Putting the Christian in Christian Dating

Well to give credit where credit is due: this thread was inspired by the following post

And it got me thinking about how we kind of know that following Jesus should change how we think about pretty much everything, including dating. But we also hear a lot of advice / opinons about dating in our Christian communities that either doesn't sound different from the world or is very action behavior based but doesn't give us a whole lot of guidance in how to think differently and Christianly about such things. So as we think about how following Jesus should affect the way we date / seek a life partner here are some questions to get the discussion going:

• What is your most unbiblical or outrageous experience of Christian dating or advice (because there have to be some entertaining stories out there)?
• How does being a Christian change the way you approach (and treat) people you're interested in / dating ?
• How do you balance the idea that sex should be reserved for marriage with a sex drive that's ready to go just a few dates in? How do you honestly deal with that tension in a relationship without increasing temptation?
• What do you do if you have been dating someone from your church and then break up? How does a Christian act in such circumstances? If this is your friend going through it, how should we all respond as a church family?
• What involvement should your community / church family have in your dating life?
• How do we keep our expectations in line with our faith, but not hold all potential dates to the impossible standard of "perfect Christian partner"?
• How should dating advice and standards change for someone who is 35+ instead of someone who is college age (because seriously so many Christian dating resources are clearly created for the young singles who just haven't married yet)?
• What else do you think is relevant to the conversation?

I think the way to handle this is to get married quickly (which is how people married in the past, instead of waiting two years or longer which is more common nowadays).

I'm a private person so I would not want everyone in the church knowing about my dating life, with the exception of a few close friends. If the church is very involved, this can add pressure on the couple (such as pressure on the man to propose quickly, etc.). If both attend the same church and the break-up did not go well, it would be best if one person left the church. It may be too much for the man/woman to see the other person dating someone else. However, if the breakup is amicable and if the dating period was short, both can remain in the church.

I thought about that which is why i asked the question. Mostly I'm thinking about how we're often told to look for people at church, but dating someone from church carries many of the risks that dating someone from work would. And for me it would make me a lot more reluctant to enter into a relationship if I stood the possibility of not just losing a date in the breakup but I'd have to start my spiritual community over almost from scratch if things didn't work out. And some would say that pressure makes it even more likely to stay in the relationship until things get really bad and the breakup leaves a lot of hurt feelings and resentment.

Don't date, save money, and have peace of mind.

If God wants you to marry, HE can certainly get the job done.

Why fight singleness?!?! Leave the fighting for married couples!

Well in Biblical times people got married quick and young. We've turned this into a Gordian Knot of sorts by raising the threshold for maturity so-to-speak.

Christians have to be counter-cultural in expecting people to mature faster so they can, in turn, marry faster. As for older Christians, I think The Indian Girl has it right- get married if you find somebody you're that compatible with.

I've said it once and I'll say it again. We over-mysticize everything these days and it's to our detriment.

That's an excellent point about maturity. And the idea of one of the Christian ways of being coutner cultural being to help our young people mature faster is a really interesting one.

Applying this logic to the rest of life rather fails miserably.... ie if God wants you to have a job he'll give you a job without any effort on your part, if God wants you to be a professional athlete he can get the job done without you having to compete or go to try outs, etc.

So if the church is going to be in favor of marriage (and people being people we really kind of do need marriage to be a thing) then we're going to have to think about what the implications of God's kingdom are for marriage and the process of getting married (and while I'd value the counsel of people who know me well, I don't think I'm going to be up for arranged marriages arranged through the church so dating is likely part of that).

I like your post, but don't agree on the dating part.

Where in the Bible do you see a man and woman dating? Yes, I admit you have a point, but what's the counter point?

Well shoot! cinder only starts a thread twice a year or so, and it's always a good one... but this time I have nothing to add.

I mean I COULD spout a lot of advice, but I have no idea if it would be accurate or wildly off target. (Of course that doesn't stop some people I know from spouting it anyway...)

I think we all should know that a dating relationship coming from church is no guarantee for a healthy dating experience. On top of being disenchanted with a date, you also stand a chance of being disenchanted with church. I know this from the other side of the coin. Any, here goes on the bullet points. I probably won't come here anymore out of shame.

• What is your most unbiblical or outrageous experience of Christian dating or advice (because there have to be some entertaining stories out there)? I lost my virginity before I ever even went to church. I think I was like 17. I tried to hook up with a girl who wanted to become a nun if you can believe that. Is that outrageous enough?
• How does being a Christian change the way you approach (and treat) people you're interested in / dating ? TBH, I don't think it changed much of anything. I was a player, big time, and I think I was more interested in conquest than relationship.
• How do you balance the idea that sex should be reserved for marriage with a sex drive that's ready to go just a few dates in? How do you honestly deal with that tension in a relationship without increasing temptation? As you might guess, I didn't balance it. I didn't deal with the tension. I had sex instead or tried to. And if I didn't I went somewhere else.
• What do you do if you have been dating someone from your church and then break up? How does a Christian act in such circumstances? If this is your friend going through it, how should we all respond as a church family? The worst answer to this is that I didn't care. I knew I hurt some ......really good people. I know I did. And I only care now. When it doesn't matter.
• What involvement should your community / church family have in your dating life? I don't think anybody is responsible for me. I'm responsible for my actions and my actions have consequences that belong to me. TBH, this is why I don't get into relationships now.
• How do we keep our expectations in line with our faith, but not hold all potential dates to the impossible standard of "perfect Christian partner"? I don't think I held potential dates to impossible standards. Oddly, I pretty much thought everybody was as bad as me! The churches I went to didn't ever talk about this kind of thing. And honestly, if somebody did bring up any questions, they'd get glossed over. Almost avoided.
• How should dating advice and standards change for someone who is 35+ instead of someone who is college age (because seriously so many Christian dating resources are clearly created for the young singles who just haven't married yet)? What I know is tempered by shame and burned by consequence, thus clearly knowing the REASON God wishes us to become one with our spouse in every single way you could imagine. Feeling her joy, feeling her pain even as your own. Knowing her needs, even anticipating them. And if you're too young and stupid to know or care about these things, then the least you could probably do is just leave her alone until you're mature enough to realize all people are God's children and deserve respect, even the thousands of people behind the pornography.
• What else do you think is relevant to the conversation? I never mentioned the REASON God wishes me to follow his "suggestions" in life. The reason is pain. Retrospective pain is chronic. It's a bad knee opposed to skinned one. In restrospect, I don't think I could say what was wrong with me. There was this woman on CC here whose husband had cheated on her and left her to marry his new lover. She was clearly hurt and had the myriad of feelings one has under those circumstances. And I grieved for her. It had an impact on me and it was my 1 Cor 13 moment, I guess. I was a clanging cymbal. I had all these gifts and had no love. It was a horrible recognition.

She said of her husband's actions that she thought it was a sickness. In her way, I think she was absolving him somehow of his actions, blaming them on an external reason. I don't think she could have said it better, but I think it was because her husband had no love. And marrying a new woman was no cure because .... he had no love.

It was a sickness for me too

Counter point is how many couples do you see getting together in scripture and what was their courtship process? Usually it's not well described especially the initial stages. Many other times, so much of the Bible taking place in the cultural context it did it was a business negotiation between parents or something along the lines of: "Man has power. Man sees attractive woman and takes her (sometimes as wife and sometimes first as sexual partner (whether she wants it or not) and then later as wife/concubine (and sometimes powerful man had quite a few of them at once)"

So if you're anti dating, how do you suggest all those Christian young people who want to get married and create stable healthy Christian families find each other and get to the point of picking a spouse? Because I'll agree that there's no reason Christians have to date like the world dates, but so far the Christian community has been woefully silent on viable alternatives (coming from what could be called the courtship generation, that seemed to not work at all as so many of us are either single or no longer in church (or maybe some are both).

Get married quicker? Most people marry too quickly and their marriages fail as a result. People rushing to marry just to have sex are basing relationships on lust, not love or friendship. How is that better? I mean yeah, they get to have sex, then in a year or two one or both are cheating because they're unhappy with who they married, and another year or two till the divorce.

And it's not always that easy to get married, either. "Just get married" should not be viewed as the only answer.

I so appreciate you being real and honest here. And I think you hit on some important and hard learned hard won points. I love the part about realizing that all people are God's children and deserve respect (and I would add a basic level of our love and care) and I think this is crucial when approaching any type of relationship to keep perspective on this person isn't just a something given to you so you can further your own aims and goals.

Seems like somewhere along the way you relationship with Christ did change your views though and that's kind of the heart of this whole thread so thank you for sharing.

And yeah, seems like church definitely tends to avoid and gloss over most of the tough questions and situations in life; then we wonder why people think church seems irrelevant. (ok getting off that soapbox, at least for this thread)

I didn't mean get married after a few dates. There is a common saying that one should date a person for all four seasons before getting married. I think that is reasonable, slightly less/slightly more depending on the couple with a very short period for engagement. Non-religious people generally spend a year alone in engagement while planning the wedding, and have usually spent at least a few years dating including a year living together as "trial" period. If a couple can date without sex for several years that is great. However if they cannot control themselves it is better to go ahead and marry, as Paul said it is better to marry than burn with passion.

Go on CC and create a million dating and relationship topics, oh wait never mind. I don't know. Everyone is different and meet people in different ways. You could meet a spouse at work, when your out having a good time, or at church. Something like this.

And then what? Because that's the question we're asking. If they don't date, how do you suggest two people get from hello to will you marry me? Because I think most of us would consider it unwise to just say hello, will you marry me all at once.

And my music nerd brain cues up:
She says hello
You fool
I love you
Come on join the joyride

You need to have faith cindy. Look what happened when Abraham tried to make it happen, it caused all sorts of problems.

I'm grasping at straws at this point, so I will leave it to you for the answers of the dating ritual....for now.

"Put your trust in God and keep your powder dry."-Oliver Cromwell

Ummm.... Abraham tried to make a baby happen and succeeded. He already had a wife (granted he married his half-sister and then even told people she was his sister when he was worried they might want her for a wife bad enough to kill an existing husband, but he didn't seem to have much trouble getting a wife).