I have lots of questions here, but I'll restrict myself to just one: How do singles figure into Young's sex sermon series? In every interview clip I've seen, Young emphasizes that the challenge is just for married people, and the Times says Young's advice to singles has amounted to: "I don't know, try eating chocolate cake."
When I was a young, unmarried Christian, "try eating chocolate cake" is not far from the vision of sexuality I was given. When I married, I discovered a host of Christian teaching on sexuality, some of it quite beautiful, profound, and pragmatic. But in the years after I became a Christian and before I married, my experiences of Christian teaching on sex were much like what I worry singles at Fellowship Church are experiencing now: Sex is for married people, and if you're not yet old enough or fortunate enough to be married...wow, that sucks.
Lauren Winner's Real Sex is the only Christian book I know of that explicitly and comprehensively addresses non-marital sexuality. There, she says that Christian teaching on sexuality ought to be part of a larger vision of embodiment--whether single or married, sexually active or chaste, we ought to be learning how to be in our bodies in ways that glorify God and fully express our createdness. That's a nice start, but I wonder what else single Christians are hearing from their ministers? Does anyone know? Is Ed Young speaking to this during his series? Is anyone speaking to it? What is the Christian vision of sexuality for singles?
Update: I wanted to highlight this comment posted below by Al Hsu. He helpfully mentions his book on Christian singlehood as an additional resource.
This is a symptom of a larger (evangelical) problem of overemphasizing marriage to the exclusion of singles. In the early church, it was actually considered more spiritual to be single than to be married, because marriage was seen as "worldly" and a concession to the flesh. The Protestant Reformation flipped this and said that marriage and family was normative and elevated marriage over singleness. A more biblical balance is that marriage and singleness are equal gifts and equally valid ways of living. If Christians really understood this and believed this, it would help us have more constructive things to say than "eat chocolate cake."
(My book Singles at the Crossroads has a chapter on singleness and sexuality. Not nearly as comprehensive as Lauren Winner's Real Sex, but I hope it's at least somewhat helpful!)
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This is exactly the dilemma I encountered when I sat through a service at Mars Hill Church in Seattle - Mark Driscoll went on and on and on and and on about sexual sins and offering some rather explicit suggestions for what marrieds can do about these sins (have sex with each other a lot) but nothing for the singles except a cold shower.
This is a symptom of a larger (evangelical) problem of overemphasizing marriage to the exclusion of singles. In the early church, it was actually considered more spiritual to be single than to be married, because marriage was seen as "worldly" and a concession to the flesh. The Protestant Reformation flipped this and said that marriage and family was normative and elevated marriage over singleness. A more biblical balance is that marriage and singleness are equal gifts and equally valid ways of living. If Christians really understood this and believed this, it would help us have more constructive things to say than "eat chocolate cake."
(My book Singles at the Crossroads has a chapter on singleness and sexuality. Not nearly as comprehensive as Lauren Winner's Real Sex, but I hope it's at least somewhat helpful!)
I can't stand it when pastors preach on marriage or parenting during church services, as there are usually a lot of people in the congregation to whom these topics don't apply (e.g., kids, teenagers, and never-married and divorced singles). Why couldn't Pastor Young have held a seminar apart from the church service for those who were interested instead?
Also, Young's advice to singles, "try eating chocolate cake," is crass and insensitive. Given that he married at the age of 21, he obviously has no clue of what it is like to be single into one's late 20s, 30s, etc., having to fight nature and abstain for years on end (that is, if biblical teachings on premarital sex are adhered to). Many singles shy away from attending church because it is rightly perceived as being unfriendly to singles and too marriage- and kids-focused, and this comment only fuels the perception. And come to think of it, Young's whole sermon fueled the perception of churches' being obsessed with married couples at the expense of singles, not just the comment he made to the New York Times.
Agreed. I'm a big fan of Winner's book. I also wanted to recommend Loves Me, Loves Me Not: The Ethics of Unrequited Love, by Laura Smit. Her focus is more on how we treat one another as people (not married people and single people, male and female, black and white) and less on sex, but it has a lot to say about the singles, non-singles, and the church, and has been very helpful to me.
"Try eating chocolate cake" is a meaningless platitude, as is "singleness is a gift, equal to marriage", as Al Hsu tries to tell us. The only way to support singles who feel left out when sermons turn to sex and marriage is not only offer its hearty endorsement, but to work together in removing the obstacles to marriage that exist in churches today -- such as indifferent messages about marriage and singleness that prescribe a kind of studied indifference, as if it shouldn't matter to you which "gift" you get, and that if you are anything less than content, well, that's "making an idol out of marriage". Celibacy, a la Winner, is not supposed to be a consolation prize for the unchosen, and we need not risk offending those who have chosen that path with sermons on marriage. Read Candice Watter's articles on marriage at Boundless.com.
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