effort - the opposite to what my church was teaching! Your book certainly helped me understand how much of the Evangelical Church here and in the USA has been spreading false teaching in this area, so I started to challenge this. The church in which I had been worshipping for a couple of years (famous - All Souls Langham Place - John Stott's) was huge and full of singles, but not in any way urging them to get married. When I criticised this in my fellowship group, I met considerable opposition from an older married couple with two children - the man heads a city mission, and told me that he worked with young men who couldn't do the work they did if they were married. I asked why not?! Couldn't they do more work if they had a supportive wife? This argument was rejected. This was a lack of logic that you highlighted in your book, and illustrated how applicable it was to attitudes in the Church.

I left this church at that time, largely because my then girlfriend was very jealous of me mixing with a large mixed social group, and I thought it would be a sign of commitment. As it turned out, I was wasting my time there, but, looking back, this was providential, because that church illustrated Debbie's point about male- female 'friendship' actually blocking the formation of proper, adult marriage-bound relationships. I was also very involved in the London Christian social scene, including the organisation and promotion of social events, so this gave me plenty of opportunities for observation of, and conversation with, single Christians from different churches. Reading your book, and being in a relationship, meant I could see how this 'friendship fellowship' had actually inhibited my search for a wife, so I gradually cut back on the activities with which I was involved, focusing on my relationship and just supporting social events that challenged this problem.

Despite my commitment to this relationship, my then girlfriend suddenly, and finally, dumped me again, saying that I'd been lovely but she didn't want to marry me (I hadn't yet asked, but I was ready to). This totally devastated me, but I believe that your book and the time spent promoting it had given me a much more focused approach to my search for a wife. You talk a great deal about the tradition of agency in your book, and how this has largely been lost. You also showed how you met your husband through a networking site. Well, up to that time I had rejected using dating sites, as I felt I should instead trust in God's providence, but now I wanted any help I could get to find a wife.

I joined the Christian dating site Fusion101 (it's free, it's big - try it!). I wrote a bold profile, clearly stating that I wanted to get married and start a family. I was shocked how few people had done this on the site! Just a week later, my now wife Clarisa wrote to me. After emails and a long phone call, we met up, after another week. We got on well, found we were both in exactly the same place regarding marriage, and clearly shared a mutual attraction. We were engaged within 6 weeks and married in 51/2 months. Our marriage is now blessed with a wonderful baby girl, Crysya Rose. Because we are now married, our combined incomes allowed us to buy a lovely home, big enough for my parents in law to come over from Romania and live with us. Debbie, your book certainly helped me enlist agency to find a wife. The way I see it, I did my bit, gave it to God, and he did his bit.

Chris, you are now married and have a beautiful daughter to show for it. How has marriage and child changed your life, and the decisions you now make? Has marriage made you richer, i.e. improved your lot in life?
Marriage and fatherhood has stabilised me spiritually, emotionally and sexually. My decisions are now based on my perception of what is best for my family, and for me to fulfill my role as a husband and father. The complete independence I have given up was ultimately more self-serving than giving, and marriage has therefore made me a more giving person, and it also means I receive much more blessing than I did, most obviously in a lovely and loving wife and a gorgeous baby girl. I am therefore much happier and more fulfilled, but also a more productive disciple of Jesus Christ.

Were there certain negative notions of marriage you entertained prior to entering the estate that have now been proved correct or wrong? Were there any expectations you had about being married that have either been disappointed or abundantly satisfied?
Not really - my parents have always been the most excellent advert for marriage. My wife has given herself to me heart, mind, body and soul, and borne me a wonderful daughter, and, with the love of my parents, these are the most precious gifts I have received after my salvation.

As previously single men, would you guys recommend GSAGM to young men you meet, and why?
Absolutely - I have, and one of them has just got married at 26. Because it cuts through all the wrong teaching like a two-edged sword, and replaces it with good, sensible, biblical advice.

Please share any other details you think might benefit the readers of this blog.

For single men seeking a wife: I was, in different contexts, and to differing degrees, rejected as a potential husband four times in just over two years. Each rejection made me stronger as a man and all the more determined to find a wife. So, men, keep going, don't be disheartened, try all means available, and you will do likewise. That means joining dating sights and going to as many social events as possible, with the clear intention of asking women out. If you don't look hard and keep asking women out, you will probably stay single, at least until you are getting too old to have children. Remember: do your bit, give it to God, and He'll do His bit. After all, as Debbie points out, don't do you do this when you need to find work? And isn't getting married more important to your life as a whole than finding a particular job?

For single women seeking a husband (based on my experience and with my wife's endorsement): There are less men than women in the Evangelical Church, so make much more of an effort to attract men when you are at Church, go to all the social events with the same aim, and join as many dating sites as possible. If you want to have children, make every effort you can to get married before 30. If you don't take this advice, you will find it hard to get married at all. When a man is interested in you, stop being so fussy! If you meet a good Christian, you get on well and you find him attractive, and then why not marry him? What else are you looking for? If you can't see anyone at church, if possible, go to a much bigger church. Get the most attractive picture of yourself you can, write you want to get married, and join as many dating sites as possible.

Darren :

Before GSAGM, what had you believed about your singleness and about your future plans for marriage?
In regards to my singleness and future plans for marriage, yes, I wanted to get married. However, I was also struggling with a very serious personal problem and it was impossible for me to consider a relationship of any kind. I never had any intentions to stay single as long as I did, but I believe that to have married without first addressing those personal problems in my life, I would have seriously hurt whoever I did marry.

Did you believe marriage would eventually happen?
I guess the answer is yes and no. In one sense I believed that eventually it would happen, although I had no idea when. However, when I was in the midst of depression because my life had come so undone it was difficult to conceive that I would ever get married, or that any woman would ever want to marry me.


Were you concerned about marrying, or about marrying by a definite time?
This kind of ties in to my answer from the last question. I wasn’t concerned about being married by any particular age, yet at the same time I also thought that I would be 50 before I got my life together and would be able to get married. That certainly was depressing to think about. Also, both my younger brothers were married before I was, and that made me wonder how long before I would get married.

Did the thesis of the book have an impact on your thinking, and what, if any, practical changes did you make as a result of the book?
The idea of not delaying marriage stuck with me, and that certainly became a motivation to get my life together before it was delayed any longer. In fact, as more people around me got married, especially those younger than me, this idea became more and more pronounced.

Darren, since you spent some one-on-one time with my husband and discussed the benefits of plodding ahead with marriage, did the personal interactions with a friend have an impact on your decisions to proceed onward toward marriage?
Yes.


If so, how?
Well, for me, it was through the example they showed in their own lives. Seeing them and talking with them made me desire even more what they had.


In general, do you think one-on-one interaction/exchange of counsel will help this generation of single people to achieve marriage sooner rather than later?
Yes. Young men especially need this type of guidance. Most women I encounter (although not all) seem to desire marriage, while it’s the men who don’t seem to make this a priority. I think you would agree with me; and you do a good job in your book of showing how much our attitude as a society has changed in regards to men that remain single.

What I believe young men really need to know is not only the importance of getting married, but being responsible adults so that they can get married. One of the main reasons I was unable to get married sooner was because I was emotionally and financially unable to support anyone, including myself. Men need to learn personal responsibility with their own lives so that they can be responsible with the lives of others.


Darren, though not yet a dad, please tell me about your marriage experience as newlyweds over the past year.
That’s a big question to answer, but to sum it up in a word: awesome. I’ve never been more at peace in my heart. We both are so happy, and even though we had some struggles, God has been with us and will continue to be with us.

Were there certain negative notions of marriage you entertained prior to entering the estate that have now been proved correct or wrong?
One notion I had about marriage was that it would merely be an extension of dating. In other words, I had always envisioned that my wife would be just like a girlfriend, except that we would be living together. But marriage is an entirely different estate altogether.

Because marriage is entirely different from dating, I can be transparent with my wife whereas I couldn’t be with my girlfriend. Even in my most serious girlfriend relationships, I couldn’t achieve the level of emotional intimacy that I now share with my wife. And that brings about freedom. With girlfriends, I felt this constant pressure to always perform, to be something or somebody just to make them happy. In marriage, my wife accepts me for who I am and I’m free to be me.

I’ve also discovered the security that marriage brings with it, something that none of my dating relationships could ever give me. I believe that this has to do with the commitment that marriage entails: “as long as we both shall live.” In dating relationships I was always afraid that my girlfriend would leave me if we had an argument. In marriage, I know that my wife will never leave me. Of course I don’t desire to fight with her, but I know that if we do, we’ll still be together when it’s over.

Naturally, my skewed thinking that marriage would be just like dating certainly didn’t speed up my walk to the altar. After all, if marriage was virtually the same as dating, why rush into things? I can see now through my own life that having a right view of marriage is vital to how vigorously it’s pursued, or how much longer it’s delayed.


Were there any expectations you had about being married that have either been disappointed or abundantly satisfied?
Marriage has fully exceeded all of my expectations. I’ve never been more at peace in my heart, and I’ve never been more stable in my life. Helen is an outstanding wife. She’s beautiful, intelligent, and faithful. She’s also humble and has a real servant-like attitude. I definitely married up.


As previously single men, would you guys recommend GSAGM to young men you meet, and why?
I would because there are single men who definitely don’t see the importance of marriage and are delaying it without any good reason. I think, in general, the next generation of young men need to understand the benefits of marriage and being ready for it when they are of marriageable age.

Please share any other details you think might benefit the readers of this blog.
I think when we counsel those who are single, especially young men, it’s important to discern between those who are ready for marriage but are delaying it because they don’t want the responsibility, and those who want marriage but are really not ready for it. I think it’s important to be sensitive to this because those who want to get married but are not ready for it can feel pressured by those around them asking them about when they will get married. Just like women, men too can feel sad and lonely about being single, and we should be aware of this.

I believe that we need to educate men in how to be responsible and mature adults, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. Older men should take the lead in doing this, mentoring those who are younger than themselves. Recognizing some of my own mistakes, I took it upon myself to start a group Bible study for some of the young men in our fellowship. Right now we are studying Exodus, contrasting Moses and Pharaoh and the type of men they were. My hope has been to make it as practical as possible, so that they grow in both their faith and their works.

Finally, as I’m sure you would agree with me, the church needs to be proactive in helping men and women grow up so that they can be ready for marriage, and help them find partners suitable for them. If young people are taught to trust God with this most important life decision, it really will be the best decision they’ve ever made.

My church was very proactive in helping me get married. They not only prayed for me to get married but they also practically helped me to find someone. Through a mentor, an older man at my church who taught me the Bible, I was introduced to my wife. Of course he knew her and had prayed about this long before he suggested her to me. And he had helped me to grow in my faith so he knew that I was really ready for marriage. The same was true for her. She also had a mentor who taught her the Bible and had helped her to reach the point of being ready for marriage. When her mentor and my mentor talked to one another and prayed for God’s leading, they decided to introduce the two of us to each other, to see if it really was God’s will.

For me, I had to trust God with this completely, which meant I had to pray about it. And it was a big decision of faith. The reason I say this is that she was in Venezuela and I was in Chicago. I had never met her, talked to her on the phone, or exchanged any email with her. The first time I knew what she looked like was the day before I left for Venezuela to meet her. However, when I prayed about it sincerely, God moved my heart. Furthermore, I trusted my mentor and I knew that he wasn’t going to introduce me to somebody that he didn’t think would be good for me, or somebody that I wouldn’t be attracted to. So, even before I left I was able to honestly say that I was 90% certain that I was going to marry her. I didn’t know why, but I believed it was God’s leading.

And it was God’s leading. I went to Venezuela, and after five days we were engaged. I had to leave to return to the States, but three months later after she received her visa, she came to the U.S. and we were married. And, as they say, the rest is history.

In the case of Helen and me, our church played an integral part in us growing in our faith so we could be ready for marriage, as well as the practical aspect of us actually meeting one another. I think it serves as a good model for how the church at large should be helping people make the commitment to marry.

Marriage is an opportunity to share a lifetime of happiness and joy with another person. For me, that opportunity was five days long, from the moment I got off the plane in Caracas to the time I left. That’s not a lot of time to make a decision that will last a lifetime, but that was the time that was given to me. If I left there and wasn’t engaged, I wouldn’t be able to change my mind a week later. I knew this, but I was also afraid of making the wrong decision. I wanted to know before I made the decision whether it was right or not, yet it was in making the decision that I discovered the answer to this.

So on the morning that I became engaged, I got up early, dressed in my suit, and went up to a small hill and sat on a bench where she and I had talked the day before. I had asked her to meet me there, and we both knew what was going to happen. No one else was around, and I was so nervous as I sat there waiting for her to arrive. Then, I heard a noise, and she was suddenly there and sat down next to me. I looked over at her and said, “Okay, this is for real. Are you sure you want to spend the rest of your life with me?” She said, “Yes.” So I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. She accepted my proposal, and it was in that very moment that I knew I had just made the best decision of my life.

It was the most difficult decision I’ve ever made, but it was the right decision. I have no regrets since that day. I’ve never second guessed myself or wondered if she really was the right person. And although I love her so much, I believe that when the time comes for us to part ways in this life and enter eternity, I will be even more in love with her than I am right now. I could not imagine who I would be or what my life would be like if I had passed up the opportunity when God gave it to me.

A Little Competition Never Hurt Anybody:

Reply to Farmer Tom

I start this off with a question in an area that I am deeply passionate about: How do we solve the healthcare crisis?

If this question were asked of many Americans—we would hear about making health insurance affordable for the middle class or even making it mandatory (Romney in Massachusetts--- are we still America, land of the free???; mandatory, please, please force me). We would hear about certain immigrant groups being a toll on the system and forcing paying patients to pay more. We would hear about Plaintiff/trial lawyers driving the cost of healthcare so high. All of these coffee shop conversations have an air of truth about them, but they are still operating under the paradigm handed to them—that healthcare has to be expensive, that a third party payer system is therefore necessary, and that trial lawyers caused the exorbitant prices.

But what if some of the deeper questions were asked, something I am so surprised to see that Michael Moore (“Sicko”) actually did. Who would have thought it! And it will be a shame to see the message undermined because of the messenger.

So, what if we asked the real questions—why is the number one cause for bankruptcy medical debt? Do all of the health care prices affixed by hospitals, doctors, labs, and pharmaceuticals actually reflect a “fair price” with “fair profit?” Why is the medical industry the only one that thinks it is legitimately entitled to a 20% yearly rate of inflation, and on what basis? Is it rational for every American family to set aside $2 out of every $10 just for health care? Why are some corporations spending more on employee health care insurance, than what they are netting in profits? What made President Bush think that an average family would want to spend on health insurance (not an end product, but an invited, inconvenient and complicated entanglement) virtually the same amount as many pay on their mortgages (i.e. for a house—an end product), just for the sake of having another deduction on their taxes? Ultimately, doesn’t the participation of insurance actually drive the cost of health care up significantly because now we are paying for three to six paper-pushers for ever minute transaction? Since insurance premiums logically reflect the risks insured, in order for health insurance to be affordable, shouldn’t health care itself have to be affordable? And isn’t the insurance industry happy when the health care industry raises costs, since that means higher insurance premiums and higher profits for the insurer? Isn’t the buffer of insurance actually creating too much distance between consumers and the end product and thereby suppressing the outrage that should have occurred sooner? Why does the American Medical Association think it can artificially deflate the number of medical school graduates to thereby artificially increase costs? (Those kinds of practices at one time were considered monopolies in need of a good breaking to foster competition). And in a chicken-egg sense, did the trial lawyers actually push the price of the ultimate goods up, or did they see an exorbitant amount of profits being made by an industry that by its own greed set itself up for tort abuse.

Moreover, has anyone noticed that not one single politician running for the presidency has actually raised the issue that the cost for medical services in this country is in no way related to the “value” of the goods received? That is the core question that solves everything else—what really makes a procedure worth $2,000, verses $20,000, or $200,000? Wouldn’t it be fair to just ask why it doesn’t cost $200?

My point in asking some of these latter questions is to show that the original “coffee shop” sentiments, though containing an element of truth, ultimately miss the big picture of what is truly wrong with the health care industry and its out of control greed to make profits by what it thinks it can squeeze out of consumers, and not by what is the actual value of the product/service provided. The health insurance industry is only a very willing bedfellow, and the trial lawyers make excellent scapegoats/ villains to obscure the real discussion that needs to be had.

Often, when I think about the discussions of Feminism and its impact on the church, I feel like I am having the same discussion with friends about the health care crisis. I feel like we are staying in this zone of combating John Edwards’ type trial lawyers bringing specious physician malpractice claims, and debating tort reform. Ultimately, I am all for tort reform, and even capping what people should get for what alleged malady they received at the hands of their doctor. But the issues go far deeper, and even in the states that have accomplished this legislative measure, health care costs are still spiraling out of control.

Similarly, let me state that I do understand the legacy of Feminism. But Farmer Tom, don’t the issues go a lot deeper? Let me address three of the points that you (and a few other unpublished posts) have brought up.

First, Feminism birthed sexual liberation for women. True. Prior to the Sixties, women were expected to guard their flower, and men understood that sexual intimacy required marriage. But Farmer Tom, it takes two to tango. I think this kind of rationalization is like explaining why looters loot during an extended power outage. Kind of a “well, what did you expect?” Both perpetrators are essentially saying access was easy and it was dark. It is a cheap excuse to say that one cannot blame men, if women give it away. In that one sentiment, we are informing Christian men that they need not lead a woman into marriage, if their singleness is sustained through the advantage of free cow’s milk. Nothing is stopping the male sex from being honorable. Through that sentiment, we are also informing men that we see marriage as some sort of sanctioned concubinage, whereby she trades in sexual fulfillment and he provides her the money to live on. We are now placing the impetus of marriage formation at the feet of women in an almost “gotcha” fashion. We are telling vulnerable, isolated, single women, who have been emotionally and physically starved for years, to withhold the hunger pangs for intimacy in exchange for the “possibility” of being able to feast later. While it is a shared responsibility of both sexes to guard the purity of the marriage bed, it is only his duty to lead a relationship into to marriage. If a pre-marital relationship is exposed to sexual compromise, it shows the man’s lack of leadership. It does not serve as an excuse or even an explanation for the delay of marriage.

I suspect you and I would agree on concepts of headship, the federal husband, and that God is going to hold a husband accountable differently from how he holds a wife in the management of their family. If you are with me so far, is it too much of a stretch to think that God would hold single men differently for the failure to form a family? That is really the core of what I am saying—the solution is not going to come from focusing on Feminism, but from men realizing that they will be held accountable by God and conducting this area of their life with the utmost integrity of intentions and behavior.

Second, Feminism devalues the family. Agreed. Roe v. Wade does undermine the beautiful shot gun weddings of which many families could boast. While it does place the life of the unborn solely at her discretion, it also implicitly tells a man that he need not rise to become a husband, and hands him the most powerful tool with which to destroy his seed: expecting/asking/pressuring his lover to exercise an unthinkable choice. Some men have even tried to use Roe v. Wade in court to argue for equal protection to not support the child they have helped to create. I am familiar with John Lott’s work in the area of anti-gun control, and I am sure he has some great statistical observations in Freedonomics. I agree with you that certain mechanisms were once present to “force men into responsibility.” It would be nice if those nostalgic days existed again, and societal laws were changed to encourage responsible behavior. But I don’t think I am asking too much of Christian men to behave better just on the sheer merit of Scripture and the judgment of God, whether or not the laws of the society in which they live require less.

The loosening of divorce laws (a legacy of the Feminist Movement and willing male legislators and judges) may have left many women with the children (to the detriment of fathers and the children), but it has also left that group of single moms the poorest. I don’t know about the five divorces you have seen, but divorce is almost always provoked; the only question is if the provocation is a biblical excuse to justify the divorce. The problem with no-fault divorces is that it gives both parties to the marriage way too much leeway to abandon ship, where any provocation will do. But women generally do not leave men because of some insatiable desire to go it alone with kids and live off of usually very meager alimony and child support, which often go uncollected.

There was a time when the fathers automatically got the children if there was a divorce. This was usually the case for divorces during the Victorian Era. It was then believed that the needs of the child would best come from the father, especially for the purpose of spiritual shepherding. Somewhere along the way, early 1900s, this school of thought began to change. In a post-agrarian, industrialized economy where the family did not labor together, it became the mother who did most of the care giving to the children, as the father labored away from the home, and his unfamiliarity with the needs of a child were usually made clear in the judicial proceedings. The judicial philosophy today is virtually the same where a determination is being made as to what will be in the best interest of a minor in awarding custody; it is not some sort of foil by the Feminists, a device to take children away from their fathers.

I do not think God gives Christian men, or any men for that matter, some sort of pass to be gun-shy about marriage because of all the negative consequences from divorce. Lest we forget, divorces in Jesus’ day were often liberally granted by one set of the Pharisees, and Jesus himself within that context told his disciples that they would not be able to maintain a pure singles lifestyle. (See Matt. 19).

Divorce is not some sort of random event; it is something that percolates. Even in the five divorces I can personally think of, only one was a surprise—a mother of seven home schooled children, who still found the time to cheat on her husband; but then I later learned that both of the spouses had been previously married, which I guess is an indicator of sorts, and thus, not that surprising. In the other four cases known to me, I expected a divorce; it was just a matter of time. Either because of the observed immaturity of the characters involved, or because I expected a foreign bride to leave after a certain amount of time (got my papers today, yippee), or because a good Christian girlfriend simply unwisely chose to marry a spiritually boring, almost spiritually dead dude in the singles Sunday school class, or the wife leaving a man who came to a city church wearing overalls with all of their many, many little children, and you could just watch the husband and know his proud overalls served as his middle finger at uptown church goers, and from that, you just knew he would be an even more difficult marriage partner. I know that these are personal stories, and really cannot serve as “empirical evidence.” But I do think that an amalgamation of all of our collective stories would show divorce as a predictable event, not some sort of haphazard calamity that just happens to befall some unsuspecting Christian family. Thus, I always say--why not choose wisely at the inception in the selection of a candidate, and conduct oneself in a manner to maintain a marriage. It is very convenient to blame Feminists, when we simply don’t want to look at our own mess and our own sins that have lead to the unraveling of something beautiful.

Third, Feminism has taught women to value careers over families. I agree that New School Feminists have advocated this: and it is rather ironic. Women have always been defined by relationships; even the Feminists haven’t been able to change that principle. They simply persuaded women to try another set of relationships for definition. I agree with you that I cannot see the grand accomplishment by trading the labels of “wife, mom, and devoted daughter” for “senior partner and secretary of the Junior League.” But this belief that women who have developed professional careers are somehow better, and that being a wife and mom is secondary, is NOT a view subscribed to by the average Christian woman sitting in the pews. They desperately want to be the “social pariahs” of which the Feminists complained. Farmer Tom, come on. Most women pursued their schooling in the same way as most male students, usually clueless and meandering for the first three to four semesters, and then choosing a liberal arts degree to wait tables later. They do not approach universities just waiting for their big break to show their liberation from men and marriage. They go to college because it is now commonly held that the masses should all go to college.

But what I am bothered by from you is this inference that women have to prove that they are more inclined towards marriage and family by willfully refusing to develop their talents in a professional sense, or ignoring them, or strategically placing them last on the template. I am disturbed that you would think that my listing of my professional accomplishments before listing wife and mom somehow reflects my internal value prioritization of my accomplishments. It could simply reflect a chronology of events in time. Or it could reflect the fact that being schooled for nineteen years and being a published author on a particular subject makes me uniquely credentialed to speak to certain things, than being the universal wife or mom, church floral designer, and classroom helper. While neither Christendom nor the United States needs another lawyer, whether male or female, I have no apologies or regrets for getting this degree through scholarships, without debt, by the age of 23, and while demonstrating a willingness to be married. God has allowed my feet to go down a path with unique opportunities and training from some of the best lawyers in this country. I guess I just don’t feel the false humility to denounce these God-sends with nods to being a homemaker.

Perhaps I am reading too much into what you wrote, but there seems to be this suspicion on your part—“always suspected you were a closet Feminist.” I remember a pastor’s wife once chiding me as a newlywed for saying I was a “housewife.” She told me I was not “married to the house, but to my husband.” I saw her point in a very hyper-technical way, but the word “housewife” was commonly understood as conveying someone who stays at home to be a wife. I share this story with you because I see your observation of my by-line description and putting so much thought into how it was ordered on about the same level. You are looking for a villain that does not exist here. Farmer Tom, you may agree with the main points of my book, but you cannot mask the personal contempt you have for me as a person and a formerly professional career woman in the personal attacks you have laced in your posts.

But I think we need to address something deeper—your underlying belief that if women subside in the pursuit of higher education, they will see themselves married young again. As you put it, in order for the men to rise again, we need women to stop spending one more dime of money or time in high level schooling, since the world needs more wives and moms, than Christian lady lawyers or Christian doctors. I remember one former boyfriend (a 37 year old bachelor at the time) who challenged my law degree as sending off no-marriage signals, and that if women like me were not pursuing manly degrees, perhaps we could be married sooner. I asked him how the numbers were working out for the school teachers and nurses of this generation of women wanting to get married; did they arrive at the altar faster because of their more feminine professions? For our generation of single women, it is largely irrelevant what degree was pursued in terms of marriage rates. I tend to agree with you generally that the more one is schooled, the more marriage itself is delayed, and perhaps because of unnecessary debt accumulation, children are often deferred unnaturally. But let’s not demonize all (men or women) who choose higher level professions and had the talents, aptitude, appropriate funding/ financial backing, and early determination for same. The type of profession chosen isn’t the problem with women; it is ultimately their motivation in this new world order for doing so. I think that among my peers, their decision is not an effort to show their accord with Feminists and it is not so they could live independent of men by being financially secure. The two reasons are simply (1) it is because implicitly they understand that they will not have their fathers forever, and because they have no other choice but to prepare for a life where they do not know if they will have a husband to depend on either; they simply have to make their way in this world, and (2) the motivation to choose a field of study based on personal talents, etc. (see above), so as to be able to be a productive member in society, so as to be able to provide for oneself and be of assistance to a spouse, these are all honorable and wise decisions. But in your world, it is also a curse worthy of making women forfeit marriage.

There is no “replacement” of men with careers and money. If this had been the motive all along, why do most artificial insemination candidates wait until the cusp of forty or forty-five, when their fertility is truly seconds from expiring? If women were truly motivated by the desire to live unconstrained by men, rely solely on their incomes, and be overwhelmed single parents shouldering an enormous burden by themselves and other paid-caretakers, wouldn’t they have tried the artificial insemination thing around 25, a fertility high point and when their physical strength was not yet sapped? The countless stories of single women who have decided to adopt later in life or have children through medical conception show one thing in common—their prince charming never arrived, and their opportunities to find a good mate were illusive.

But here is the other problem I see with your theory—you are operating in a zero sum game fashion. Like women advancing necessarily means that men are losing and decreasing. Like it is perfectly acceptable for a man to resign himself to singleness, since the new barter allegedly has so many risks than the nostalgic 1950s, and women already insulted his manhood by superseding him educationally, and showing off her abilities to be financially secure and independent. There is no reason that men cannot compete with what women have been encouraged to do in developing professional attributes. It is not exactly like women are hogging precious men seats at university because we no longer have a competitive higher education system; it may be considerably costlier, but that does not make something competitive. This insatiable need to “re-level” the playing field, send women packing back to the hearth to learn knitting, sewing, cooking, and Bible reading, so that men can feel their testosterone levels rise again is absolute nonsense. (The only place I would want to send women home from is the good Seminaries; from bad Seminaries, I would want to send both sexes home). In many other cultures around the globe, formal education is expected of both sexes. No one in those other cultures is making excuses for their undeveloped sons because their daughters ended up succeeding in life. Career development/ educational accomplishments are treated as assets in the marriage search. No one is weighing-- wait, do we really want Manjula to become the village doctor, what if there aren’t enough qualified eligible boys for her when she grows up? No one would believe that the potential for marriage goes down as one’s knowledge increases. And yet, this is the very thought that you would have Christendom entertain—how do we re-masculinize men by holding women back professionally. We are the only ones who want to inform men in our culture that their personal failures in education, profession, and general masculinity are the result of an insidious plot by Feminists and independent career-women, and that if they could just return to the artificial pre-1965 workplace demographics, they could once again be at the top of their game. In your analysis, it is the fact that men now have to compete with not only other men, but women also, that has made many of them turn in their towels. In my opinion, a little competition never hurt anybody.

Farmer Tom, I don’t disagree with you that having large numbers of women in the workplace is problematic—it is problematic for the economy because the costs of goods adjust to a dual income household, it is problematic for the family because the children often go neglected, especially in the area of good healthy eating, and other emotional needs that only the live continual presence/ watchful eye of a mom solves, it is problematic for providing opportunities for infidelity, it is problematic because men do not like to take orders from women, whether wives or bosses. It is fraught with problems, period. But this has nothing to do with single women, who have no choice other than to prepare to be a wage-earner/market producer because she still does not know if she will be one of the lucky ones to actually get married, and who pursues her education for the myriad of noble reasons (see above). Moreover, as much as you and I might find problematic the “neo-traditional family” (to borrow a term from Brad Wilcox), it ultimately has no bearing on whether single men avoid marriage. David Popenoe’s research through the National Marriage Project shows that single men tend to like the neo-traditional family since their responsibilities and pressures become significantly curbed because of a financially secure and independent wife. Thus, we are having a discussion on something that is apparently not even a negative factor when men are looking for wives, so yet again, why are we allowing Feminism to cloud the issue as to why single Christian men cannot find wives in the Church, where the odds are clearly in their favor.

Lastly, Farmer Tom, you may not appreciate my training or value my contributions to the legal community, but former employers do, and my husband certainly does. What I provided certain employers in terms of legal perspective and writing was not a fungible good that could have been easily duplicated by just another lawyer, whether male or female; it was rare, and God appointed those seasons for me to be a blessing to those particular folks. And want to gasp again, I actually enjoyed or was satisfied with the labor of my hands for that season. As for my husband, because of the occasional legal counsel I provide him in his business and in helping a dear relative contend with an oppressor, my husband is very happy my father decided to support my decision to pursue higher education. If we ever have any financial hardships, my husband can count on me to use my skill set for a season to help him and our family get over a rough patch. Instead of looking at my decision to pursue law and its impact to fan the flames of Feminism, you need to broaden your perspective in looking at the unique blessings it has provided to so many of the other brethren, including the many who have read my book and observed that it might actually take a legal mind to see through the spiritual gobbledygook of the gift of singleness.

You may not like God “raising up” a female “for such a time as this,” and perhaps you second guess God in his decision to do so with a formally educated lawyer, instead of someone you think better models the utopic Christian homemaker. I am sure Mike Huckabee also avoided the salient points of Sicko by calling on Michael Moore to lose weight before criticizing the healthcare/insurance industry. But as much as we may not like the messengers often sent us, it is better for us to look at the substance of what they are criticizing and address same, than go off on irrelevant tangents.

I am going to conclude with Hosea 4:14. It reflects not only God’s scheme of accountability, but also from which sex the redemption must come

The NIV puts it like this:

"I will not punish your daughters
when they turn to prostitution,
nor your daughters-in-law
when they commit adultery,
because the men themselves consort with harlots
and sacrifice with shrine prostitutes—
a people without understanding will come to ruin!"

And the ESV has this:

"I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore,
nor your brides when they commit adultery;
for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes
and sacrifice with cult prostitutes,
and a people without understanding shall come to ruin."

Undoubtedly, that entire book is not only about Hosea’s personal marital problems, but the general infidelity of Israel. We all know what Hosea’s wife was like. To say she had some issues is to put it mildly. But this letter reminds us that God expects men with “great compassion” to redeem this situation, as the Lord God himself has often redeemed His people when they have strayed. The issue ultimately is not going to be decided by the alleged impact of Feminism on Christian women, or the role that women and men have played in our current mess. Men are going to be held accountable when women go astray. They have failed in their leadership and have led women into sin because of it. So, we can keep blaming the Feminists, vilifying single women for daring to be gainfully employed, accusing women of genuinely desiring single parenthood, or we can begin the redemption. It is my hope that you Farmer Tom, if you agree with my book, will fight for the Christian single male and not let him be sidetracked with the myriad of “excuses” he could call upon to avoid marriage. Because ultimately that is what Feminism is—a very good cover story.

THE FEMINISTS MADE ME DO IT (and other good excuses)

I have a pretty liberal standard for comment publication. But let's not confuse that with me being liberal, or a feminist for that matter.

That term "feminist" is very offensive, perhaps not on the level of being called a “child predator” or “mass murderer,” but it comes with the implicit aim to discredit the messenger as an illegitimate Christian, unworthy of speaking to this culture. I see this label casually thrown about by men, as if a patently inapplicable label said enough will eventually stick and somehow undermine my long overdue message.

Any woman who writes a book commending marriage for both sexes as God's way and design is anything but a hard core or soft core feminist. New school Feminists (not the old school ones who really advocated educational equality) have been devoted to making marriage irrelevant and blurring the distinction between the two sexes. I, on the other hand, have gone on a crusade in the opposite direction-- to prove that marriage does matter and should matter to singles, and that there are differences between the two sexes and their needs and goals, and because of these differences, females inevitably do not have equal bargaining power in the modern dating game.

If you want to attack me on my own blog, try using some logic, history and good reasoning next time, and perhaps picking an alternative name-calling term that actually applies.

As I review some of my comment posts, there seems to be a certain train of thought developing out there from “squeaky wheel” men and some women criticizing my book:

The church is now too feminine (thanks to the women), and men are fleeing churches causing lop-sided male-female ratios. Similarly, because women want to control relationships, men are fleeing from those also. Women, you deserve to have the feminized churches you always dreamed about, and be single, alone, and barren until you realize you must meet men on their own terms and stop blaming them.

It is not in my nature to leave faulty assumptions unchallenged. Weeding out the “gift of singleness” via my book is just the beginning. So, let us now deconstruct this floating myth.

Men are fleeing churches for the same reasons that they are fleeing from romantic relationships or the advancement of their own children. There is a lack of commitment and a lack of leadership to see something through to a good conclusion. There is a reason that the Lord wants the hearts of the fathers to turn to their children; He knows their weak and feeble frame to wander from the things they should be devoted to the most. There is a reason he reminds husbands to love their wives; it is easy to forget. These traits of leadership and perseverance just have not been fostered in this generation of men; and it is up to the women in this generation, like Judge Deborah, to help the General Baraks back into place by showing men the consequences of a lack of leadership.

But let us more closely examine the feminized churches that allegedly “keep men away.” Undoubtedly, the modern evangelical church has gone in a direction that should bother both sexes-- with its wild entertainment model worship services, inventing things that do not meet the regulative principle, singing mind-numbing repetitious songs that should not have even been copyrighted for who would actually want to take credit for crafting such third grade sentences and thoughts, seeker-friendly sermons week after week leaving believers young and old severely malnourished, peddling the word of God as if it were a sales pitch, the ordination of women and even homosexuals in some denominations into positions that are clearly meant for married men to occupy, fracturing the functions of a pastor, the fractured understanding of Scripture, the weakening of exercise of spiritual discipline, and so on and on . . . . But can we say that these trends are the doing of women or feminists in the church? What makes this new order feminine, per se? Because it appeals to the right-brain emotional thinking, more than the left-brain logic. From what I read from many of my male criticizers, emotional thinking is no longer a women’s only club; yes, some of you have won full membership by your very words.

The new order of things in churches shows a shift towards doing things on a (man’s world) business model, with an overwhelming need to see results quickly, as opposed to waiting on the Lord to accomplish the purposes for which His word was sent out. The new order of things to dumb down isn’t the doing of women, it is the doing of men with either liquidated seminary degrees or men who simply have not been well trained to know the value in holding to the older order of worship and good doctrine. The new order of things assumes that grace supersedes the law, when they actually work together. The new order in churches could not come about without men voting these things into being, any more than abortion on demand could come about without an all male judiciary or no fault divorce statutes from predominantly male legislatures. But I’m sure the Feminists made them all do it!

While these troubling trends in the modern church could be laid at the feet of male ministers, the modern state of things should not be the desire of either sex. It should sadden us all equally and the restoration of the bride should be the goal of both sexes. The fact that the women stay in churches despite these present handicaps does not speak to their implied preference for a feminized worship environment; it speaks to their character to endure and it speaks to men's lack of commitment and perhaps even lack of effort. It really is no different than Jesus' male disciples repeatedly falling asleep in the garden during prayer time, abandoning him at the cross, denying associating with him, and leaving our Lord to receive ministry at the hands of women during his most pressing hour. But let us remember that Jesus wanted the men restored to leadership and thrice asked Peter to feed the sheep.

I must ask as my thought provoking articles always seem to get sidetracked by accusations of tone or Feminism or lacking a submissive, soft gentle spirit, if men were so tired of “feminized” churches, (if we can even call the modern ecclesiastical problems feminine) why aren’t we seeing new pockets of all-male and all-male leadership churches spring up all around town. The Reformation in a sense did splinter the Church, and thereafter, religious disagreements have always spawned the birth of yet another new denomination. In the last thirty years, Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) out of the PC USA. Most recently, the Episcopalian split over the gay ordination issue. Likewise, shouldn’t all these men who feel so “shut out” be organizing their own “masculine” worship cabal? If anything, Promise Keepers, which one could characterize as a Para- Church organization promoting biblical manhood, was not created to help men escape the ravages of a so-called feminized church, but to help them be better husbands and fathers. To help them be better men.

Here is my conclusion: The modern trend of single men drifting in and out of churches is symptomatic of life patterns of the modern male to drift through life and not believe that he really needs to commit to anything in particular, but always keep his options open. (I do not mean this last statement to apply to all men, but a serious reflection of the afflictions facing our Christian brethren). My rhetoric is meant to point out the farcical nature of the claims many detractors are positing as their reason for remaining single. Men are no more “staying away” from Christian women because most women are infected with a “feminist ethos,” any more than they are staying away from churches because it has become a feminized organization. It is a lifestyle preference for non-commitment.

It is for this reason that the idle, idle threat of – “keep blaming single men in churches and see if we return”—has absolutely no teeth to it. The last thing we have done in the modern church is blame men for anything. We have carefully glossed over or completely ignored the lack of male leadership fostering the way for a myriad of problems to follow. Everyone’s favorite bogie is the Feminists, whether they actually have any sister followers in the churches or not. I even see other authors on this topic imply that somehow I, as a female, should just talk to single women about how Feminism might be impacting their dating life, and let the men ministers handle holding accountable the men. No kidding, men holding men accountable works best, especially older married men aiding younger single Christian men to become mature—but this kind of helpful accountability device was barely on the pastoral radar before my book came out. Let’s face it, twenty or more years of preaching the so-called “gift the singleness,” making those who desire marriage feel like idolaters, convincing men not to pursue marriage but wait on a cupid-like capricious God, pointing to Feminists for all evils under the sun-- have really worked well in terms of producing marriages for this generation. I marvel at the work of most male ministers holding young men accountable on this subject. Are we to believe that these male ministers were privately reprimanding single men for extending adolescence, yet publicly extolling singleness and chastising Feminists? Why the disconnect between practice and preaching? What we say publicly from the pulpit has to be consonant with how we hold people accountable privately. Ultimately, it is our public ideas that have the greatest consequences. Had my book not come out, we would have been on the same trajectory, shadow boxing the same villains, and I suspect, our marriage rates would have been just about the same-- abysmal. Thank goodness Deborah felt no need to clamp down because she did not share Barak’s gender or enjoy a kinship relationship with him.


PRACTICAL TIPS TO HELP MEN

Often when I read these accusations of “soft feminism” from bachelors, what I am really seeing are men who are tired of the dating game, tired of being rejected, and probably in all honesty would like to get married. But the question still is—are they pursuing someone with whom they have parity. God in his beauty has created males and females at all points of the spectrum with respect to looks, intelligence, professions, ambitions, maturity, etc. As I read some of the comments from angered men, there is an accusation that if a woman did not want to settle for some man, ergo, she must not want to settle down period. There is an implied charge that women should be happy to just have the “bare minimum” man who has an “okay job” and “doesn’t pass gas” in church. There is this notion that our grandmothers settled for our grandfathers because they brought little education or monetary capital to the table, and hence, the granddaughters should do likewise, even if their trousseaux are substantially larger.

This almost reminds me of a Saturday night skit where the punch line was—“lower your standards.” God has not called us to lower our standards, but to be equally yoked, and I believe this means more than two people who profess Christ as Lord. The more commonalities a couple has will work toward helping the two work in unity as one—this includes spiritual maturity, knowledge and understanding of Scripture, intellectual development, familial backgrounds and expectations, educational achievements, social standing, ambitions, etc.

There are two things men can do here to help improve the situation, if indeed they are sincere about seeking marriage. First, most men would feel less frustrated if they pursued women who were like them (i.e. equals), and thereby risk a lower chance of rejection. It is the opinion of this author that because there is no gatekeeper or scout to screen candidates on behalf of women, most men usually aim a little bit higher than they should, hoping to get lucky, and hence a series of “systematic mismatches” (a term borrowed from Dinesh D’Souza) follow to vex both sexes. It is little of the sixty year old grandpa on his second wind hoping to get lucky with the less wrinkled forty year old woman. Women today are not going to settle for the bare minimum man, any more than a man would settle for a bare minimum car or a bare minimum stereo system. We all have something to offer, but some do have more to offer than others. The trick is to find someone with whom to be equally yoked, and yet realize that the time to search is a relatively limited period. (I apologize if my writings are coming off as “marriage being a consumer product;” that certainly is not my intention, as I believe it to be a union mandated through the creation ordinances to reflect the glory and image of God).

The Egalitarian notion that romantic love will obfuscate all other inequalities is a purely Western sentiment. No one India who is an untouchable is entertaining possibilities of advancing into the next caste through marriage; males and females in each group pair according to parity and what they respectively bring to the table. The entire time parents raise children in India it is being instilled that the choices they make throughout childhood will ultimately impact who they are as an adult and will have a bearing on what they are able to capture in terms of a spouse. Here in the West, we simply assume that people should love us the way we are and are angered when they don’t.

Second, men can actually do something to improve themselves and make themselves more appealing. This notion of “why can’t you just accept me the way I am” is fundamentally childish. No one is going to remain static; God himself wants to change virtually everything about us to make us conformed to the image of Christ. What in the world would make men think that women wouldn’t want them to change certain habits or traits also? What in the world would make men think they deserve to stay the way they are? Ever since we are born into this world, everything around us and about us is changing and being shaped by others. My children are constantly being coached about sharing toys, being loving towards one another, and to deal with sins of the heart like covetousness. They are constantly being disciplined about the manner in which they speak to parents, the use of their voice and tone. They are constantly being told to use their hands for the glory of God and not for evil. I suspect I am going to have to constantly keep mothering and helping shape them until they have formed their own home (and who knows, maybe even thereafter). But at marriage, they will have their respective spouses to shape them and make them holier for Christ. It is irrational for anyone, male or female, to believe that romantic significant others will not ask for change in some way or fashion. We should count ourselves so lucky that God allowed someone to enter our lives to help change us for the better. The only question we should be asking ourselves is if the change sought is an improvement, and then submitting in love.

I share the story of one girl I knew who once dated a young man who was really, really, really into auto parts. Though holding two advanced degrees in engineering and having a decent stable job, this man chose to spend virtually every spare minute playing with auto parts and having grease underneath his fingernails. When it came time to go out on a date, he did not have a real car, but one that he was assembling and chose to take his date out in that crude vehicle (which BTW had no seat belts). This young man often dressed in overalls for his dates; such is the self-imposed requirement for those who pay faux homage to agrarianism. She once made him return home to change his farmer outfit before the two of them went out. They, of course, had to take her car since his auto-thingy was unfit for driving or riding in, unless one actually wanted to smell of exhaust fumes at the restaurant. As the story goes, ultimatums were issued, and the guy wanted to know why the girl “wanted to change everything about him.” She let him know that if those things were so fundamentally part of his identity, it could not be a part of her identity. This man is now over forty and has not found anyone else, as his girlfriend predicted when it ended. I share this story only to point out that it is really easy for men to say that they simply want women to “respect their leadership” and accept them the way they are by not being “critical.” When the truth is, that there are some hard things that certain men may need to hear, and while it would be best coming from their parents (who should have groomed their children to be marriage-ready in conjunction with coming of age), these men should nevertheless count themselves fortunate that God was able to use another individual to help them evaluate areas of self-improvement.

My husband when he was trying to find a wife was constantly prodded by his mother to take better care of himself. She helped him to work out and made sure he went in for facials. Mrs. Maken Sr. was doing everything she could to help her son put his best foot forward. And often, the criticisms that most men receive, whether from mom or a wife to be, should be taken with this understanding—that the women who care about you simply want you to be the best you can be. After all, this is what God wants from us in general—our best effort (i.e. excellence), and God has appointed a wife as a helpmeet so that we can have an invaluable assistant and be our best. So often, I see lack of ambition and effort on the part of men excused by the over- spiritualization of poverty and financial martyrdom. Greed and vanity are made to be the only demons worthy of slaying. We are too quick to dismiss poorly made occupational/ professional choices of men by distorting monetary success and the need for it as a worldly, fleshly desire. In the process, we often cover up the vices of sloth/ laziness on the part of men to do better and to hold jobs that demonstrate the ability to support a family. The problem I am seeing here is that some men make choices to lead a certain life, to behave in a certain way socially, and when their choices do not seem to appeal to women, instead of accepting personal responsibility, they choose to call the women demanding, obsessive, or plagued with Feminist thought. I just find that Feminism is a very convenient scapegoat when we do not want to take responsibility for the choices we make in how we present ourselves as a candidate for marriage. A woman has an obligation to affirm a man’s leadership, she is not required to celebrate mediocrity.

Having said this, I do want to add that I share the frustrations of some decent men who suffer from unjust dismissals from women. In my book, I discuss at length the benefit of having an agent (i.e. a parental figure) work with women in the process of securing marriage. The gatekeeper/scout father figure works both ways to not only hold the man accountable, but the daughter as well. The agent not only stops a lackluster suitor from access to a worthy woman, but also can counsel a daughter not to squander opportunities with a fairly good/even match. I can think of girl friends of mine who have rejected perfectly good candidates with noble character and stable jobs over issues of not being cute enough or too thin or not feeling butterflies in the stomach. I wish I could have said to them that some of their own deficiencies in other areas would cancel out his mediocre looks. Or I wish I could have cautioned some about overly romanticized expectations that are not necessarily Biblical criteria for rejection. Or I wish I could have told another friend to stop investing so much of her time and effort into a Seminary degree (for we all know how efficacious they are for women) so that she could do “youth ministries,” and instead explore the potential of a relationship with a good friend of mine looking for a wife, a choice which would more than likely have led to her own set of youth to minister to. Unfortunately with the hard truths, friends usually cannot be so bold, but authoritative father figures can. Thus men, it is to your advantage, to work alongside an older established Christian family man in your serious pursuit of marriage, and insist your courted one also have one available for accountability purposes for her and you.

The long and short of it is-- calling men to task for neglecting marriage, for irresponsibility in conducting one’s youth, lack of vision, lack of ambition, lack of purpose, poor professional choices, poor social skills-- is not “fundamental disrespect” of men. It is immature in the extreme to believe that our personal choices which constitute much of who we are somehow become consequence free in the mating game. It is easy to avoid personal responsibility for our personal choices that have caused perennial bachelorhood by pointing to Feminists, soft core feminism in Christian women, labeling women as men-haters or disrespectful the moment they suggest change or dare disagree, or by casting women as lacking a submissive, quiet, gentle spirit if they logically outline the flaws in a man’s argument. Women are only required to submit to their fathers or husbands, not to men in general. If men desire the submissiveness of women, they first have to be men to win the hand of a woman. They have to be leaders. Jesus defined leadership as servanthood, so a sacrificial spirit will inevitably be evaluated during courtship. When men refuse to change even simple things, like social habits, and instead want to be argumentative about women being controlling or Feminist driven, the heart of the matter is exposed.

The only way to respect men is if men show themselves to be men; and for that, women, whether in courtship or already married, must make every effort to make sure that her man is leading. When men clamor to be “met on their own terms,” and “let the girl be the girl and the boy be the boy,” it sounds so romantically egalitarian, and yet so oblivious at the same time. The girl cannot be the girl unless the boy is the man. Similarly, a wife has nothing to submit to if her husband does not lead. It is possible for the husband to lead, and the wife to sadly revolt against his authority. But the converse (husband no lead, wife follow) is impossible. The reason is because the woman is for the glory of the man, and the man must precede the woman. (I. Cor. 11:7-9). God designed it so because the woman was made “out of”/for the man. (See also Gen. 2:22-23).

The resistance I am hearing from a lone few bachelors out there is because someone, albeit a woman, finally had the nerve to say no longer do romantic relationships on men’s terms or women’s terms, but according to God’s objective for marriages forming during one’s youth. And for that, men and women are required not only to present themselves as marriage-ready and marriage-worthy, but to be purposeful from the inception of a relationship. Women by their very nature and design instinctively know that they are made for the man. During the Reformation, there was a strain of thought that suggested that women could never have been called to remain single because they were “made for the man,” (I. Cor. 11:9) and because all five characters in the Bible with lifelong celibacy produced singleness were all male. There is a loneliness, a floundering, an unexpressed longing to be whole, that is more acutely felt by women than men remaining single. Single women experience purposelessness; whereas, single men experience a crippled/ maimed life, though many seem to get accustomed to their own hobbling. Therefore, it is not extraordinary that women then are the ones usually demanding DTR (define the relationship). Adam named Eve to establish his headship and help her with her own self-understanding. When a man refuses to define, set out objectives, clarify intentions to his follower, he is ultimately refusing to lead. He is refusing to be a man.

But, women are looking to the man to define far more than the nature of the relationship. They want him to articulate the future as well. I am not talking about gazing into a crystal ball with your significant other, but imagining a future that is blessed by being together and acting as one. Women are evaluating the leadership potential of a man by knowing that he has a vision, a plan, goals for him, his wife and children. No one affirms a man just because he is a man. I do not revere my husband just because he is a man. I revere him for who he is as a person, what he has done so far, for the potential he holds, and for what he wants to do, and on the demonstrable basis of past accomplishments and track record, and a satisfactory observation of the development of adequate Christian character, he was entrusted with becoming my husband. The only way a single man will be able to bring alongside a single woman to share in his dreams for the future, to create in her mind a mental picture of future blessings, is not by smooth seductive words, but by showing her that he is trustworthy based on his past conduct in being diligent, ingenious, hard-working, and sacrificial. The “bare minimum” man is not interested in proving anything to a young lady or even offering her much, but claiming an entitlement to respect by the very fact that he is male. That is simply unacceptable. That is simply unbiblical.

Here is my encouragement to young and not so young men out there who have sincere intentions to find a wife and are tired of making excuses and blaming women. Every one knows that some women have turned down some decent candidates and squandered opportunities; you will always have a collective sympathy on this count. But a cause for frustration is not necessarily a cause for failure. I am glad that a certain anonymous in one of my earlier posts shared her story of giving an okay looking, otherwise decent guy a chance, and finding herself with the love of her life. I have another male friend who had once sought my advice about whether he should pursue a girl who was plump and whether he could get over that “not feeling sexually attracted” hurdle. I told him likewise not to focus on her weight, but her as a person and whether he really enjoyed being with her and who she was. After he married her, he called me to thank me “for helping him marry his best friend.” There is hope for both sexes in this area of being prematurely dismissed based purely on superficial standards.

Back to the encouragement: do not give up. The dating game is brutal for both sexes, but God has ordained for you, the man, to lead a relationship into marriage. No one is exempt from this charge—fat men, bald men, stocky men, too thin men, good looking, tall dark and handsome men, regular looking average men, and even the occasionally unfairly rejected men. There is someone for every one on the spectrum. Remember, she is evaluating whether she can trust you with her love, her life, her worldly possessions, and her entire being for the rest of her life. Offering her a “let’s just get by and eke out an existence together” explanation will not win her hand.

God has appointed the spouse as a means to bless you, to advance you in this life, and to create heirs of the Covenant. As a general rule, married people enjoy more blessings than singles, including but not limited to better health and more monetary perks. The daily struggle/joy of submitting to one another in love and dying to oneself in child-bearing/child-rearing will produce spiritual development on a scale unparalleled by any other crucible. As Martin Luther said to young men making excuses for not being married at an early age, “Let him strike out in God’s name and get married.” So, even if you strike out as you strike out, let it be done in God’s name and for his glory.


FUTURE COMMENTS

Writing this awfully long article has made me realize that perhaps having a liberal standard for posting comments is not the best policy. I would like to think I am giving a fair shake to those who disagree with me, but in the end, it often feels like I am helping publish faulty assumptions and faulty conclusions. So from now on, I need people who want to posit conclusions contrary to mine, to show some basis in reality before I will consent to publishing same. Unlike many of my detractors, I am not going to try to avoid the merits of the argument by derailing the conversation into sidebar discussions of tone, admonishing any woman who dares to think critically and expose flawed reasoning of a man’s position as suffering from the lack of a soft, gentle, submissive spirit, or fabricated charges of Feminism. But in the future, I will require more thoughtfulness from those who would like to post on my blog.

The Voice of Reason in the World of Pastoral Insanity . . .

Some of you have asked me to comment on John Piper's latest stab at glorifying singleness. Curiously, one request to comment arrived even before Piper had posted. Though tempted, I must decline this invitation because I do not want any readers to perceive that I am unfairly targeting a particular person. I am against an idea, not a particular individual. This is the same reason I never cited any bad sermons I heard from ministers I personally knew, because I did not want my book being seen as a personal attack, as opposed to a criticism of an idea that is deceptive, seductively dangerous, and new to the annals of Christian thought. Fortunately for me, there were plenty of other "pastoral enabling of a social deviancy" sermons out there to choose from.

However, on a more positive note, I would direct my readers to an article by Candice Watters of Boundless regarding true compassion for singles. Most of the criticisms regarding singleness writings in the blogosphere are not only because there is a divergence of thought regarding developing a correct theology on singleness, but because many of us would not have chosen the words of another and believe that the words as expressed will only serve to further confuse singles and/or slight God. Ms. Watters' piece is one of those rare moments where the thoughts as expressed are perfect "as is," and need no further clarification or adjustment. Any further refinement from me (or others) of her sentiments could only compromise the integrity of her original message. Enjoy.

Shameless Self-Promotion

On Thursday, March 8th at 9:30 pm EST, I will be participating in a live talk with Canon Press. If you would like to participate, then please register at (http://thecafe.canonpress.org). If you have any questions you can send them on to the good people at Canon Press ahead of the scheduled Live Talk time.

Most recent past interviews include ones with:

Pastor Joost Nixon of St. Anne's Pub last year. The link to the site is http://www.stannespublichouse.com/ontap/2007/index.php

Genstacia Bull while in London. Check out: http://www.excellebooks.com/authors.html

Bridgette Tetteh of Premier TV.
http://www.premier.tv/?void=48451

FOUL WORD, EVANGELICAL OUTCRY

FOUL SENTIMENT, VIRTUALLY IGNORED

Recently, I was encouraged to read the Boundless blog questioning a sermon titled "How to Deal with the Guilt of Sexual Failure for the Glory of Christ and His Global Cause." It was rendered by John Piper at this year’s Passion Conference. So far, Boundless is the only Christian entity that has dared to publicly question certain aspects of Piper’s underlying message. Most others have reserved their unassailable judgment for the obvious expletive that slipped his lips at the Conference.

It is with great trepidation that I approach to take issue with this sermon. On a theological level, some may say like David approaching a giant. But it is something that has to be done, for everyone, even those as great as John Piper, should be careful in how they use their words, ideas, and examples to not convey an unbiblical message.

The title of the sermon speaks for itself. Piper does a good job of informing singles not to allow the guilt of sexual misdeeds cloud the rest of their Christian journey. Fair enough. But his solution is for Christian singles to get plugged into a myriad of Christian activities “to the glory of God,” and stop the Accuser. Piper rattles off an enumerated list of charitable acts one could commit locally or globally, but never once mentions marriage. Piper also never informs his audience that they were created as sexual beings and to have the proper release through marriage.

Piper and I would agree that the “glory of God” and “his enjoyment” is the chief end of man. Piper and I disagree as what actually constitutes the glory of God in the whole duty of man.

The way most people view their lives as “glorifying God” is some sort of heady, cerebral individual pursuit, speckled with a lifetime of charitable acts. They think of “glorifying God,” as something that is “out there,” i.e. “globally,” not something done in the simplicity and quietness of living everyday life, taking a wife, bringing children into this world, working diligently, spending resources and investing our treasures in our little ones to make sure that the Covenant continues, and creating an inheritance to leave the objects of our affection. The reason most people, especially singles, do not entertain the latter conclusion “as glorifying God,” is because ministers like Piper continually pose these two worlds as competing, and that people should choose which track they want to be on—the God-approved, Church-sponsored service activities route or the trap of mundane family life.

This tension exists in the thinking of the general Christian culture, but it is reinforced in sermons like the one Piper gave. There, Piper disparagingly gives the example of an elderly family man “rocking in front of his lake house” handing down a “big fat inheritance” to his children to “confirm . . . . worldliness.” In his own words, Piper defines this as a “tragedy,” a life of “wasted middle class mediocrity.” In conveying these sentiments, Piper here comes perilously close to forbidding marriage without actually coming right out and saying to young people not to get married. He appears to mock the design that God has put in place for marriage, implying that is “selling-out” in some way, inferior, contrary to what God would really have wished for them. If any single took this message to heart, then “marriage and family” would be the last thing he would want to pursue, if he really wanted to serve God. One would think that God’s desire was not for godly children (despite Gen. 1:28; Jer. 29:6; Mal. 2:15), and that it is inferior to living a single life made up of service activities in the overall global cause. There is no way to mistake the hierarchy of values being advanced here—evangelism trumps the staid, “dead-end dream” of “middle class security and comfort.”

Part of me wanted to call this blog entry, “Mediocre, Middle Class, and Proud of It!” My husband and I wear that badge with honor. I suppose we have been condemned to “meaningless, middle class, American prosperity.” We believe that what we build together will be handed down to our own legacy, as God intended (Gen. 27, 28, 49), and not to unknowns within the State or the Church. (See also Prov. 13:22: A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children). The entire concept of inheritance has always been built on blood/familial relations and the next generation following and honoring the last (see also Deut. 5:16), not with people who are merely joined together by common values. In fact, without having a direct object (i.e. children) for whom to work, the entire notion of creating an inheritance goes out the window, which would explain the "worldliness" and seeking of temporal pleasures of most singles.

When I was doing singles ministry, our singles leader once told us that singles take up a good portion of the resources in the church, are seen as the least dependable and the least likely to tithe. I thought it was a rather unfair assessment at that time because I considered myself an active single. But now looking back, perhaps there was truth to this claim—that on the whole, comparatively, singles do not contribute as much as those who are in established families. It seems rather obvious that if singles behave erratically because they do not have the proper grounding of a family, what makes us think they can be grounded through theological agreement and/or good deeds alone? Thus, I thoroughly question the achievability of Piper’s grandiose vision for singleness utopia, where fully adult singles with fully adult needs can just go through life suppressing sexual acting out, go to their jobs, and help out on projects in their spare time, perhaps even do some missions work, and be happy knowing they have thwarted Satan.

But I am most troubled by Piper’s underlying contempt for marriage making. He may not have intended to denigrate marriage, but I am not sure what other conclusion one can draw from the example he uses to steer singles away from “middle class mediocrity” and into “radical obedience.” Piper is not the only minister guilty of creating a church atmosphere where marriage is seen as some sort of betrayal by those in weaker relationship with the Lord, the default position for those who just could not control their hormones, the path of least resistance for the less adventurous Christian. As if, an “I do” to a spouse necessarily means “I don’t” or “I can’t be bothered” to the Lord. I would remind those who hold this kind of low view of marriage that most of the church’s busy work is done through the mediocre middle class, the ones who pay the salaries of married ministers, and volunteer in great numbers to participate in the variety of programs that keep many associate ministers employed. Second, marriage actually allows a different kind of ministry, because it creates a home whereby the wife can create a welcoming environment to not only refresh her husband, but those unbelieving prospects/ friends he brings home that need a good and proper example set. Third, if ministers keep goading singles at this level, the only thing they will get is a lot of resentful servants, who later upon marriage may reject any kind of institutionally sponsored charity because of the understandable anger harbored from being victims of this kind of unfair pitting. Worse, there may be an exodus of singles from the church by those who mistakenly view this kind of human teaching as being from God, and therefore, their anger at being misunderstood for needing a spouse is channeled into anger with God.

The problem is that “radical obedience” to Christ is made to look far harder and complicated than it has to be. Modern day “radical obedience” is looked upon as some sort of individual thing, as opposed to the Joshua principle, “as for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.” It is not just the State that has made unholy strides towards individualism; the Church too has lost the vision for familial service to the Lord.

Both the church and the nation-state are made up of families, not just individuals, some of whom have decided to live in meal-shelter-tax-deduction type arrangement. Moreover, both the State and the Church are “remedial” institutions. Had there been no Fall, the family as an institution would have always continued. The family was always God’s intention; neither the State nor the Church would have existed, for they would not have been needed. Because these two institutions are remedial, neither the Church nor the State would function as intended if the healthy family unit was no longer the base. And in a sense, both remedial institutions are to ensure that the family covenant is protected. Where the family unit fails, neither the State nor the Church can make up for the deficit created; this lesson has been proven time and time again. Yet, I see both remedial institutions often placing undue burdens on the family unit, making demands to undermine the family, and actually trying to eclipse the family, so that our dependence on the remedial institutions wrongly increase. Often the loyalty that I see being demanded by church leaders is reminiscent of the demands placed upon people by the welfare State for allegiance to its missions and programs. It is vitally important that we understand what is the proper scope and function of each of these three institutions, so that there is neither jurisdictional digression, nor an unhealthy prioritization on our part.

And yet, a single person hearing Piper’s words will ultimately make that kind of wrong prioritization of what is required by him. If I were a single person reading or hearing Piper's sermon, the only thing I would gauge is that perhaps I can make it up to God for my sexual disobedience by doing some missions work. My priority should be to make Christ known, over and above establishing an earthly family, lest I too be a mediocre Christian. Again, this may be an unintended conclusion of Piper’s sermon, but this is the view that many singles will take away.

To add to the confusion, Piper also promises the sexually defeated that “theology conquers biology,” but never once mentions that while God does forgive completely, wisdom often does not. The regret/guilt of sexual sin is something that lasts a lifetime, can infect the marriage bed, often remains firmly entrenched in the memory banks, and can physically destroy a person. The Apostle Paul does not speak lightly of fornication; it is a spiritual act that can destroy the body and soul. (I Cor. 6:13-19). And for this, Piper encourages singles to consider Christ’s work on the cross, and getting towels into the Atlanta inner city. Yeah, I can really see some single saying to Satan, "Stop accusing me, I've got some towels to deliver now."

The solution offered by Piper is not the one advanced in Scripture. This is why at the inception of I Corinthians 7, Paul acknowledges that fornication (“to touch” v.1) is “not good,” and therefore, “let each man have his own wife” “because of the temptation to sexual immorality” (v.2). Scripture tells us that our natures will indict us and that we cannot escape from it. “It is better to marry than burn.” (v.9) Because we will ultimately go down the path of sexual misdeed, we should be engaged in the business of finding a spouse with whom we can have the proper sexual release in a God-ordained outlet. There is a humanity found in Scripture that acknowledges that we are frail, and that God has allowed the marriage bed as a device, a tool of godly protection, to escape the snares of Satan. (See I Cor. 7:5; see also Simon Kistemacher’s Commentary on Corinthians).

“Glorifying God” through service activities doesn’t buffet Satan. He laughs at our foolish bargain to allow a waning fertility and the peak of our sexuality be exchanged for endless programs that have an air of doing good, when if we had just had children while still young, we could spare ourselves much heartache from sin through the gracious provision of a spouse, and also introduce new members of the Covenant, which we know with certainty is sought by the Lord. (Mal. 2:14-15).

My reason for writing this is because I still see relatively unchallenged the thesis of Christian service as the panacea for protracted singleness. I am not surprised by Piper’s conclusions in this sermon; they are consonant with his laud of glorified singleness as expressed in the Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood book. Unfortunately, these sentiments will serve to deceive many singles into the trap of perpetual singleness and leave them improperly guarded to the inevitable temptation of human sexuality.

Instead of asking singles to entertain dubious self-generated social servant notions of “glorifying God,” we should instruct them to look at the second and third questions of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which actually asks how God is glorified.

Q. 2. What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him?
A. The word of God, which is contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him.

Q. 3. What do the scriptures principally teach?
A. The scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man.

The importance of the knowledge of the whole of Scripture is not the issue here. It is ultimately the distillation of what the whole of Scripture would require of man. If we were to take Piper at his conclusions as reflected in the above recent sermon and his other writings, we would think the duty of man would be met by sexually fumbling through life and delivering Bibles to remote parts or towels to the Atlanta inner city to prove that the dalliances didn’t weigh one down.

Obviously I disagree. I think the whole of man requires marriage by those who do not have the gift of celibacy to do kingdom work unaccommodating to family life. I believe it is wrong when ministers neglect to extol the ordinance of marriage as part of the whole duty of man. Perhaps I am the only one who sees the irony in telling the sexually frustrated and defeated Christians about doing global missions, since most of the singles in the Bible who actually did the “radical dream,” were granted the corresponding gift of celibacy so that they wouldn’t be sexually overcome. (Matt. 19:11-12; I Cor. 7:6-7). How effective can these singles be as they continue to struggle to remain sexually pure and suffer from loneliness far from home and family life? How much more fruitful could they be when blessed in partnership by a loving helpmeet? I believe it is short sighted when ministers ignore the obvious-- that man’s sexual acting out is to be expected and that it should be pointing him toward the gracious provision of a spouse as found in marriage. I have no desire to rehash the duty to marry as laid out in my book, so I commend you there. But I do think that Piper has done a great disservice to singles, confused them as to their obligations before the Lord, discouraged their entrance into marriage by casting it as an inferior choice, and not handled the whole word of God accurately on this particular topic. He has given singles a disastrous recipe for glorifying and enjoying God with regard to sexual incontinence. It would be like someone telling you to build a house and ignore the blueprint. Unfortunately, great will be the crash.

REFLECTIONS ON SINGLENESS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

Having recently returned from London where I gave two talks on singleness, I thought I would share my thoughts about what I saw, heard, and perceived.

First, the English people were a delight and because I was surrounded by Christians all weekend, it was hard for me to gauge how secular the country really is. My host informed me that evangelical church going Christians only comprised about 6.7% of the population. Sad, sad indeed.

What struck me more at both talks was the ratio of Christian single women to men. I had sixty attendees at the first talk, and double that at the second. Both times, it looked like there was a 3:1 or 4:1 female to male ratio. It was disturbing on many levels because even though most all of the men attendees told me that my book had inspired them to be serious about getting their affairs in order and pursuing a wife, it was plainly evident that there would still be a large number of single women left holding the bag. As we all know, I refuse to redefine their unwanted single state as something more glamorous than what it is, I refuse to flatter them and tell them that they are whole single people when they very well know that they are not, and I refuse to tell them that church work or something else will make up for the lack of a spouse and family. So, what now in this modern conundrum?

Many Christian writers on singleness (those who actually have the nerve to say that singleness by default is not good) have opined that this may be a form of “suffering.” The unwanted single estate is their cross to bear. I am suspicious.

First, this idea of singleness as suffering comes from a camp that for the last thirty years has been undermining marriage and family formation. These are the same people (the guilt Gestapo), who have been using the club of contentment to subdue people from questioning why they are single, these are the same people whose sloppy and careless thinking has led singles to believe singleness and celibacy are the very same thing, and these are the same people that routinely paint God as a Cupid that capriciously decides when it is someone’s turn to marry. Credibility is a problem here; the vast majority of my book has been devoted to debunking these people. I have to wonder if “suffering” in unwanted singleness is now the new term of art to stop looking for solutions to unwanted singleness.

Second, suffering relates to something that is foisted onto people without any contribution on their own part. Such as, persecution for the name of Christ or the handicapped person whom Jesus said was handicapped from birth not because he or his parents had sinned, but so that the glory of God may be revealed. True Christian suffering does not involve self-inflicted wounds, which I think excludes today’s singleness from that category. (This is not to mean that I think all women who are single by default are at fault; many of them are truly victims).

Third, I have to wonder has the ratio always been this lop-sided? As Hodge would say, God has providently preserved an equal number of women to men in all ages. So, what are we to glean from this—Christian families are having a hard time creating Christian sons in the same proportion to Christian daughters?

Or is it possible that in early adulthood the proportions of Christian single men to women are roughly equal, but as the single years go on, Christian men drift out of churches? Is it possible that the church which tendered a reduced concept of marriage and told men that marriage was unnecessary laid the seedbed for noncommitment to either marriage or the church itself? Or is it possible that men in leadership are responsible for changing the worship model into an entertainment one, and thus, have isolated masculine men from desiring the church? Or do women because they were made to be dependent (i.e. “made for the man”) have an easier time seeing their need for dependency on Christ, while men don’t?

I think the set of rhetorical questions listed above are what the modern church needs to be exploring. I also think that in the spirit of evangelism, church leaders should make it a priority to seek out “lost” single men and return them to the fold and instill in them a desire to achieve true biblical masculinity, not just characteristics of being helpful in a church body. Getting someone up to speed in being a husband and father does not take that long; the rest is learned through fumbling (and grace) on the job.

Otherwise, I am afraid that we are now going to find yet another inapplicable doctrine, i.e. suffering, to obviate the lack of marriage formation in the Christian world.