Singleness & Sexuality

We live in a sexualized culture. There's no way of completely escaping it. The unfortunate thing is that some of this thinking has infiltrated the church. We've bought into our culture's thinking.

The truth is much of our struggle with conversations around singleness is that we believe in the lie of our culture. We don't talk about it. We've never admit that we have.

The lie we've bought? It's about about the importance of sex and experiencing it.

Christina S. Hitchcock puts it this way in her book, "The Significance of Singleness":

"At the heart of America's [and Canada's] fear of celibacy, a fear that American [and Canadian] evangelicals share with their secular counterparts, is the belief that if we do not engage in sexual activity, we're not really grown-ups; we may not even be fully human." (pg. 16)

When I first read that, my instinct was to disagree - as yours may be. But, I stopped to think about it for a bit and realized I ultimately couldn't disagree when I looked at the big picture of Western Christianity. Whether we're aware of it or not, we say things that point to how we think this way.

The truth is that, if we're going to live according to God's standards for sexuality, we have to be unafraid to stand apart from our culture. And that means we have to go beyond just talking about "saving" sex for marriage.

When we make comments about how getting married means someone has grown up or about sex being an adult activity we reveal how we've bought into our culture's beliefs. Even if we still believe sex should be only within marriage, we don't even realize that we equate it with being an adult.

The problem for single people is that, regardless of whether we get married one day or not, God made us sexual beings. That doesn't change just because someone is single past college-age. This doesn't mean we have to be controlled by it, but it does mean we still have to acknowledge and live with that part of us.

So, we have to learn to address it better. This is about holding the message of God's plan for sex and sexuality high.

As we create space for people who are single into their thirties, forties, fifties, and beyond in our discussions about this, we have to learn to change our responses to their expressions of struggle in this area. Being told once again that God calls it sin outside of marriage so we just have to not sin doesn't help. Neither does quoting 1 Corinthians 7:9 at us, which says that it's better to marry than to burn with passion. These responses minimize the struggle that is being expressed.

Rather than offer platitudes in response, we need to be okay with acknowledging the struggle. We cannot try to find the easy way out with this one.

What it looks like to live God's way doesn't change just because of your age or marital status. It is still God's plan for sex to be only in marriage. We are still called to sexual purity in all areas of our lives.

But, what also doesn't change is that singles still have the same sexual desires as those who are married. This means single people live ever day with no way to satisfy these desires from a human perspective and stay in God's design for sex. Some days this isn't even something that crosses our minds. And other days it's a much bigger struggle.

The hope to hold onto in this struggle is that others have lived this way. We're not the first people who have lived with this struggle and we won't be the last.

Sam Allberry reminds us of this:

"Jesus was not calling others to a standard he was not willing to embrace himself. He wasn't calling singles to sexual abstinence while knowing nothing of it himself. He lived this very teaching.
But there's even more that even that. Jesus is not just an example of a nonhypocritcal teacher. He is the example of the perfect man. He is the humanity all of us are called to be but which none of us are. He is the most complete and fully human person who ever lived. So his not being married is not incidental. It shows us that none of these things - marriage, romantic fulfillment, sexual experience - is intrinsic to being a full human being. The moment we say otherwise, the moment we claim a life of celibacy to be dehumanizing, we are implying that Jesus himself is only subhuman." ("7 Myths about Singleness", pg. 25)

Even in the struggles we have hope because we know it's possible. That doesn't mean it's easy. Just that it's possible.

We Can't Let Our Discomfort Keep up Quiet

Wading deeper into a topic I never thought I'd be wading into on this blog. It's not a topic we regularly talk about, but we need to.

In her book, "Party of One", Joy Beth Smith puts it this way:

"Out of fear or discomfort or shame, we in the church have relegated any discussion of sexuality to the act of marital sex." (pg. 84)

And I get that. I've hesitated to write this post for exactly the reasons above.

I've restarted it multiple times as I've tried to figure out what to say and how to say it. But, I know I can't end this series of posts without addressing this. It has a big impact on the lives of all in the church - whether married or single.

We live in a sexualized culture. It's everywhere we look. Really, it's almost impossible to avoid. And that is why we need to have these conversations.

"Our conversations and theology around sexuality have to become more nuanced. They have to encompass more than physical intimacy, and they have to allow for people who are single well into their thirties, forties, and fifties, whether by choice or by circumstances." (Joy Beth Smith, "Party of One", pg. 85)

The way we have limited the discussion on this has ignored a growing group of people in our churches. Whether we're married or single, we're sexual beings trying to navigate things according to God's plan in our highly sexualized culture. It's not easy for any of us, which is why we need to talk about it.

We can no longer pretend that there is only a short list of message about this that we need to communicate. It's not just "wait until you're married to have sex" and "don't have sex with anyone other than your spouse." Those are important biblical messages, but if we stop with them, we fall short.

Sometimes, I wonder if we stop there because many of the people responsible for communicating our messages on this have little or no experience with being single past the "normal age" for people to get married. It can be difficult to talk about this when it's something you have little experience to understand.

So, how do we fix this?

We need to create space where this conversation is okay to have. Where married and single people can share without judgement. Obviously, with appropriate boundaries, but still able to share personally.

How the Purity Message of my Youth Was Incomplete

"God created sex for marriage."
"Don't have sex before you're married."
"Lust and pornography are sin."
"You have to decide beforehand that you'll stay away from sin in this area of your life, because you need to know where you stand in this before you're tempted."

I'll be honest, this is never a topic I intended to write about. But, as I've wrestled with the topic of singleness and the church, I've realized this is a part of the discussion I cannot just avoid.

I grew up in the church in the era of the "True Love Waits" movement, complete with signing purity pledges and wearing purity rings. Much of the message of this movement was good and in line with what Scripture says.

I truly believe church and youth leaders got on board with it with the best of intentions. They wanted to encourage us to and help us to live a pure life, that we in line with Scripture.

But, the message was incomplete and there was an implication to the message that went largely unspoken.

The message was incomplete because it didn't address what it looks like to handle our sexuality from a biblical perspective. The message was almost exclusively about what not to do in this area - about the sin we needed to avoid. Looking back on this, I also understand why. This is a challenging topic to address in that setting. They were walking on a line of what parents would see as appropriate. So, while the message was incomplete, I don't fault my youth leaders for that.

I think it's the unspoken implication that was more damaging anyways. It's the one I've had just enough conversations with those who also grew up in this to see the pain it caused many of us, whether we're single or married today.

The implication of all of this was, if you didn't have sex before marriage then you would have great sex once you got married. While this was rarely spoken out loud this directly, it was implied in what was taught.

As a single person, the long-term result of believing this is spending many years feeling like I was missing out on something I deserved for signing the "true love waits" pledge card in high school and not having sex. If the reward for those things was supposed to be great sex in marriage, then I was definitely missing out as a single person.

As you can imagine, this had a negative affect on my relationship with God. It wasn't until I realized that this wasn't true and was not what Scripture said, that I was able to move beyond this. I had to come to a deeper and more complete understanding of what Scripture said about this.

This is again a confirmation of why we need to be studying the topic of singleness more closely in the church. We need to correct our misconceptions and misunderstandings of all of this.