What's Wrong with Meeting People in Church or Through Family?

  • Thread starter progressivenerdgirl
  • Start date
  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
P

progressivenerdgirl

Guest
#1
The dating culture has become exceedingly popular today around most of the world. In this, two people will go out to be alone and engage in more or less romantic relationships. I think this encourages premarital sex, and is really designed to facilitate it; but even when that intention is not on the mind it automatically sets up the people as being in a 'mate' relationship, which can dramatically alter the dynamic.

One alternative, supposedly Christian, is courtship. In reality, courtship is a product of the caricatured formality of medieval political institutions. Its elaborate rules, rituals can to push sexual liasons underground due to the frustration of the absurd difficulties of getting to see someone you might have married five years ago. Add to that the totally alien nature of such customs and the encouragement it gives to parental tyranny and this will not only drive kids away from legitimate marriage but also their family and religion.

I think the alternative is obvious: meet people in church, or friends of family, in a safe and friendly environment where coupling is not de facto on the forefront of everyone's mind, and where the parents don't feel the need to act like the CIA or Gestapo. If you meet a friend of the family or church member you like then you can arrange to be at other family and church functions where they will attend, until you are finally ready to discuss marriage - at which point your families and fellow parishoners should all have some familiarity and evaluative evidence to go on.

I don't even get why there need be such a thing as 'dating' or 'courting', it is essentially an attempt at a pre-marriage marriage; it is not Biblical and it is obviously malfunctioning. Almost every marriage in my family started from family and church events or happenstance meetings of new persons who were then INVITED to family and church events. Certainly if someone is going to be your husband or wife they better be able to sit with your father and go to church with you.
 
Feb 10, 2008
3,371
16
38
#2
What I think most people who have courted in the past 10 years or so would tell you is that it's much more like what your third and last paragraphs described and a lot less like the second paragraph. Its modern day intention is focused on God, not rules. The rules are actually pretty simple and straightforward. I'm not sure what your exposure to courting has been, but if you'd like to know more from my experience and friends who have gone that route, I'd be interested in sharing.

To answer your question in the title, I think a lot of it is because many people are unsatisfied being single and this leads to a feeling that they must be doing something wrong. In the end a lot go searching for someone in ever expanding ranges. It's part of why online dating sites are so popular, they can search the world. Many people seem to want to take the 'shotgun' approach to finding someone instead of the 'sniper.' Get as many people as you can and maybe you'll find one that will stick. I'd have to say that I much prefer your approach, but it's not easy for many.
 
P

progressivenerdgirl

Guest
#3
I'm not sure what your exposure to courting has been
Very frustrated friends. My father always thought it was funny when people in our congregation brought things up like this.

Personally I would not be comfortable at all dating someone or having a boyfriend. The whole thing smacks of a rationalization of extramarital lust, 'temporary monogamy'.

I know not everyone has a family that is strongly Christian and centered, and not all Christian families have much of a community of support around them. But in this business of fishing for men (unintentional Bible pun) I think that the aboveboard, informal approach defeats either the artificialized formality of courtship/rigorous parental control or the sneaky way my classmates 'go out'.
 
Last edited:
T

Tintin

Guest
#4
You wouldn't feel comfortable having a boyfriend? If you're a girl isn't that the first step before eventually getting engaged and later, married? I'm a bit confused.
 

Stuey

Senior Member
Aug 17, 2009
892
4
18
#5
I feel like this may work for some people..

Personally, I can't meet someone I don't know well, I need to get to know them really well.

One on one time is also very important to me, I need to know who someone is one on one, what they think on different issues. I do enjoy small groups but you only see one side of a person in a small group, you see another side when they are one on one. Deep discussions are also difficult in small groups.

With larger groups I tend to find the conversation just shallow and you don't get to know the person well.

But that's me, I definitely think that there are some merits to what you are saying. People often make unwise choices that lead to bad decisions and issues with lust. I made some bad choices with my last relationship, having said that, I think I would be fine to hang out alone with a girl I was dating now. I'm just older, a little wiser and a lot warier.

So yeah, I think for some people this would be fine, but not others, depends on personality maybe.


By the way just to clarify, you are talking about like... dating rather than just meeting people for the first time? I think church is a great place to meet people. And family if you have a Christian family I guess.

I think a girl called Stephanie has similar views to you.

- Edit -

Might also depend on your concept of dating... What it involves and what you have seen. a good thing to be clear on if you are planning on dating someone.

I guess I've seen both - Very Godly dating and worldly dating in Christian circles.
 
Last edited:

Stuey

Senior Member
Aug 17, 2009
892
4
18
#6
Hmm. I guess my concept of dating (personally) would involve getting to know each other as quickly as possible and finding out whether I could marry the person. I don't want to get deeply emotionally involved until I am quite certain I can marry someone. For others though this may be different... Dunno.
 
P

progressivenerdgirl

Guest
#7
Tintin:
You wouldn't feel comfortable having a boyfriend? If you're a girl isn't that the first step before eventually getting engaged and later, married? I'm a bit confused.
To me a boyfriend is pseudo-monogamy. One does not engage in romantic liasons with unmarried persons, or as an unmarried person. One gets to know a person, develops a personal love outside of the context of mating rituals and then one discusses marriage; not alone but with the parents, family and clergy. The notion of BOYFRIEND -> ENGAGEMENT -> MARRIAGE stems from dating and courtship, both of which I reject as artificial and counter-productive. Without the Courtship and Dating background those first two steps would be replaced with 'becoming familiar and informed on a person, his character, and his family'.

Stuey:
By the way just to clarify, you are talking about like... dating rather than just meeting people for the first time? I think church is a great place to meet people. And family if you have a Christian family I guess.
I mean any conventional date. 'Let's go out to the movies/racetrack/Makeout Pointe'. It's not a sin to talk to someone alone, but to go out alone with the intent of developing a coupling relationship is to push the line on falsifying marriage in your heart.
 
Last edited:

Stuey

Senior Member
Aug 17, 2009
892
4
18
#8
Rather than calling dating a pseudo monogamy (I can see part of your reasoning) I often like to think of it as agreeing to exclusively consider each other for marriage until one person calls it off. What would be your opinion of this sort of 'dating'?
 
J

jimmydiggs

Guest
#9
I think the alternative is obvious: meet people in church, or friends of family, in a safe and friendly environment where coupling is not de facto on the forefront of everyone's mind, and where the parents don't feel the need to act like the CIA or Gestapo. If you meet a friend of the family or church member you like then you can arrange to be at other family and church functions where they will attend, until you are finally ready to discuss marriage - at which point your families and fellow parishoners should all have some familiarity and evaluative evidence to go on.
>> Description of courtship. ;)

As for young adults abandoning Christ, it demonstrates they never were of him.
 
P

progressivenerdgirl

Guest
#10
>> Description of courtship. ;)

As for young adults abandoning Christ, it demonstrates they never were of him.
Well, Jimmy, people can fall away. The only sin God's people can not commit is blasphemy against the holy spirit. I have a feeling that God chose King David, and conspiracy to commit murder for the purposes of adultery is pretty high up there. Let's face it, if he wasn't da King he would've been stoned to death for that kind of behavior.

Stuey:
Rather than calling dating a pseudo monogamy (I can see part of your reasoning) I often like to think of it as agreeing to exclusively consider each other for marriage until one person calls it off. What would be your opinion of this sort of 'dating'?
I am largely uncomfortable with what people call a date. They basically go somewhere to be alone and be romantic. I have never seen a date that wasn't headed that way, unless there was mutual dislike.
 
Last edited:

Stuey

Senior Member
Aug 17, 2009
892
4
18
#11
Hmmm... I dunno if I agree, I don't know if there is necessarily anything wrong with going to the movies or out for dinner or somewhere.

Going somewhere to make out though I think is a poor idea. lol

And I'm also not convinced that a little romance isn't a bad idea, depending on the stage of the relationship... I may be of British descent but I'm not a stone hedge! I want some feelings before I marry someone, and I want to know them extremely well. What I do not want to do though is make someone fall for me who I don't think I can marry.
 
P

progressivenerdgirl

Guest
#12
I don't know if there is necessarily anything wrong with going to the movies or out for dinner or somewhere.
Haha, no, I am not neurotic in my Puritanism. It's the 'date' with a 'boyfriend' that sets it up dangerously. I have watched movies with male friends. But it is well understood that is all there is to it, and that this is not a romantic event or a prelude to one.

And I'm also not convinced that a little romance isn't a bad idea, depending on the stage of the relationship... I may be of British descent but I'm not a stone hedge! I want some feelings before I marry someone, and I want to know them extremely well. What I do not want to do though is make someone fall for me who I don't think I can marry.
Stuey, I also think that there are elements to marriage which are far more important than the grosse emotional dependence it has become for Westerners. Family is more important than me. Building a strong family, a stable, self-supporting unit that can raise children and deliver them into the world prepared and aggressively Christian is more important than marrying the person I happen to have the most shared interests or laughter with. Your husband should love you, but he doesn't have to be your best friend; his ability to provide for you (or her ability and willingness to mother children and raise them properly) outweigh any purely emotional considerations.

Of course, you shouldn't marry someone you can't stand to be around, but I think most people have trouble 'getting along' because they are so self-centered and emotionally immature. If you're a grown-up you can roll with the quirks of other human beings, but todays perma-children would rather blame everything on other people.

To sum it up, marriage is not about romantic, modern conceptions of love.
 
Last edited:

Stuey

Senior Member
Aug 17, 2009
892
4
18
#13
Haha, no, I am not neurotic in my Puritanism. It's the 'date' with a 'boyfriend' that sets it up dangerously. I have watched movies with male friends. But it is well understood that is all there is to it, and that this is not a romantic event or a prelude to one.

Thank goodness... lol :)

Stuey, I also think that there are elements to marriage which are far more important than the grosse emotional dependence it has become for Westerners. Family is more important than me. Building a strong family, a stable, self-supporting unit that can raise children and deliver them into the world prepared and aggressively Christian is more important than marrying the person I happen to have the most shared interests or laughter with. Your husband should love you, but he doesn't have to be your best friend; his ability to provide for you (or her ability and willingness to mother children and raise them properly) outweigh any purely emotional considerations.

I find this view interesting and I wonder if it is your families influence on you, being of East Asian descent. Not saying that it is a bad thing at all, I think the West is far too individualistic. Having said this...

For me... getting married isn't meant to like be a job or a chore. I know it's not to you, but you kinda make it sound like one! :p

For me the person I happen to have the most shared interests and laughter with, providing we are heading in the same direction in life will be the best person for me to marry by your definition. IE, this person would be the best person for me to raise a family with. Things won't be easy, but I would like them to be as easy and fun as possible!


Of course, you shouldn't marry someone you can't stand to be around, but I think most people have trouble 'getting along' because they are so self-centered and emotionally immature. If you're a grown-up you can roll with the quirks of other human beings, but todays perma-children would rather blame everything on other people.

It is a lot of Western culture to be individualistic... And for kids to never grow up. But having said this there are a bunch of things that would just drive me nuts and make me unable to marry someone. Quite frankly it would be unwise for me to.


To sum it up, marriage is not about romantic, modern conceptions of love.
Agreed.

By the way could you please elaborate on what you mean by 'Gross emotional dependence?
 

Liamson

Senior Member
Feb 3, 2010
3,078
69
48
#14
Android Provider Husband




"I am Programmed to Raise babies, Protect Family and Earn Money."
 
P

progressivenerdgirl

Guest
#15
Stuey:
I find this view interesting and I wonder if it is your families influence on you, being of East Asian descent.
Certainly it has. My family was very close, and remains so, especially my 'nuclear' family (I would love to see my distant relatives, but the vast majority of them live on the other side of the world, so we only visit once or twice a year).

By the way could you please elaborate on what you mean by 'Gross emotional dependence?
I see many people these days talking about marriage as though a partner were Prozac to make up for their own psychological inadequacies. This is not only a bad view of marriage it is unfair to other people.

Liamson:
"I am Programmed to Raise babies, Protect Family and Earn Money."
But is he a Covenantal Presbyterian?
 

Liamson

Senior Member
Feb 3, 2010
3,078
69
48
#16
Nope he's an appliance predestined for hell but, programmed to support Reformed theology. So in a world where we are all either clods of dirt or eternal sparks, he is a clod.
 
P

progressivenerdgirl

Guest
#17
Nope he's an appliance predestined for hell but, programmed to support Reformed theology. So in a world where we are all either clods of dirt or eternal sparks, he is a clod.
Why do I have a feeling we're verging on gnosticism?
 
Jan 11, 2013
629
0
0
#18
As far as it goes even arranged marriage can be functional if both of the arangees are God-focused.

I agree the incumbent method has nothing especially good going for it, though it isn't especially bad either.
 
P

progressivenerdgirl

Guest
#19
As far as it goes even arranged marriage can be functional if both of the arangees are God-focused.

I agree the incumbent method has nothing especially good going for it, though it isn't especially bad either.
Arranged marriages can be good, too, yes. As I said, romance is at best a tertiary issue.

I would also say that I believe a husband has a duty to pay the father of the bride a price for her, as a sign of the covenant being sealed symbolically by his willingness to support her.
 
J

Justinhdz

Guest
#20
I'm not for the current trend of dating, it's an Americanized thing.
With courtship though, I don't really see that big of a problem. I mean maybe it's just me, and maybe I am in the wrong by thinking it's alright.