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Showing posts from August, 2013

Alone in hostile territory: being single in the church

Why is the church so fixated on who’s entering into exclusive intimate relationships with who? That was just one of the lines that didn't make the cut in a piece a wrote for the September issue at work. I'll probably get in enough trouble for my provocative opening (which I'm a tad worried readers will misconstrue) that it's just as well I left this inflammatory line out. The reason I liked this line so much that I had to share it elsewhere is that it spreads...let's not call it blame or accusation, let's call it... responsibility across a whole spectrum of people. It calls out those who can't accept single people as real adults until they've started dating; it challenges gossips and finger-waggers who tut-tut premarital sex without offering any constructive advice for making other choices; it points out the absurdity of  males in ministry who think the only way to preserve their purity is to never talk to women; and it questions those for whom pr...