I fully concur with
@Subhumanoidal.
My Lutheran kindergarten through high school graduation experience had a strong running theme of, "Don't think about it, don't ask about it, and for the love of Pete, don't you dare ask us about it!!!"
So let's get this straight: people aren't allowed to ask honest questions in Christian schools, or in Christian churches, or on Christian websites. What, pray tell, is left? Suffering in silence, and without knowing who God really is because no one will address their concerns. And yet, people wonder why so many leave the church in droves. Why don't they see how frustrated, lonely, and abandoned many of them feel -- most especially by the church. There have been many times I've wanted to walk away from Christianity myself because of this.
When I was growing up, I often wished I had a big sister/trusted aunt I could talk to about all the things troubling me that school and church would drown out with "HUSH, CHILD!" whenever someone tried. So I told God that if I couldn't have that kind of person in my life, I would try my best to be one to others when I got older.
Now of course, I'm not trying to advocate anything obscene. But let's say someone in the Family Forum wrote a thread stating, "My Spouse Refused to Have Sex With Me," and we singles came in declaring the thread to be "inappropriate" and not fit for a Christian website. But what if it was mostly because we were a group of abstinent singles who had no experience with what was being talked about? Yet what if we tried to dictate how the discussion should go? (Spoiler alert: there have been LOTS of threads over the years in which married people have talked about the problems within their most personal lives.) If the subject is being talked about in a reasonable, acceptable and Biblical manner, the main reason people would be objecting is because it doesn't pertain to them, and therefore, no one else wants to talk about it either. But that's just not the case.
Similarly, if a married person doesn't like what the singles are talking about, my first question is, what personal experience do you have with the subject? If you're familiar with it, what helpful suggestions do you have to make the thread even better?
But if it's someone doesn't have any experience with the topic and worse yet, doesn't realize this is what singles are facing in real life, how can they expect to tell us what we should or shouldn't be allowed to discuss? Especially since I think the mean age of the audience now is around 40 and well past the age of being kids who need permission.
The very reason I write these threads is to hopefully let people know that, "Yes, God cares about you, He cares about these things you are going through, even if no one has let you talk about it before, and there are other Christian singles who are going through the same thing. We DON'T shy away from hard topics here -- and we would love to have you join the conversation."
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