In this sense, we cannot have a biblically faithful and nourishing theology of singleness without a biblically faithful and nourishing theology of marriage. And vice versa.

And so, the wonderfully ironic thing about all my years spent exploring a robust and distinctively Christian theology of singleness has been the growth in my appreciation for an understanding of and commitment to a robust and distinctively Christian theology of marriage.

How we Christians think and speak and teach and do marriage really, really matters.

And that’s why this clip below caught my attention.

Link to Instagram Reel

Here’s a transcript:

“When you walk down the aisle… and we’ve kind of changed it in our western culture… but when you walk down the aisle to a marriage, you’re walking to your death.

You know what happens at the altar? Sacrifice.

There is no covenant without something bleeding. I’m trying to join two things together, some stuff has to die. Some blood has to be shed.

You thought you were walking down here for comfort. You’re walking down here to be crucified. That’s what covenant is.

I tell spouses all the time when they’re getting married and my wife and I we have done counselling with them, I want to remind you of this, when you stand together before God, you are not making the covenant with your spouse. You’re making the covenant with God.

Your spouse is the recipient of the covenant. But I promise God. I promise God that I’m going to be faithful. I promise God that I’m going to keep showing up. I promise God, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, for sickness or in health. I promise God. I’m not promising you. I promised God. You’re the recipient of my relationship with God. And if my relationship with God is always right, we’re going to be all right.”

This clip kept popping up in my social media feeds this week. Each time it was introduced by a comment along the lines of:

“This might be the most beautiful description of marriage I have ever heard”

…or

“I’ve never looked at marriage like this. Wow.”

… or simply

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

It’s not hard to understand why the clip has been well received by many Christians, is it? Look at all the buzzwords:

Marriage.
Covenant.
Sacrifice.
Crucifixion.
Altar.
Promise.
God.

The clip is laden with Christianese.
This pastor is speaking our language.

But he’s not actually speaking our theology.

Let me be clear—there are parts of this clip which I appreciate. For example:

• He wants to encourage his listeners to understand that the world’s way of thinking about marriage is not God’s way.

• He’s correct that the marital relationship is indeed a covenantal one.

• He’s also correct that marriage is costly and involves self-denial

But when we stop allowing the Christianese to carry us away in sentiment—that is, when we take the time to actually consider the theological rationale and implications of what he is saying—well, things become less… correct.

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The Marital Covenant and Sacrifice

Take, for instance, his claim that “There is no covenant without something bleeding”.

Certainly, certain biblical covenants involved the shedding of blood through sacrifice. This includes God’s covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15), with Israel (Exodus 24) and, most significantly of all, his new covenant made in Jesus’ blood (Matthew 26:28).

And yet, neither God’s covenant with Noah (Genesis 9) nor his covenant with David (2 Samuel 7) involved any sacrificial shedding of blood. So, it is simply not true that there can be no covenant without something bleeding.

But even more to the point, it is not true that, by divine design and intention, the marital covenant necessarily involves something bleeding, something dying.

Marriage was instituted by God within the perfect Garden. When Adam and Eve entered into the covenant of marriage, they did so before sin—and so also before sacrifice—entered the world.

The establishment of the original marital covenant (Genesis 2:24-25) did not require the shedding of any blood or the death of any person.

Now, you might think that I’m being rather pedantic here: “Sure, sure, not all covenants involve blood sacrifice. We get it. Give the guy a break. It’s not a big deal that he misspoke a little in the interest of making a point”.

But the point is that he was making a point about the nature of marriage itself.

His claim is that the covenant of marriage itself means “some stuff has to die”. That is not a biblically coherent understanding of the nature of marriage nor, ultimately, of covenant.

In Scripture, sacrificial blood primarily serves to ratify a particular kind of covenant: God’s gracious covenant with a fallen humanity. This culminates in Jesus ' sacrificial death on the cross, where his blood was “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). As the writer of Hebrews puts it:

Therefore [Jesus] is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Hebrews 9:15)

Put another way, sacrificial blood appears where sin must be dealt with. This dealing with sin happens within a covenantal framework.

But human marriage was instituted before sin existed. This particular covenant belongs to the realm of creation, not of redemption. And so, it is not a covenant whose nature requires sacrifice, nor one that itself deals with sin.

The Marital Covenant and Crucifixion

And so Scripture does not describe walking to marriage as walking to your death. It does not describe marriage as a kind of crucifixion.

Yes, of course, we know that, in this fallen world, marriage involves mutual sacrificial love and mutual self-denial.

And yes, in this fallen world, a husband is to sacrificially love his wife as Christ has loved the church (Ephesians 5:25-28). But that is:

1. Because we live in a fallen world where love—including marital love—is difficult and painful and costly.

2. Because the grace of God teaches sinners why and how to love—including in marriage—in that difficult, painful and costly context.

3. Because, in that same context, a husband’s love for his wife is meant to point beyond this creation’s marriage covenant to the superior new-creation reality to which it bears witness.

Yes, marriage involves sacrificial love and self-denial, often expressed in unique and distinctive relational ways.

But this is the same pattern of love across all of Christian life. The language of denying oneself and taking up one’s cross applies to the life of Christian discipleship as a whole—not simply or primarily to marriage.

When the New Testament applies the language of crucifixion to us, it speaks to our union with and discipleship in Christ. All followers of Jesus have walked to their death in him and emerged into new life through him. And this reality happens when we are reborn… not when we get married.

This means that a Christian groom is not walking to his death on his wedding day any more than a Christian friend is walking to her death on any ordinary day.

We might summarise it this way: The cross does not define the creation ordinance of marriage itself; rather, the cross redeems sinners so that they might learn to love within marriage… as in all of life.

Messing this up results not only in a distorted theology of marriage but also a distorted theology of atonement and discipleship. That’s why it’s important to look beyond the “Christianese” to the theology—or flawed theology—underneath.

The Marital Covenant and its Participants

But another significant theological problem in the clip concerns the very participants of the marital covenant. In it the preacher asserts:

…when you stand together before God, you are not making the covenant with your spouse. You’re making the covenant with God. Your spouse is the recipient of the covenant. But I promise God. I promise God that I’m going to be faithful. I promise God that I’m going to keep showing up. I promise God, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, for sickness or in health. I promise God. I’m not promising you. I promised God.

It sounds good, doesn’t it? In fact, it sounds profound and compelling. It seems to emphasise the seriousness of marriage, the sacredness of marital vows and the significance of God to the marital covenant.

But here’s the thing: it’s not true.

In Genesis 2:24, the marriage covenant is clearly depicted as an interpersonal covenant between a man and his wife. Yes, God is the one who establishes the union (cf. Matthew 19:6). And the union is made before him. But the participants of the union itself, including all the promises it entails, are the man and the woman.

They are the ones who have been joined together and become one flesh.
They are the ones who have made promises to each other.
They are the ones who have pledged themselves to one another.

The covenant is made because of and in the sight of God. But it is made between them.

The Old Testament prophet Malachi confirms this:

“The LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.” (Malachi 2:14)

The wife is the husband’s covenantal companion.
The Lord is the witness to that covenant.

Friends, getting this right matters. It matters because marriage matters.

According to the theology promoted in this clip, every marriage consists of two distinctly triangulated covenants: one between a husband and God, and the other between a wife and God. In each, the other spouse is an implication rather than an active participant. The love and obligation they share are mere secondary by-products. They cease to be a covenant partner of one another and become merely the beneficiary of someone else’s promise to God. They become a secondary player in their own marriage.

Such a view of marriage fails to reflect the profound beauty and significance of the marital relationship within this creation. But it also fails to reflect the profound beauty and significance of the eschatological relationship to come—in which Christ enters into the eternal covenant of marriage with his bride, the church.

Friends, Scripture does not present marriage as a journey toward death but as a signpost toward life. It was instituted in the Garden as part of God’s good creation. And in the New Testament, it signifies something even greater: the eschatological union between Christ and his church.

When we misdescribe marriage in the ways this clip does, we do more than misuse a few theological buzzwords. We obscure the true beauty of what marriage is meant to reveal. Human marriage itself was never designed to be a crucifixion. It was designed to be a foretaste of the wedding feast yet to come.

I’m sorry that I’ve been a bit AWOL lately. I’m particularly sorry for not having published the additional ‘soundbite theology’ piece I promised in my last post.

The truth is that I have some rather large writing deadlines looming – the most significant being the completion of my manuscript for a commentary on 1 & 2 Thessalonians for the Hodder Bible Commentary series. (The ‘Man of Lawlessness’ is coming for me sometime in January 😬). This means that any spare thinking or writing time I manage to scrounge up is currently being channelled directly into that. I absolutely love spending this amount of time deep in the text of the Bible. But it’s definitely demanding.

I’m also expecting the first six months of 2026 to be busy with some other significant and (God-willing) exciting demands on my time and energies. I hope to share more about that sometime in the New Year.

But all of this means I need to apologise in advance if my presence on here remains a bit patchy for a little while longer. I want you to know that I don’t take your interest in my writing for granted. I am so grateful for your patience with me as I try to work out how to ‘do’ life as a tent-making theological writer and resourcer, all while remaining sane, meeting deadlines and managing to pay some bills.

Now for the musing…

Over the last month or so, I’ve been prayerfully pondering my engagement on social media, and especially on X/Twitter.

I’ve always been someone who enjoys dialoguing with others in writing. I was an early adopter of the old school discussion forums that cropped up in the Noughties. I was also an avid user of Facebook in the days before seeing a friend’s post meant scrolling through a dozen ads for products I don’t need but too often end up buying anyway, and another dozen clickbait headlines about the latest celebrity gossip or (very frustratingly, unnamed) Netflix series.

And yet, when it came to the bird (and now the Musk) platform, I was a late bloomer. Honestly, the place intimidated and overwhelmed me. Everything moved at a million miles per second. So much of what I saw seemed both brash and rash. I couldn’t make sense of all the tweets, sub-tweets, acronyms and abbreviations.

And so no sooner would I think “Maybe I should give that Twitter thing another go”, that I’d log on and then pretty much immediately log back off again, thinking “Yeah, maybe not”. In hindsight, I think this was God’s kindness in protecting me from the distraction (amongst other things) that it would have undoubtedly been for me during my years in full-time women’s ministry and then PhD study.

But, eventually, the day came when I decided to apply myself to the task of understanding and interacting on that platform. (I can neither confirm nor deny that this had anything to do with a prospective publisher suggesting that, if I hoped to get my PhD research published, I needed to build a profile on the blue-bird.) So, I logged on, convinced myself to stay logged on, and have remained logged on ever since.

But here’s the thing. Yes, I’m someone who has always enjoyed dialoguing with others through writing. It really helps me sharpen and refine my thinking. But I’m also someone who is instinctively conflict-averse. I love debating ideas, but I find personal disagreement challenging. I benefit from critiquing others’ thoughts and having my own critiqued, but I am deeply uncomfortable when that translates into relational discord.

My secret is out: I am a wuss.

This means that Twitter/X is both my dream and my nightmare. It allows me to engage with, challenge, push back on the ideas others are playing with, and to bring my own ideas into the mix for them to do the same. That sharpens my thinking, grows my understanding and, by God’s grace, makes me wiser.

But the disembodied nature of the platform also makes it very easy to engage with those ideas as if they were divorced from the personhood of the one who espouses them. To be lured into normalising strident, even aggressive, conflict because they are just words in a sentence, pixels on a screen. For angsty, and angry, enraged and embittered to become the norm.

I remember, in those first couple of years, how deeply uncomfortable I was with some of the strident behaviour of people I considered my own theological, pastoral, and spiritual kin. I often agreed with their point but was profoundly uneasy with their posture. The brazen blanket pronouncements, the assumption of others’ motives. The lack of generosity. It made my skin itch and my face heat.

Now, years later, I haven’t only built up a bit of an immunity to it… I fear I have, at times, become a participant in it.

I spend a lot of time (probably too much time) crafting the words I post on X/Twitter—though you wouldn’t know it from the number of typos I let slip through. I work hard at trying to be as charitable as possible. I try not to overreach, overstate, or overgeneralise. And, with all thanks to God, I think I’m often successful, and more importantly, faithful, in that.

But I can see—indeed, I can feel—the way the platform has gotten its claws into my sinful nature. It has exploited my own fallen weaknesses to shape me into its own image. I know I’m not always faithful in my interactions on it.

And the truth is that there are some ways in which I am particularly vulnerable to this happening.

For instance, I’m a female theologian operating in what is essentially a man’s world (at least according to most of the men in it). To make matters more complicated, I’m a complementarian female theologian in that world. This means I’m often considered a traitor by both male complementarians and female egalitarians alike. Being stuck in no-(wo)man’s land can leave me feeling like I need to stand my ground and stake it out. At times, assertively. Many complementarian men and egalitarian women often accuse me of doing that poorly. On occasion, they are right.

Moreover, my particular area of theological research and resourcing—initially the topic of singleness in the evangelical church, and now relational anthropology more broadly—has required me to critique and challenge some of the most zealously guarded evangelical shibboleths of our time. Doing so has put me at odds with some of those in my own “tribe”… at least from their perspective. I’m a theologically conservative, complementarian, evangelical Christian (I mean, I’m a born and bred Sydney Anglican for crying out loud!) who is very often typecast by other theologically conservative, complementarian, evangelical Christians as a theologically liberal, feminist, progressive non-Christian… all because, here and there, I push back a little on the closely guarded party line.

When you are constantly operating in contested spaces and having your presence in those contested spaces constantly contested, it can be easy to become defensive, self-righteous and even embittered. I work hard not to. I don’t always succeed.

Sometimes that is displayed in the occasional frustrated or fruitless language I let slip through. Sometimes it is present in uncharitable assumptions or conclusions. Sometimes it is evidenced in how long it takes me to rework my unpublished draft into something constructive rather than merely a rant. Sometimes it is revealed in what I do post about… and what I don’t post about.

It’s not all the time.
It’s not much of the time.
But even a small amount of the time is still too much of the time.

And so, over the next few months, I’m going to be praying that God’s Spirit will help me become increasingly discerning and faithful in my interactions on social media. It doesn’t mean that I will stop engaging in good-faith dialogue and disagreement or pushing back on those party lines when I consider them to be at odds with the teaching of Scripture and love of the sheep. I’ll still occasionally rattle some cages—not for the sake of it, but for the sake of Christ.

But as I do all of that (as well as, God-willing, edify and enjoy others online), I want to honour Christ more and more. And give Satan less and less of a foothold.

Which leads me to the request…

Actually, I have two requests.

Firstly, would you please pray for me in this? And while you are at it, please pray for yourself and others in it too.

Secondly, if you do interact with, or even read, my posts on social media, could I ask you to intentionally read them in the broader context of my theological framework, my pastoral commitments, and even what you know of my personhood?

As I said above, it’s exhausting to consistently operate in contested spaces.. And it’s becoming even more exhausting now that I regularly find myself being trolled by multitudes of misogynistic trolls or opportunist bots. We all need readers who will treat our words like a conversation, not a courtroom. And I promise, I’m not auditioning for the role of ‘Most Controversial Female Theologian on X’.

So here’s the deal: I’ll keep trying to interact like a Christian, and you keep trying to read me like one. And vice versa. Between the two of us, we might just redeem a small corner of the internet. At the very least, we can avoid adding to the dumpster fire.

And in the meantime… Merry Christmas, my friends! God is with us!

Listen to an AI-generated version of this article above. Playback speed can be adjusted by clicking the dial on the right.

In my last post I explored an example of what I called, fast-food theology: namely, the assertion that “wives are God’s main weapon against porn addiction in men”. (Pssst. This post won’t make a lot of sense if you haven’t yet read that one).

At that time, I mentioned that I would be publishing a second post looking at another reductionistic sound-bite that also leaves us in a theological and pastoral mess. That’s still the plan.

However, a couple of online and offline conversations over the last week or so have prompted me to first engage in a little more digestion on the theological relationship between marriage, sex and our propensity towards sexual immorality that I discussed in my last post.

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A good-faith dialogue partner has pushed back on my last post’s reading of 1 Corinthians 7:1-5.

He argues that Paul’s words in v.5 (“Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”) offers “a clear reason… for why spouses shouldn’t deprive each other: *so that* Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control”. This leads him to conclude that part of God’s original, creative design for sex within marriage was to be a ‘prophylactic against the temptation to sexual immorality’.

He’s not alone in this. Many Christians think, argue and claim that

1. The act of having “legitimate” sex (i.e., sex in marriage) in and of itself prevents you from having, or at least lowers your desire to have sex outside of marriage.

2. The reason for this is that a part of God’s original purpose for sex in marriage was that it might prophylactically act against sexual sin.

Now, this argument may sound similar to what I argued in my last post. But it’s not. There, I argued that:

“In 1 Corinthians 7:1-5, Paul is not saying that the reason to have sex in marriage is because it will eventually cure you of wanting to have sex outside of marriage […] No, Paul is telling married Corinthian Christians that sex belongs in marriage, and so married people should be having sex.

[…] Put another way, we Christians don’t have sex in marriage so that we stop having sex outside of marriage. We have sex in marriage because God designed sex to belong to marriage. Because God designed sex to serve the purposes of marriage.”

I added:

“I’m not saying that putting sex in its place—spouses giving bodily of themselves in love to and for the other—doesn’t have anything at all to do with growth in sexual holiness.

When we live and love God’s way, we become more and more enraptured with living and loving God’s way. As we become more like Christ, we become less like the world. As the Spirit teaches us to control our bodies in holiness and honour, we learn to resist Satan and flee from sexual immorality. […] We say no to temptation because we first and foremostly have said yes to God’s will.”

Can you see the difference between his and my argument?

I’m arguing that the act of marital sex itself is not the effective means of our fleeing sexual immorality. Instead, the Spirit is that means. He achieves it by way of our spiritual transformation.

My interlocutor agrees with the above. But argues something more than that.

He additionally concludes that the act of having sexual intercourse in marriage is itself an effective means of our fleeing sexual immorality. It achieves this prophylactically, because God designed the act of having sex with a husband or a wife to itself be a prophylactic against unmarried sex.

Here’s where the digestion starts because, for my part, I have several significant theological concerns with this argument as it presents itself:

1. Plenty of married Christians (not to mention non-Christians) who enjoy regular sex with their spouse still struggle with lust, porn addiction and other expressions of sexual immorality.
   
   To put it another way, thousands of years of data show that getting to have “legitimate” sex isn’t an inoculation against wanting to have “illegitimate” sex.
   
   Perhaps some married Christians have observed a correlation between enjoying a healthy and active sex life with their spouse and a decrease in their temptation to lust after others (or watch porn, or…). But on what basis can they confidently conclude that this is a result of the sexual intercourse they are having, rather than the Spirit’s work transforming them in the way that I argued for above? How can they be sure they aren’t attributing to sex what should rightly be attributed to the Spirit?
   
   After all, plenty of Christian spouses enjoy an active sex life with their husband or wife, but still struggle with a porn addiction. If the act of married sex is itself a prophylactic, then why is it not working for them? Are they not having enough sex? Are they not having enough good sex? Is their spouse not doing it right? Or could it be that it is not sex itself, but the Spirit, which empowers them to flee from sexual immorality?

   
   Perhaps this might lead us to conclude, “Well, we can’t prove that sex in marriage is an effective means against sexual immorality. But we can’t disprove it either. So the jury is still out”.

   
   The thing is, though, I think we can disprove it. Indeed, I think Scripture leads us to necessarily disprove it, because…
   
   

2. God designed sex to serve the purposes of marriage, not marriage to serve the purposes of our sex drives.
   
   God did not imbue you or me with sex drives as ends in and of themselves. God did not create marriage to give you and me a context in which we were allowed to give in to our sex drives.
   
   No. God created human sex drives to serve the ends of human sexual intercourse, and he created human sexual intercourse to serve the ends of human marriage… which itself has its own creative and new-creative ends. Put more simply, God made us to want to have sex because having sex is purposed to something beyond itself… and beyond us.
   
   The other day, a dear friend (they know who they are 👋) said that they had read my last post, found it interesting, but were wondering about how to account for the personally experienced biological and physiological realities of sex. Part of God’s design for sex is that (in ideal circumstances) the brain releases chemicals like oxytocin, dopamine, and endorphins, which promote feelings of pleasure, trust, and emotional closeness, thereby strengthening the bond between the people having sex.
   
   Yep! How cool is that?! But God didn’t design our brains and bodies to do all those clever things during (and after) sex for our sakes as individuals. Instead, it was designed in this way to foster and grow the necessary intimacy and trust between the two people he intended to be having sex with each other— a married man and woman..

   
   God created our physiological, psychological and emotional drive to and enjoyment in having sexual intercourse in full service of the goods of marriage…. not marriage as the context in which we can satisfy our individual sex drives so that we aren’t tempted to act on them elsewhere.

   But even more to the point…

   
   

3. God designed sex to serve the purposes of marriage, not marriage to serve the purposes of our FALLEN sexual drives.
   
   I cannot find any way to theologically assent to the idea that part of God’s original, ordained and so, good, purpose for “inventing” the act of sexual intercourse between a husband and a wife at the time of creation was so that it might help aid them against having sex outside of their marriage. (NB. Once again, this is a different thing from what I have argued above about the Spirit’s transformative fruitfulness experienced and expressed through sanctified living. It’s also a different thing from saying that we experience God’s good design as compelling because it is indeed his good design.)

   
   God’s design for sexual intercourse was perfectly and exclusively purposed in service of the perfectly purposed and exclusive marital union. The only reason having sexual intercourse outside of marriage came into the frame at all is because we humans tragically corrupted that perfect design.
   
   And so, I cannot see how the argument I am countering does not make God’s perfect creative purposes a servant to the human corruption of those perfect creative purposes. I cannot see how it does anything other than get the order topsy-turvy.

   
   

4. And when we get the order topsy-turvy, well, here’s where we end up:

This is the terminus of the argument. It’s a terminus which claims that the one-flesh union was (in part) purposed by God to be a way for us to cope with our “animal aggression”. That God purposed a wife or a husband to give their body to the other (in part) so that the other person can use “their spouse’s body as an outlet for sexual tension”.

Some will object that this is an abuse of the argument in principle, not its necessary endpoint. However, in my view, that objection fails to take the argument in principle on its own terms.

You see, the claim that God purposed the act of sex itself (in marriage) to be a prophylactic against sexual immorality is actually a claim about God’s purpose for a spouse. The claim that is really being made is that (part of) a husband or a wife’s purpose is to provide you with the sexual satisfaction you need so that you won’t be (as) tempted to go looking for it elsewhere. A spouse “needs to be OK with the other using [their] body as an outlet” for their fallen and corrupted sexual drive.

This is the inevitable endpoint of the argument. And it is as far from God’s purpose for the marital relationship as we could possibly imagine.

OK. Enough digestion because, as always, this has gone longer than I had intended!

I’ll sign off here and be back soon (I hope!) with an exploration of an entirely different example of the same kind of problematic sound-bite theology.

Some years ago (almost six, in fact 😲) I wrote an article titled ‘The Problem with Soundbite Theology’. In it, I argued that theological soundbites on social media (often brief statements made without any or outside of their context):

“… encourage us to not “overthink” things. They are designed to give us pithy insights, warm and fuzzy sentiments or perhaps a briefly jolting challenge … but not much else. […] They are not designed to persuade us of a particular argument. They are not designed to help us trace through a line of logic. They are not designed to lead us through a sustained reflection. They are tl;dr punchlines that actively encourage us not to “overthink” things.

But is that how we want to do our theology? By just grabbing hold of the punchline? By not taking in a sustained argument? By not overthinking it?”

I guess we might say that soundbite theology is fast-food theology.

In this and my next post, I want to explore two different theological soundbites our algorithmic overlords delivered to my newsfeed in the last week.

The first—discussed below—was about men (and women) and sex.
The second—to come in the next post—was about women and marriage (and Christ).

Both of them were made on X. (Yes, yes… Musk’s evil plan is finally working. I'm calling it Twitter less and less, darn it).

Both received a lot of views. A lot of likes. A lot of shares. A lot of comments.

Both tap into our tendency to be increasingly comfortable with a “let’s not-over-think-it” fast-food approach to theology… and, by extension, to the Christian life.

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Weaponised Wives

Without further ado, I present you with our first case study:

If you know me at all, you’ll probably know that I had a guttural reaction to that first line of that tweet. Though, to be fair, I think most women—married or not—would have had a similar guttural reaction. Here was my response. You’ll see the gutturalness really came to the fore in the last few words 😬.

And boy oh boy, did that kick up a hornet’s nest!

I spent the next 36 hours blocking countless men (and/or bots) whose courage and conviction were on display as they trolled me under anonymous handles, usually accompanied by a stock profile pic of some LOTR-type warrior dude. Hitting the ‘block’ button was basically my full-time job that day.

Amongst the scores of commands for me to “shut up and go have sex with your husband” (though, “go have sex with” was not the phrase most of them actually used), there were others who told me to “shut up and go read 1 Corinthians 7". Clearly, these men lacked some critical information: namely, that I do not have a husband, and that I’ve probably spent more time reading 1 Corinthians 7 than most pastors who have been in the role for decades.

In any event, the gist of both approaches was that, because the apostle Paul tells husbands and wives to have sex with each other (1 Corinthians 7:1-5), Will Knowland was correct—wives are God’s “main weapon” against porn addiction in men and they need to be reminded of the dignity of that role.

In amongst all the posts from Aragon wannabes, there were a handful of posts from good-faith interlocutors (here is one great example) who wanted to lean further into what exactly Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians 7:1-5 and how that might mean that Will Knowland did indeed Knowsomething (see what I did there?).

I’ve written about whether we ought to think of (sex in) marriage as a remedy for lust/sexual immorality before (see here and here). I also discuss it in chapter 7 of my new book Single Ever After. But, of course, there is always more to say—especially in response to an “itching ears” post like that of Will Knowland, and also in dialogue with some of the better faith engagements on the topic.

So, let’s set aside the fast-food and take some time to slowly digest instead.

A Misdiagnosis and A Mistaken Remedy

Will Knowland (a high school English teacher who has decided to turn his attention from tutoring teenage boys in Shakespeare to tutoring Christian husbands on how to ‘master the Christian masculine virtues to thrive as the head of your family’) claims that:

“Wives are God’s main weapon against porn addiction in men”.

In a subsequent post, he explained exactly how God weaponises wives for this end:

Wives, satisfy your husbands lest they incline towards porn.

In other words, if wives satiate their husbands with enough good sex, those men won’t be inclined to watch other people having sex on the screen of their devices. If wives refuse to do this, well, we all know what those men are gonna do, right? And, really, who could blame them?

Now, those who are psychological and sociological experts in porn addiction will tell you that Knowland’s thesis is inherently flawed because porn addiction (in men and women) is not something simply or even primarily fueled by a person feeling they are not getting enough satisfying sex in their relationship. There are a multitude of complex and interrelated reasons why people turn to porn… and why people can’t easily turn away from porn. It’s called an ‘addiction’ for a reason.

And so, by suggesting there is an obvious and easy way to overcome a porn addiction, Knowland is offering Christian men an overly simplified and ultimately false hope. But he also places a responsibility on those men’s wives that a) is not theirs to meet in the way he asserts and b) that they will almost certainly not be able to meet in the way he asserts. His thesis isn’t only flawed. It is also likely to prove personally and relationally destructive.

However, more to the point of this article, Knowland’s assertion is also deeply theologically flawed.

He (and many others) have misdiagnosed the theological reason why many men (and women) struggle with a porn addiction. It is not because they aren’t having their sexual needs adequately satisfied, but because sin has corrupted and twisted their sexual nature, desires and longings.

See, here is what Paul DOES NOT SAY in 1 Corinthians 7:

Here is what the apostle DOES SAY:

A porn addicted man (or woman’s) “problem” is not that they aren’t getting enough good sex as per their human right, due or need.

It’s that they are a sinner.

It’s that their sexual desires and appetites have been corrupted. It’s that they love the lure of sex being used for purposes other than God’s intention. It’s that they are addicted to the illicit pleasure of looking at other people doing all kinds of wicked and destructive things with their bodies. It’s that they enjoy fantasising about doing it themselves. It’s that they lack self-control. Getting to have more frequent and more satisfying sex in marriage is not a magic cure to what really feeds porn addiction: sin.

The men Knowland speaks of don’t need to be sexually satisfied.
They need to be sexually sanctified.

On the same day I was blocking all those Aragorn wannabes on X (Twitter, darn it), I was also writing on 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8 for my forthcoming commentary on that epistle and its companion letter. Here is what Paul writes there:

According to Paul, sexual immorality is profoundly linked with not “knowing” God (cf. Romans 1:18-32). But the new believers in Thessalonica DO know God! They have turned away from pagan idols and now serve the true and living God (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Serving him means pleasing him by living according to his will. And here, that means living as those who are sexually holy. Not so long ago, they were pagans who exulted in their sexual immorality. But now they are to be people who avoid it entirely.

This means they must learn to control their own bodies in a way that is holy (towards God) and honourable (towards others).

Any Christian man who has a porn addiction (or is actively engaged in any other form of sexual immorality) does not need a wife who is willing to give him more regular orgasms. He needs to learn to love others by not lusting after them. He needs to learn self-control—that fruit of the Spirit and foundational mark of discipleship.

And as per my original response to Will Knowland, that can only happen by the grace of God as it “teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:12).

Having Sex As God Intended

OK. So you may be thinking “Yeah, I agree with all that. But doesn’t 1 Corinthians 7:1-5 seem to suggest that having regular sex in marriage does in some way help solve the issue of sexual immorality and/or a lack of self-control”.

Well, let’s take a look. Here’s what Paul says in full:

Note a few things:

• Verse 1 is likely to be a quotation from the Corinthians that Paul is responding to. That is, they say, “Yo Paul, married people should be abstinent, right? Cause that’s more noble and stuff!” Paul says, “Not so fast, guys”.

• The reason Paul gives for why husbands and wives should “have” (i.e., have sex with) each other is “since sexual immorality is occurring” (v. 2). Now, we need to pay attention to this. He’s not here addressing the theoretical possibility of temptation to sexual immorality. He’s not simply saying “Guys, if you don’t have sex with your wives, you’ll find it hard not to have sex with someone else”. (Think about this: he’s about to repeatedly encourage everyone who isn’t married to consider remaining unmarried. If he thought people were doomed to give in to their sexual impulses if they didn’t get to have regular marital sex, then that would be a supremely foolish thing for him to repeatedly urge them to.) In verses 1-5 Paul is addressing the fact that actual married people in Corinth are actually engaged in sexual immorality (as would have been very normal in Greco-Roman society, especially for men whose sex lives were mainly located outside their marriages). After all, he’s just spent the previous two chapters talking about exactly that.

• Paul echoes this reasoning again down in verse 5 when he refers to their “lack of self-control”. Again, this isn’t simply some theoretical concern that they won’t prove strong enough to resist sexual immorality in the long run. He’s writing to a bunch of people who aren’t resisting it, who aren’t exercising self-control. And even if not everyone in the church is failing at this themselves, chapter 5 evidences that the whole church is indicted by their response to this extra-marital immorality.

Paul is writing to a bunch of new Christians (most of whom were from a pagan background) who were thinking they could be all noble and godly by not having sex with their wives, all while having sex with people who were not their wives (or condoning others who were doing that).

Context matters. And in this context, Paul is telling the Corinthians to put sex where it belongs—in marriage.

He says a very similar thing down in verse 9 when he writes that unmarried members of the church who are not exercising self-control—note: the verb is in the present tense. He is speaking about single believers who are actively engaged in fornication—should marry, for it is better for them to marry than to burn. He’s saying, “Don’t kid yourselves that you’re being all noble by remaining single, all while you are having sex with someone you are not married to”. There too, he is telling them to put sex in its place—marriage. (For more on verse 9, see chapter 7 of Single Ever After).

In 1 Corinthians 7:1-5, Paul is not saying that the reason to have sex in marriage is because it will eventually cure you of wanting to have sex outside of marriage (see the bit about sexual sanctification and self-control above). No, Paul is telling married Corinthian Christians that sex belongs in marriage, and so married people should be having sex.

Now, having said that, let me be clear about something else.

I’m not saying that putting sex in its place—spouses giving bodily of themselves in love to and for the other—doesn’t have anything at all to do with growth in sexual holiness.

When we live and love God’s way, we become more and more enraptured with living and loving God’s way. As we become more like Christ, we become less like the world. As the Spirit teaches us to control our bodies in holiness and honour, we learn to resist Satan and flee from sexual immorality.

And so that’s why I would agree with this particular statement from one of my good-faith X interlocutors:

“When spouses offer a reciprocal gift of self in love through the body—when they have sex according to God’s design—they strengthen themselves against their sinful natures’ threats.” Chase Krug

But note, that what Chase says there is a very different thing from Will Knowland said.

You see, putting sex where it belongs—in marriage and only marriage—is not so much about resisting temptation as it is about embracing our sexual sanctification. Yes, one of the results of our ongoing sexual sanctification is that we are more and more spiritually equipped to say no to temptation. But that is a wonderfully inevitable secondary implication of our putting sex in its place… not the reason why we put sex in its place. We say no to temptation because we first and foremostly have said yes to God’s will.

Put another way, we Christians don’t have sex in marriage so that we stop having sex outside of marriage. We have sex in marriage because God designed sex to belong to marriage. Because God designed sex to serve the purposes of marriage.

That is a very different thing to asserting that God weaponizes a wife by giving her the “dignified” responsibility of regularly satiating her husband’s sexual desires such that his edges are dulled enough that he’ll be able to resist the lure of watching other people having sex on his computer screen. For that he needs God’s grace to teach him to say no to ungodliness and to exercise self-control instead.

Dealing in soundbite fast-food theology is very profitable for those trying to build their platform, raise their profile, or sell their training courses.

But here’s the deal:

“Most of us like a little bit of fast food every now and then. But it is no substitute for a nutritious, healthy diet of real food. Knowing Christ; knowing who we are in him; knowing who each other is in him; knowing this world which finds its end in him; knowing the next world over which he already reigns—none of these things are ours through quick, chomping gulps of the fast-food soundbite. Why would we be willing to settle for a steady diet of that, when (like the prophet in Ez 2:9-3:3) we could be digesting long, slow, unhurried, nutritious mouthfuls of Scripture instead?”

The Problem with Soundbite Theology

One particular individual (who I know to be a godly, thoughtful and faithful servant of Christ and shepherd of his congregation) spoke of how a longing for meaning and hope in an increasingly chaotic and confused world meant that he and other members of his church were awash with more opportunities to share the gospel of Christ than every before. It was thrilling to hear.

But then, in the midst of all this excitement for evangelism, he said:

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My (perhaps, too) finely tuned radar immediately perked up. In that moment, a few thoughts raced through my mind:

1. Evangelism, marriage and family are not entirely unrelated things. Still, I found the sudden interjection of marriage and family into the discussion of evangelism a little jarring, even if not altogether surprising.

2. If getting married and having kids is what we consider to be morally “normal” (which was the sense he was using that word), then plenty of singles and infertile married couples must be morally “abnormal”. That was hard to hear.

3. What is a theology of “normal”? What Scriptural passages and theological concepts lead us towards that language, and in what sense? How does biblical theology give context and content to what we think is “normal”? How does the gospel—which turned the world topsy-turvy—transform the way we think about what is “normal”?

All these thoughts were flying around in my mind. But in the midst of them, there was also one more, very clear, thought.

I knew that if, in that moment, I had said any of the above out loud, most people in that room would have perceived me as being somehow down on marriage and family. I would have almost certainly been interpreted by the majority as being in some way anti-marriage.

How could I be so certain of that? Because it happens to me all the time.

I heard numerous reports of church pastors and ministry leaders who were not even willing to read the blurb of my first book, The Meaning of Singleness, because they had already decided it was written by a (probably embittered) single woman who wanted to diminish or downplay the meaning of marriage.

Every time I give a talk on singleness, I go out of my way to qualify that I think marriage is a wonderful and very important gift from God, but that I also think that we can be tempted to idealise, even idolise, it in ways that undermine its God-given goodness. And then, a few days later, I nearly always hear quiet reports that one or two people were uncomfortable with my “anti-marriage message”.

If I make a social media post in which I question the prevailing evangelical tendency to respond to declining marriage and fertility rates by focusing on sociological data about individual flourishing (rather than approaching the matter from a biblical and theological perspective), it’s almost guaranteed that I will be asked why I am glorifying singleness at the cost of ignoring the real problem our society has with marriage.

But here’s the thing. This very predictable pattern only confirms WHY we evangelicals need a more biblically robust conversation about marriage, singleness, and the relationship between them.

Which means, we need to keep reiterating over and over again that:

• Wanting to retrieve a genuinely biblical theology of singleness is not the same thing as being down on marriage.

• That this discussion is not a zero-sum game in which honouring one must mean we want to dishonour the other,

• That marriage and singleness are not in competition with each other, but rather complement each other.

• That on this side of the cross and resurrection, we can—and should—hold out faithful marriage, family formation and godly singleness as all being morally “normal” within God’s plans and purposes.

Here is how I put it in The Meaning of Singleness:

“That marriage and singleness have so consistently been situated as opposing, and even competing, modes of Christian life may suggest little reason for optimism that a more faithfully balanced perspective might characterize the Christian community’s future.

… And yet, extensive exploration [in this book] has suggested that while a tension does indeed exist in the upholding of both marriage and singleness as equally valuable and valid situations for the Christian person, that tension is actually a fundamentally necessary one … Plainly speaking, marriage and singleness have actual need of the other. And this not simply so they may be understood, appreciated, and inhabited in this present creation but because of what they allow us to know understand, appreciate, and anticipate about the next.

Both marriage and singleness uniquely and specifically testify to the comprehensive truth that in Christ “every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes’” (2 Cor 1:20 NRSV). So it is that where singleness’ unique and eschatological vocational significance is diminished, a corresponding diminishment of marriage’s unique and eschatological vocational significance inevitably results. Such an outcome leaves marriage as little more than a moral requirement or duty and so also “a terrible burden.”1

… But, where singleness is faithfully and vocationally prized within the community of faith, so also will marriage correspondingly be cherished for its own unique and crucial vocational dignity. It is only in faithfully apprehending the eschatologically charged vocational nature of one that we are truly able to appreciate the authentic eschatological dignity of the other. This is precisely why Hauerwas argues that “in the strongest possible language the basis and intelligibility of the Christian understanding of marriage only makes sense in relation to the . . . legitimation for some of ‘singleness.’’2

The Meaning of Singleness - Chapter 10: Continuing the Conversation

Sometime in August 2015, I decided to embark on a PhD… to write a book.
On September 1, 2025, that book was finally released into the wild!

It took ten years to write and publish Single Ever After. But those ten years are precisely what made it the kind of book I’m genuinely convinced the church needs in this moment.

Seeing 10 years of work finally come to fruition is as surreal as it is nerve-racking… especially when I have so many hopes and prayers bound up in Single Ever After.

• I so long for single and single-again Christians to be comforted and challenged. I long for their hearts to be renewed and their minds to be transformed by the Bible’s teaching about singleness and the practical ‘Living it Out’ applications that follow.

• I so long for married Christians to be encouraged and exhorted. I long for them to not only have a greater understanding of and love for their unmarried friends and (spiritual) family, but also an increased awareness of how and why their marriage is so important to the rest of us.

• I so long for church pastors and ministry leaders to better apprehend and appreciate the dignity, meaning and purpose of singleness in the Christian life and community. I long for them to be willing to allow Scripture to challenge their pre-existing assumptions about singleness (and marriage) so that they are more faithfully equipped to teach and pastor single (and married) saints.

• Most of all, I so long for Single Ever After to point every single (no pun intended) person who reads it to the glory, goodness and grace of Jesus Christ. I long for God to be at work so that they may know and love Him more and more.

Of course, if any of those hopes, prayers and longings are to come to fruition, it will only be because God has been willing to bring them about. So please join me in praying for these things.

A Resource

Single Ever After is not intended to be the final word on singleness in the church. Instead, I wrote it to be a conversation starter.

Because Single Ever After is intended to prompt people to think and talk more (faithfully) about singleness, marriage, sexuality, church relationships, and more, I’ve written a ‘Going Deeper’ resource that you can download FOR FREE.

In it you’ll find:

• Discussion/Reflection and “Living It Out” questions for each chapter. These are perfect for book clubs or to further your own personal reading.

• Additional resources on the topic of each chapter. Read, watch or listen to other resources that will get you thinking.

Download the 'Go Deeper' Guide

A Request

I’m working hard to spread the word about Single Ever After. To that end, keep an eye (or an ear!) out—I’ll be popping up on a bunch of podcasts in the coming weeks and months. (Pssst: If you know of a podcast that you think might be interested in having me on, feel free to give them a nudge in my direction!)

But there is something I really do need your help with.

If you’ve read Single Ever After, would you please take a moment to leave a rating or review on Amazon or Goodreads? These platforms run on algorithms, meaning that the more ratings and reviews a book receives—even short ones!—the more likely it is to be shown to new readers who might otherwise never come across it.

Your review doesn’t need to be long or polished—just a few honest words about what the book meant to you is more than enough. Every single rating and review helps amplify the book’s reach and gets it into the hands of people who might never have found it otherwise.

Rate or Review on Amazon

Rate or Review on Goodreads

I’d also really love it if you could share about the book on social media, over morning tea or supper at church, and in your everyday conversations!

Oh! Also, a PS:

A few people have asked me whether Single Ever After is available for Kindle. It should be available as an ebook on Amazon very soon. But in the meantime, you can purchase the ebook version (for Kindle or as a PDF download) via the publisher’s website.

We’ve reflected on singleness not as an anomaly in the Christian life, but as a fully human, fully God-honouring way to live. I’ve hinted at old assumptions, suggested we need to sit afresh with complex passages, and asked you to imagine what it would look like for the church to speak of singleness with more depth, dignity, delight... and most of all, biblical faithfulness.

Now we’ve reached the end of the series… But not the end of the story.

There’s still one more chapter left—the one that hasn’t been written yet. And it’s a chapter I’d love you to co-author. Because your conversations, your church, your small group, your friendships, your contribution to this discussion matters. It matters a lot.

Whether you’ve been reading as a single Christian, a pastor, a friend, a parent, or just someone who wants to understand better—you have a part to play in how the church grows in dignifying, honouring and loving your single brothers and sisters.

Single Ever After isn’t a conclusion. It’s a beginning. I wrote it in the prayerful hope that you’ll carry it forward—in your own life of discipleship and amongst the other disciples in your life.

So, if you’ve felt challenged, encouraged, unsettled, intrigued or inspired by anything in this series, here’s some things you can do next:

📖 Order (and read!) the book from…

• The Good Book Company - US | Australia | UK

• Amazon

• Your local Christian bookseller of choice (here is mine!)

📣 Share the book

• Let others in your life know about Single Ever After. Better yet, why not gift them a copy!

• As you read the book, share your takeaway questions and thoughts with others and on your socials.

• There are a bunch of Single Ever After posts and reels on Instagram. If any of them particularly resonate with you, feel free to share them.

💬 Keep The Discussion Going

On my website you’ll find:

• Discussion and reflection questions on each chapter. These are perfect for book clubs or to further your own reading.

• Additional resources on the topic of each chapter. Read, watch or listen to other resources that will get you thinking and talking more.

I’ve heard it in countless sermons and podcasts about singleness. I’ve read it in innumerable books and articles about the unmarried life. It’s usually presented as a dire warning: If you can’t control yourself, you’d better get married.

But over time, our usage of it began to bother me. Not because I disagree with Paul (far from it!) but because I was no longer sure we were hearing him rightly. So I went back to the text. Dug deeply into it. Sat with the context. Read it within the rest of Scripture. And it changed how I understood this verse.

“[Sasha] was in her late thirties, had never been married, and was struggling with sexual purity. “Dani, I have all these desires bubbling up in me,” she said. “But I have no outlet for them. I don’t know what to do with them.”

She recounted how, on a recent Sunday, the preacher at her church had said that if any singles in the congregation were struggling with sexual temptation, then they needed to heed the apostle Paul’s words that “it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Corinthians 7:9).

Even though he wasn’t aware of Sasha’s struggle, she said it felt as if this pastor was speaking right at her, telling her she needed to get married before her desires got the better of her. But what was she meant to do? She had been praying for marriage for years, all to no avail. She felt trapped, helpless and doomed. And she also felt angry at God. Why would he tell her she needed to get married to solve her problem with lust but then withhold marriage from her? How was she meant to indefinitely say no to sexual sin if she never had the opportunity to say yes to marriage?”

Single Ever After (p. 142)

Chapter Seven offers a reframing of this commonly misunderstood verse.

If you’re a single Christian struggling with sexual temptation, this chapter will meet you there. It will call you to a Spirit-led deeper understanding of how your body, desires, and discipleship are intended to all be held together in Christ. Oh, and it will also encourage you to think seriously, carefully and prayerfully about whether or not you should marry.

But this chapter also challenges married Christians to consider what assumptions we’ve absorbed about sex, desire, and discipleship—and where those assumptions have led us astray. Because here’s the thing: Paul isn’t saying that marriage is the solution to lust.

When we suggest that marriage is the cure for lust, we reverse God’s good order—turning sex into the defining reality and marriage into its container. But lust isn’t solved by marriage. Wedding vows don’t legitimise it.

The lust of a married (or single) person is always sinful. Which means Jesus Christ is our one and only remedy for it.

In this final chapter, I explore how Paul opens the eyes of both the single and married Christians alike to a possibility that the modern world tells us doesn’t exist: that self-control is not only possible but good, beautiful, and God-glorifying… when the gospel shapes it.

Pssst. Stay tuned next week for the final wrap-up post of this companion series on the eve of Single Ever After’s release!

Over to You

💬 Leave a comment — Have you ever felt trapped by the idea that marriage is the only solution to sexual struggle? Or that your desire disqualified you from faithful singleness?

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Outside the church, we’re told that sex is who we are. Within the church, the loudest message is often just one “No” after another. And somewhere in the middle, many singles are left feeling shamed, silenced, or simply confused.

“Christian author Stephen McAlpine calls our day in the 21st-century West the “Sexular Age”. He’s on to something: our culture is not only deeply secularised but also profoundly sexualised. Our individual sexual appetites, instincts, desires and wants are not simply considered foundational to what it means to be a human being but to what it means for each of us to be the individual human person that we uniquely are. Throughout most of history, sex was an activity humans did for the sake of procreation, pleasure and partnership. But now, sex lies at the heart of who the world says we are; to not be having sex with whom we choose is to be less than fully ourselves.

Unfortunately, it is not only the world that has put sex at the very heart of human identity. We Christians have actively helped co-author the Sexular Age in which we now live. It is for this reason that we need to reckon with the part the church itself has played in our society’s obsession with sex.”

Single Ever After (p. 110-111)

I didn’t write Chapter Six to add more rules about sex. Nor did I write it to throw out the Bible’s grand vision for it in place of a cheap, deeply flawed, knock-off imitation. Instead, I wrote it to ask this question:

What is our sexuality actually for?

Not just what to do with it, but how to think about it as part of our humanity… and our discipleship.

Because here’s the paradox: we Christians have made too much of sex. But in doing so, we’ve also made it far too little of it. We’ve shrunk it into either a moral danger or a self-fulfilment KPI, with no more expansive or enduring vision to guide us.

This chapter moves through history, theology, and reality. It traces how the Reformation, in rightly challenging distorted ideals of celibacy, unintentionally planted the seeds of a theology—and a church—that now aligns disturbingly well with our modern “Sexular Age.”

It also confronts the loneliness and invisibility many single, faithfully abstinent Christians feel: a future-shaped, theologically grounded vision of sexual personhood.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your (married or single) sexuality has meaning apart from having sex itself, this chapter is for you. And if you’re a single Christian who is weary of feeling like your sexual personhood is always framed as deprivation, deficit, or sacrifice, I hope this chapter gives you a bigger, better and much more biblical story to inhabit.

Over to You

💬 Leave a comment — Have you ever felt like your sexuality was reduced to either “no” or “not yet… maybe never”? How have you wrestled with what it means to be a sexual person as a single (or married) Christian?

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We’ve all read 1 Corinthians 7. We’ve quoted it in sermons, Bible studies, and late-night Christian chats about marriage and singleness. But what if we’ve been seeing parts of it all slightly wrong? What if our default reading—especially around “undivided devotion” of verses 29-35—has been shaped more by cultural assumptions than biblical truth?

When I started working through this chapter, I kept returning to the image of a magic eye puzzle—you know the kind: you stare and stare and you just can’t bring it into focus. Until that moment when your eyes shift their perspective just a little and suddenly… There it is! You finally see what was there all along., And now you can’t unsee it.

Chapter Five reframes the passage many of us have used to support the idea that single Christians must live maximally devoted lives, while married Christians are understandably “divided.”

“Here’s how we usually understand Paul’s logic in [1 Corinthians 7:29-35]: singleness is a good thing, but, only so long as the single person isn’t distracted from putting it to good use, is entirely undivided in their devotion to the Lord, and is not thinking about themselves in any way. If not, then singleness is often considered to be compromised, illegitimate and perhaps even rebellious.

A married person gets a hall-pass on being divided in their devotion (something we’ll come back to a bit later). But singles don’t. And so, this passage is frequently translated into an expectation of instrumental austerity in singleness. But once again, if we take another look at the passage, we discover that our usual interpretation and application of it may have a few problems. In this chapter, I want to unpick some of the issues and suggest what I believe to be a better reading instead.”

Single Ever After (p. 100-101)

So much of what we believe about godly devotion—and distraction—has been subtly shaped by the deeply embedded assumptions that marriage comes with challenges and compromises, while the “freedom” of singleness demands purity of focus.

But when I really sat with this biblical passage, I found myself wondering: have we mistaken Paul’s pastoral realism for a permission slip? Have we created a tiered vision of devotion where singles must strive harder than their married counterparts? What if his point isn’t that marriage legitimates distraction, but that both married and unmarried believers are called to hold even the most precious earthly gifts loosely, with eyes fixed on eternity?

This chapter doesn’t argue against deep devotion. It invites us to ask what undivided devotion truly looks like—and who is called to it. (Spoiler alert: It’s all of us).

If that shifts your view, unsettles your reading, or sparks curiosity, I hope you’ll read the chapter itself. Because sometimes all it takes is one small perspective shift to see what was there all along—and never see it the same way again.

Over to You

💬 Leave a comment— Have you ever felt the pressure to “prove” your singleness (or “legitimate” someone else’s) through intense devotion? Or been subtly taught that marriage earns you a pass on spiritual distraction?

📖 Preorders for Single Ever After are open now. If this teaser for Chapter Five has intrigued you, consider ordering a copy and sharing it with your church or small group.

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We’re watching a new kind of hierarchy quietly emerge in the way Christians talk about singleness—one that risks marginalising many of the very singles we ought to be honouring. Frankly, it’s a trend I find deeply concerning. And it’s gaining momentum.

This chapter pushes back against the idea that the only truly meaningful singleness is the kind that is intentionally chosen. It questions a growing language shift—from “singleness” to “celibacy”—that subtly recasts one kind of unmarried life as nobler, holier, and more kingdom-focused than others.

If we let this narrative get too far ahead of us, we risk creating a second-class citizenship within the body of Christ for those whose singleness wasn’t chosen but is nonetheless faithfully lived.

“We all know single Christians who would choose to marry if the choice was theirs. Indeed, perhaps you are one such a single person. Even some who feel generally content in their singleness are still open to the possibility of marriage. And yet, for many, that possibility never seems to present itself. No matter how many social mixers they attend, online dating apps they try out, matchmaking friends they have and earnest prayers they offer, marriage seems to remain out of their reach. And so the concept of having control over their own marital destiny feels little more than an abstract ideal.

The frustration they feel is further compounded by a surrounding culture that heavily idealises choice as necessary for personal fulfilment and authenticity… This can leave many singles not only grieving for what seems beyond their reach but feeling as if they are victims of their circumstances—as though their life is not actually theirs after all.

What is more, because we Christians are more influenced by that worldly veneration of choice than we realise, many within the church today are increasingly doubtful that singleness can truly be good for a person—or perhaps more to the point, truly useful for the kingdom—unless it is has been actively chosen and intentionally stepped into.”

Single Ever After (p. 76-77)

Chapter Four explores how our cultural obsession with choice—and even the church’s idealisation of intentionality—can lead us down a dangerous theological and pastoral path. One where only the “vocational celibate” is seen as truly living for Jesus.

But Scripture doesn’t separate unmarried disciples of Christ based on how consciously they arrived at their marital status. Paul doesn’t say, “Only the intentionally unmarried are useful to the kingdom.” And Jesus doesn’t elevate chosen celibacy over circumstantial singleness. (No, not even in that passage about the eunuchs. You’ll need to read the book to discover why!)

In this chapter, I argue we must recover a biblical vision that honours all unmarried believers, not just those who fit a worldly model of “sacrifice.”

Over to You

💬 Leave a comment—Have you felt pressure to frame your (or someone else’s) singleness a certain way? Do you resonate with the tension between chosen and unchosen paths?

📖 Preorders for Single Ever After are open now—this chapter is one I’d love every church leader to read.

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📣 Know someone navigating singleness that wasn’t chosen? Forward this post and let them know their faithfulness in singleness matters deeply to God.

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For some, it’s a question of calling: “How do I know what God wants for—and from—me?”. For others, it’s a whispered fear: “Am I meant to be alone forever?” And often it’s a cry for permission: “Is it okay if I don’t feel okay with this?”. For some singles, the phrase offers relief. For many others, it feels like a spiritual diagnosis: if you’re not content, maybe you’re not called. If you struggle with singleness, maybe you’re just not spiritual enough.

This chapter names that anxiety—and pushes us to ask a better question: what does Scripture really say about the (so-called) ‘gift of singleness’?

It’s a fair bet that any single Christian beyond the bloom of young adulthood will be familiar with the phrase “the gift of singleness”. Books, articles and sermons on singleness (and marriage) often refer to it as a kind of self-evident reality.

The same single Christian may also find themselves the subject of conversation—or, more frequently, speculation—about whether or not they have been “gifted” for singleness. The 25-year-old single man who has never been in a long-term relationship is quizzed about whether he has “the gift” or is, instead, a commitment phobe. The 37-year-old unmarried woman who longs to be a wife wonders where her “gift” has gone, even as the older ladies at church are eager to assure her that “there is a man out there for you yet, my dear!” Perhaps the 50-year-old active on every ministry roster at your church is looked on approvingly for putting their “gift of singleness” to good use. At the same time, their counterpart whose life circumstances don’t offer them the same level of flexibility is seen to be squandering theirs.

Single Ever After (p.53-54)

The more I explored Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7:7-8, the more I realised how far we’ve strayed from their original meaning. We’ve taken his straightforward language about different gifts and built a whole theology of hierarchy, pressure and even shame around it.

It’s a theology that burdens single Christians with expectations that we would never expect of married Christians. Be content all the time. Be grateful all the time. Be fruitful all the time. And if you’re not, then why aren’t you married? Why are you dragging your feet? Why are you rebelling against God’s will for your life? What’s wrong with you?

None of this is what’s on Paul’s mind in 1 Corinthians 7:7-8. He isn’t talking about a rare booster shot of spiritual empowerment for a select few. He’s talking about the gift of singleness itself. And here’s the kicker: the goodness of that gift isn’t how dependent on how you feel about it. The gift is the life God has given you today—and his grace that he promises has and will meet you in the midst of it.

This chapter was my attempt to untangle the shame and spiritual confusion many carry around the so-called “gift” and to present a far more faithful and freeing biblical truth instead.

Over to You

💬 Leave a comment—Have you wrestled with the “gift” language? Have you found it comforting, confusing, or something else entirely?

📖 Preorders for Single Ever After are open and every early share or recommendation helps more people find it.

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You wouldn’t think a non-outdoorsy gal like me would end up bingeing History Channel’s Alone. But something about the series has always captivated me. Granted, I watched my first episode during Covid lockdown, so that might have had something to do with it 🤔

One of the things I find simultaneously intriguing and utterly unsurprising about Alone is how so many contestants end up unravelling not from frostbite or hunger, but from simply being… well, alone. It is so often the utter solitude of their situation that does them in.

While writing Chapter Two of Single Ever After, I found myself returning to the same question over and over again: Are single Christians destined to live that same kind of solitude? Many churches seem to assume yes. Lots of social media posts affirm it. But I wanted to go back to the biblical source for the answer, especially that famous “not good” moment in Eden (Genesis 2:18).

What exactly was not good about Adam’s aloneness?
And what does that mean for us today?

Here’s an excerpt that helped me reframe and begin to answer those questions:

“Often we can assume the problem was that Adam was lonely. Yet if we pay close attention, we see that the passage doesn’t invite us to consider how Adam felt about his aloneness. Unlike the editors of the Alone series— who make it very clear how desperately isolated their contestants are feeling—the author of Genesis 2 doesn’t say anything at all about how Adam was feeling.

The diagnosis comes entirely from Adam’s Creator. And that diagnosis is simply that it is not good for him to be alone… God taught him—and all the rest of creation with him—that this was not the end plan. The man was not ever meant to be, let alone to stay, alone.”

Single Ever After (p. 36-37)

As I thought long and hard about God’s solution to Adam’s aloneness, I found myself challenged to separate two things we often confuse: being unmarried and being alone.

Friends, they are not the same.

As I explore in Chapter Two of Single Ever After, Scripture tells us that it was not good for Adam to be the only human… not that it was not good for him to be unmarried.

God’s solution wasn’t simply marriage—it was human community.

If you’re a single Christian, you are not a glitch in God’s relational design. Your life is meant to be woven into the full richness of spiritual family—not hidden on the margins of church life.

Over to You

📖 Preorders for Single Ever After are now open.

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💬 Leave a comment below to share how this landed with you. Have you felt the ache of aloneness in church—or discovered unexpected forms of oneness? I’d love to hear your story.

📬 Not subscribed yet? Do that here so you don’t miss the rest of the series.

📣 Know someone who might be encouraged or challenged by this post? Share it on your socials.

📸 In Chapter Two, I share the story of Kelly, who told me, “I once again concluded that church really is one of the loneliest places for a single person.” If Kelly’ comment resonates with you, download this image, share it on your socials and tag a friend or community who you think should be part of changing that reality!

A Behind-the-Scenes Bonus

Well done for making it to the end of this post. Here’s a little bonus for you!

In Chapter Two of Single Ever After, I describe a sunny communal table at a lovely country cafe. You can now see it for yourself!

Soooooo… it turns out that most of you didn’t receive this post in your inbox at the time of its publication 10 days ago. My apologies for the error caused by my technical ineptitude! (And yes, I’ve fixed it now.)

So read on to find Take Two of post #1 in my ‘Single Ever After: Chapter by Chapter’ series.

Chances are, you also didn’t receive this week’s post (on Chapter One) either. So, once you've read this one, click the button at the end (or here) for a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the first chapter of Single Ever After.

Happy Reading!
Dani

As Christians, we’ve all grown up with a story in the air. It may not always be one read aloud, but it hums in the background—in books, films, sermons, and small talk. It’s the story that says a full life begins only after marriage. That “happily ever after” means coupledom. That singleness is a problem to solve, a season to pass through, or a waiting room for something better.

It’s a powerful story. But it’s not a biblical one.

The Gospel offers us a different narrative—one where fullness of life isn’t dependent on a spouse (good as one of those may be!) but gifted to us by our Saviour (John 10:10). Where ultimate hope doesn’t lie at the altar, but arises from the empty tomb (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). Where family is not just—or even finally—biological, but spiritual and eternal (Ephesians 2:19-22).

That’s the deeper story I try to tell in my new book, Single Ever After (releasing on September 1st, 2025). And this is the first post of the book’s companion series, Single Ever After: Chapter by Chapter.

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Ahead of the book’s release, I’ll reflect weekly on one chapter of Single Ever After. I’ll share what I wrestled with while writing it, why I think the chapter matters, and how I hope it might help us rethink what it means to be single in Christ and to love singles who are in Christ.

Each post will include a short excerpt from the book, some behind-the-scenes insight, a heads-up about what to expect in that chapter and a brief invitation to engage with the ideas.

It is my prayerful hope that Single Ever After (and this companion series) will provide an opportunity for us to look afresh at the Bible’s vision for the significance of singleness—to look again at passages we thought we understood, questions we’ve stopped asking, and possibilities about the dignity, meaning and the purpose of the unmarried life that we’ve long forgotten.

We’re not rewriting Scripture here (God forbid). But we are asking the Spirit to help us retrain our eyes, hearts and minds as we read it afresh.

And so, whether you’re single or married, content or struggling, never-married, widowed, divorced, dating, or pastoring those who are—this book (and this series) is for you.

So let’s take it chapter by chapter.

Let’s relearn what it means to live a good, God-given unmarried life in Christ. Let’s rediscover the significance of singleness within and for the household of God. And let’s delight in both a married and single “ever after” that has wonderfully already begun.

READ THE NEXT POST IN CHAPTER BY CHAPTER

Over to You

Here are a few ways you can be part of the Single Ever After story.

📖 Single Ever After is available for preorder at the links below. Each advance order will help more people discover the book when it launches.

• The Good Book Company - US | Australia | UK

• Amazon

📝 Leave a comment below and share your reflections. Is there anything you are hoping Single Ever After might delve into?

📣 Know someone who would be interested (or should be interested!) in Single Ever After and this companion series? Share this post with them and invite them to read along with you.

📬 Not subscribed yet? Click here (or below) to follow along and ensure the rest of this series lands in your inbox.

Every book has to begin somewhere. This one began with a question that probably underlies most discussions about Christian singleness in one way or another.

What is singleness for?

Not what can we make of it, or how can we use it—but what does singleness actually mean? What is its purpose? More to the point, does it even have a purpose?

I’ve asked that question many times in my own life—sometimes aloud, sometimes silently. And I know countless others—never-married, widowed, divorced—have asked it too. It’s one of those questions that hovers beneath the surface, especially in churches where our purpose and meaning as human beings are so often tied (intentionally or not) to being married.

As I write in Chapter One:

“If you are an unmarried Christian, I imagine there has been a time (perhaps many times) when you’ve looked at your singleness and thought to yourself, “Okay, but, well, what does it actually do? What is it good for?” Perhaps you have even wondered, “What am I good for?” We’ve been taught that God has his purposes in every area of our lives—but it’s hard to figure out what they are in this…

This is what I call an “instrumental” understanding of singleness. Not “instrument” like a guitar or a piano but instead like a fork or a shovel. That is, singleness is seen as a tool that has a specific utility. It is something that helps you do a particular thing.”

Single Ever After (p. 14, 15)

That sense of being valuable only if useful—that Christian singleness is worthwhile only when it is considered “productive”—isn't just a message we get from culture. It seeps into church life, too. We're often told that the reason why singleness is good is because it frees us up for ministry.

But what if the Bible teaches us something different? Or at least, something more?

We need a richer theology of singleness—one that sees the unmarried life not as a workaround, a tragedy or a trade-off, but as a good, God-given way of being human, even when it feels quiet, ordinary or perhaps very hard.

Chapter One of Single Ever After explores what God’s word says about the meaning, dignity and purpose of singleness. (Spoiler Alert: the answer has eternal significance). That’s why this chapter is the doorway into the rest of the book.

Over to You

💬 Leave a comment to share how the question of singleness’s meaning, dignity and purpose is one you’ve interacted with before.

📖 Preorders for Single Ever After are now open—and every share helps others discover the book.

• Order from the Good Book Company - US | Australia | UK

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📬 Not subscribed yet? Click here to get that sorted out.

📣 Know someone wrestling with this very question? Forward this post and let them know others are asking it too.

📸 Here’s a shareable image with the question that drives this chapter:
If you think it is a question worth asking, why not share it on social media and help others enter the conversation?

A Behind-The-Scenes Bonus

Chapter One of Single Ever After begins with a story about a terrarium. Here it is in all its glory!

It’s a powerful story. But it’s not a biblical one.

The Gospel offers us a different narrative—one where fullness of life isn’t dependent on a spouse (good as one of those may be!) but gifted to us by our Saviour (John 10:10). Where ultimate hope doesn’t lie at the altar, but arises from the empty tomb (1 Corinthians 15:20-23). Where family is not just—or even finally—biological, but spiritual and eternal (Ephesians 2:19-22).

That’s the deeper story I try to tell in my new book, Single Ever After (releasing on September 1st, 2025). And this is the first post of the book’s companion series, Single Ever After: Chapter by Chapter.

Subscribe now

Ahead of the book’s release, I’ll reflect weekly on one chapter of Single Ever After. I’ll share what I wrestled with while writing it, why I think the chapter matters, and how I hope it might help us rethink what it means to be single in Christ and to love singles who are in Christ.

Each post will include a short excerpt from the book, some behind-the-scenes insight, a heads-up about what to expect in that chapter and a brief invitation to engage with the ideas.

It is my prayerful hope that Single Ever After (and this companion series) will provide an opportunity for us to look afresh at the Bible’s vision for the significance of singleness—to look again at passages we thought we understood, questions we’ve stopped asking, and possibilities about the dignity, meaning and the purpose of the unmarried life that we’ve long forgotten.

We’re not rewriting Scripture here (God forbid). But we are asking the Spirit to help us retrain our eyes, hearts and minds as we read it afresh.

And so, whether you’re single or married, content or struggling, never-married, widowed, divorced, dating, or pastoring those who are—this book (and this series) is for you.

So let’s take it chapter by chapter.

Let’s relearn what it means to live a good, God-given unmarried life in Christ. Let’s rediscover the significance of singleness within and for the household of God. And let’s delight in both a married and single “ever after” that has wonderfully already begun.

Over to You

Here are a few ways you can be part of the Single Ever After story.

📖 Single Ever After is available for preorder at the links below. Each advance order will help more people discover the book when it launches.

• The Good Book Company - US | Australia | UK

• Amazon

📝 Leave a comment below and share your reflections. Is there anything you are hoping Single Ever After might delve into?

📣 Know someone who would be interested (or should be interested!) in Single Ever After and this companion series? Share this post with them and invite them to read along with you.

📬 Not subscribed yet? Click here (or below) to follow along and ensure the rest of this series lands in your inbox.

This will be a fairly brief post.
I know, I know. Promises, promises!

I really just wanted to let you know that over the next few months, things will be a little different around here. This is the result of two different but exciting happenings.

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Firstly, next week I’m heading away to the UK for about 6 weeks. Most of this time will be spent in Cambridge working on the manuscript of my commentary on 1 & 2 Thessalonians (for the new Hodder Bible Commentary series).

I am someone who loves writing. But I am also someone who finds it difficult to carve out extended and uninterrupted periods of time to focus on my writing. So, going away on a dedicated writing sabbatical works well for me. And, look, if someone has to go to Cambridge on a writing retreat then I guess I will volunteer as tribute.

Getting into the Thessalonians zone for a month will require me to restrain the impulse to get into a bunch of different zones at the same time. And so, a heads up: I don’t expect to be publishing any of my usual posts on here while I’m away.

But never fear… I’m not abandoning you entirely!

You see, the other exciting happening is that, in a few months time, my new book, Single Ever After launches. Bring on September 1^st!

Now, any old person can head across to the book’s webpage, view the table of contents, read the endorsements and even download the introduction and first chapter.

But not just any old person can get a glimpse into my motivations and hopes for each chapter, as well as a couple of behind-the-scenes bonuses along the way.

That’s reserved just for you guys 😊

Starting in July, I’ll be kicking off a weekly companion series titled, Single Ever After: Chapter by Chapter. Each post will contain a brief excerpt from that chapter and some of my thoughts about its significance.

My hope is that this companion series will give you a glimpse into why I wrote Single Ever After and how I’m praying God might choose to use it to bear fruit for his kingdom amongst singles, marrieds and pastors alike. And so, I’d love it if you might:

• Read the series

• Engage with the series (there will be a few suggestions of how you can do that at the end of each post)

• Share the series with others

Ok folks. I’ll leave it there.

After all, I need to concentrate on what I should pack for 6 weeks of UK “summer” 😉

Those who know me know my unashamed adoration of the musical Les Misérables. I was introduced to it by a guy I had a crush on at the tender age of 18. That guy quickly disappeared from my life, but Les Mis settled in for good.

My love for Les Mis—OK, let’s call it what it is, my obsession with Les Mis—provides opportunity for a constant stream of affectionate teasing from my friends and family… and apparently now also relative strangers. Last night, I logged into the Zoom room of a small online book club I had been invited to join for the evening (they had recently read my book, The Meaning of Singleness), only to be greeted by a host who had made the Les Misérables movie poster his background for the occasion. (Sidenote: let’s all agree not to mention the regrettable cinematic casting of Javert, shall we?).

I honestly can’t tell you the number of live performances I’ve seen. But I can tell you that I’ve watched the recordings of the two different anniversary concerts at least five times more than that. And I’ve listened to the full symphonic recording (originally on a three-CD set) hundreds of times. I know every word.

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Sure, my watching/listening rate has slowed down over the last decade or so. And yes, I now readily admit that live performances of musicals like Hamilton and Hadestown strike me as more dynamic and exciting than the slow, steady, but soulful production that is Les Mis. And yet, for several reasons, it will always be the musical of my heart.

One of those reasons is relational.

After being introduced to Les Mis, I returned the favour to my family. While they all enjoyed it, my Nanna, Monica, and I especially bonded over our love for it.

At almost exactly this time last year, my 97-year-old Nanna fell, was admitted to the hospital, and was almost immediately put under palliative care. My family and I began a twenty-four-hour, seven-day vigil by her bedside, with me taking the night shift. For seven nights, I sat by her silent and still side, holding her hand, doing my best to make sure she knew she was so, so loved. For that whole endlessly awful but also enigmatically wonderful week, Nanna did not speak. Indeed, she did not even open her eyes. Except for one extraordinary moment.

One afternoon, my sister, cousin, and I sat in chairs surrounding her bed, reminiscing about the years of joy, love, and sadness. At one point, we discussed Nanna’s love of musicals, especially Les Misérables. We were chuckling over her saucy delight of Lovely Ladies when we decided to play the soundtrack in the background. I opened Spotify, skipped past Lovely Ladies, and went straight to Bring Him Home.

I remember lowering the volume, placing the phone near her pillow, holding her hand and smiling down at her sleeping face. And then, as Colm Wilkinson prayed his lyrical prayer to God on High, Nanna opened her eyes and looked straight at me. It would be the last time we would see her beautiful, kind, wizened eyes.

A few days later, with my sister and I gently stroking her wispy white hair, Monica died. A week after that, I was listening to Bring Him Home again. It was at her funeral.

One of the reasons I love Les Misérables so much is that it has been one way in which I’ve come to know, share and experience the love of others. And as the final line of dialogue so wonderfully reminds us, “To love another person is to see the face of God”.

Wow. I said this would be a palate cleanser from all the heaviness, didn’t I? And here I am crying as I write this.

Ok. Onto a happier, though no less profound, reason why I love Les Misérables the way I do.

I love Les Mis because it is a gospel story—not the gospel story, for that is a story that the Word became flesh alone tells. No, Les Mis is a story about the gospel, particularly its transforming power.

I won't rehearse the full narrative here because I’m trying to keep this post shorter than usual. But there is a moment in the story when the protagonist, Jean Valjean is shown absolute, undeserved, extravagant grace by someone he has wronged—a bishop. Valjean sings:

One word from him and I'd be back
Beneath the lash, upon the rack
Instead he offers me my freedom
I feel my shame inside me like a knife

He told me that I have a soul
How does he know
What spirit comes to move my life
Is there another way to go?

In that moment of grace, Valjean recognises that the bishop had claimed his life for God above. And so, he becomes a man reborn and this in more ways than one. For those with ears to hear, the bishop is a figure of Jesus—the one whose mercy brings freedom from sin and shame and freedom to a new life in him. That act of grace turns Valjean into a new, and newly loving, man.

I know every moment in the story of Les Mis. I know every character’s words and lyrics. I know the musical inside out and upside down. And one thing that absolutely delights me is that I see something new every time I see it. Or perhaps it is not so much that I see something new, but I see a new depth,

When I saw it on London’s West End late last year (because I can't be in a city where Les Mis is playing and not go and see it), I had one of those moments.

It was at the end, right after Valjean died (sorry, #spoileralert). He had risen from his deathbed (a nice head nod to the resurrection) and was heading towards the back of the stage, where the other characters who had preceded him into death, most notably Fantine, Eponine, and the bishop, were waiting for him.

As he approached, the bishop stepped forward and opened his arms wide as if he couldn’t wait to hold him. Valjean stepped into them, and they embraced with a depth of love and longing that brought tears to my eyes.

“There”, I thought to myself, “That’s the moment of homecoming. That’s God welcoming his redeemed child home. That’s how one day he is going to welcome me home.”

Just a few weeks ago, I saw the arena performance here in Sydney. Sitting there with 9000 other people, I had another similar moment.

Alfie Boe was playing Jean Valjean. While Colm Wilkinson will always be the original Valjean, Alfie is undoubtedly the ultimate Valjean. In fact, to me, he is the embodiment of the character. And his voice—oh my, his voice.

When it came time for him to sing "Bring Him Home," I sat back, closed my eyes, and just listened. Actually, I want you to experience (almost) the same thing I did. Stop reading, click play, and listen—just for a few minutes.

As I listened to Alfie sing the words I knew so well, something… clicked. We all know the song is a prayer. Valjean is praying to God to save Marius from death on the barricade. But what struck me in that moment like it never had before was that this wasn’t just a man praying to God. It was a man praying to his God.

I suddenly realised what a deeply personal relationship Valjean had with God. It sounds so obvious to say it now, but I think I had been so caught up in seeing the story as a metaphor for the gospel that I had failed to truly appreciate what was right in front of me—namely, Valjean’s deep, personal, direct relationship with the God who had saved, redeemed, and claimed his life.

I was still quietly treasuring that profound insight in my heart when, a little while later, Alfie began the reprise of Bring Him Home in the Epilogue.

“God on high
Hear my prayer
Take me now
To thy care
Where you are
Let me be
Take me now
Take me there
Bring me home
Bring me home”

Where you are, let me be. Take me now, take me there. Bring me home, bring me home.

Wow. Just, wow.

I mean, I knew the words. I was already (almost involuntarily and definitely silently) mouthing them along with him. But wow. Valjean’s relationship with his heavenly Father floored me. The longing to be where he was. To at last be at home with him. Wow.

In that moment, Les Misérables reminded me that my true home is not here. No, it is there. With him. Where he is. There in his house, the one with many rooms. On the appointed day, he will take me to be with him. My God on high will bring me home.

Fictional though he may be, Valjean reminded me of the very real promise that Jesus made to those who believe in him:

It seems that I have found yet another reason to love Les Misérables.

Example exhibits A and B:

Those who know me personally (or who even simply know the reputation of Sydney Anglicans, of which I’m a card-carrying member), will appreciate how humorous it is that I’m now regularly being called a feminist. If nothing else, the label evidences just how thin some of our American evangelical friends’ cultural and contextual understanding is. Their world is very narrow indeed.

But that aside, how do I respond to the moniker in principle? Well, in earlier post I asked (and answered):

That’s what it is to be a feminist now?! The bar is now so low that simply affirming the human female was designed by God to be equally capable of rationality, equally invested in preserving truth, equally concerned with guarding what is good — and, tragically, that these good design features in women were just as compromised by sin as they were in men — is enough to be branded a feminist? That’s where we’ve shifted the goal posts to, huh?

No. I’m not “a feminist”.

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In a typically thoughtful comment on that post, my very perceptive friend J, wrote the following:

Until very recently, I have done a lot of rhetorical and emotional work to carefully signal to my conservative peers that I’m “not a feminist” while I seek to improve the conversation around men, women, relationships, and gender difference in the church. However, I have come to realize that most Christians I know have only a vague notion of what “a feminist” is (or that it is not one monolithic thing) and therefore it has become an almost empty term that often means “person [usually woman] whose ideas about gender I find too progressive.”

All that being said, I’m curious how YOU define what you are distancing yourself from when you say “I’m not a feminist,” and whether you would agree that you do hold to ideas that were considered “feminist” in the past (such as women’s intellectual equality with men – cf. Mary Wollstonecraft) and therefore may find yourself a type of feminist simply by affirming the human female was designed by God to be equally capable of rationality, equally invested in preserving truth, equally concerned with guarding what is good — and, tragically, that these good design features in women were just as compromised by sin as they were in men" [side note: AMEN!]".”

J’s insightful reflections and consequent questions were so thought-provoking that I decided they deserved a standalone response. You’ll see that some of what I have to say below echoes some of what she has already said (especially in her first paragraph)

So here goes my attempt to explain why I’m not a card-carrying feminist. #SpoilerAlert: I’ve left the most important reason to the end.

Because it’s Such a Woolly Word

I agree with J that:

“…most Christians I know have only a vague notion of what “a feminist” is (or that it is not one monolithic thing) and therefore it has become an almost empty term”

“Feminism” consists of eight letters that, when put together, say both everything and nothing. All at the same time. For example, consider Joe Rigney’s recent description of what feminism apparently stands for and seeks to do:

[Feminism] hates womanhood as womanhood, and it constantly seeks to turn women into men. That’s the lie of interchangeability. Feminism treats the womb as a problem, a barrier to a woman’s flourishing… Feminism convinces women to forsake or postpone marriage and child-bearing in favor of climbing the corporate ladder and breaking glass ceilings.

Well, I guess that’s one definition. But is it accurate or caricatured? Well, let’s (very briefly) consider the 150ish years of (official) feminist history.

First-wave feminism (late 19th - early 20th Centuries) led to women getting the vote, being able to own property and beginning to develop a legitimate public voice and presence. Amongst other things, Second-wave feminism (c. 1960s-1980s) was responsible for the proliferation of birth-control, abortion and female sexual autonomy abandon. Third-wave feminism (c. 1990s-2011) focused on “queering” norms and promoting allyship with other “minority identities”. Alongside its spearheading of the #MeToo movement, Fourth-wave feminism (c. 2012 to present) has devoted itself to trans ideology and rights.

Given this, what does it mean to be a “feminist” today?

Is it some of these things? All of these things? Can a feminist hold one or two of these convictions while rejecting all the others? Is it possible to believe that women’s participation in democratic elections, their ability to open a bank account and their increased presence in the workforce were good societal developments, while also believing that men and women are not interchangeable and that marriage and motherhood remain very important and noble vocations for women to pursue and even prioritise?

Can a woman, like Megan Basham be a wife and a mother and a best-selling author and a professional journalist without being in danger of being derided as “a feminist”? Or does the fact that she is married and has children automatically give her a pass? Is it just those of us women who are single and/or childless but who also have a job that need to brace ourselves for the label and be willing to bear up under its weight?

Furthermore, does being a direct beneficiary of the pioneering work of the First-wave feminists mean that all women who celebrate any of those historical developments as beneficial (for women and society alike) automatically become feminists? Would those earliest feminists willingly go by that label today? Would they even recognise their ideas amongst or consider them consistent with the mix-tape of contemporary feminism?

Feminism is a woolly word that means different things to different people in different places at different times within different contexts (as Joe Rigney demonstrates in the quote above).

And so while there are some aspects of early feminist advocacy which I not only agree with, but am thankful for, I choose not to call myself a feminist (or even directly associate with it) because who even knows what I would mean by doing so? The label creates confusion rather than clarity.

That’s the first reason I don’t call myself a “feminist”.

Because it’s Become the Boogey(wo)man

In The Nightmare Before Christmas, Oogie Boogie is the literal (or, at least, the animatedly literal) embodiment of the Boogeyman. He’s a villainous burlap sack, stuffed full of writhing insects. He thrives on generating fear and chaos. He wields terror to scare people into staying in line.

For many evangelicals, “feminism” is the Oogie Boogie of the contemporary evangelical world.

It’s the monster lurking in the corner waiting to devour your God-fearing girls (and so empowering them to devour your God-fearing boys). It’s the red-eyed devil that wants you shaking in your boots so you’re willing to do its progressive bidding. It’s the sacrilegious ideology, ‘The Queen of the Woke’ and the primary source of all theological anthropological distortion in Western culture.

Consider Megan Basham’s earlier comments about my (supposed) feminist tendencies:

“The objections are clearly feminist in nature”.
”It seems pretty obvious that you have tendencies towards a feminist outlook”

She’s not interested in encouraging you towards a healthy evaluation of what aspects of my objections are (allegedly) feminist and in what particular sense that is the case. She’s not trying to inspire you to undertake an even-handed analysis of my outlook to identify what features are (allegedly) a problematic inheritance of historical feminism or a destructive expression of contemporary feminism. She provides no definition, exploration or justification of exactly what she means by “feminism”. She’s not interested in establishing why, in her view, having a “feminist outlook” is an altogether destructive thing.

But why would she be? That’s not the point, is it?

Rather, the point is to paint me (as a critic of something she wants to defend) as an enemy to be defeated—or at the very least, trolled into oblivion. The point is to “abject other” me so that the substance of my ideas doesn’t need to be dealt with. Those comments about my “clear” and “obvious” feminism are nothing more than a dog-whistle to everyone who is already convinced that feminism is The Boogey(wo)man set on devouring not only the evangelical church, but Western society as a whole.

Forget acknowledging that the same best-selling female journalist with over 155K followers on Twitter/X and who writes for the Daily Wire, the Wall Street Journal and the Telegraph wouldn’t have ever been in a position to achieve any of that had the First-wave (and also the Second-wave) of feminism never materialised. We don’t need to bother with inconvenient, complex stuff like historical reality. All we need to know is that feminism is the dark shadow looming in the corner, ready to terrify you into doing its will.

And so, if you want to conveniently dismiss someone’s argument, sideline their critique or caricature them personally—especially if they are a woman— then all you need to do is call them a “feminist”. Congratulations. Your work here is done.

That’s the second reason I don’t call myself a “feminist”.

Because of All the Invisible Tripwires

Recently, a foolish controversy erupted on X/Twitter (what else is new?) when one man posted the following in response to another man’s post in which he celebrated a Christian woman’s appointment to an editorial position at Crossway.

He then followed it up with this…

And this…

And this…

I could continue with more of his posts on the topic, but for all of our sakes, I’ll leave it there.

Now, don’t worry about the details here. The thing I want you to note is how we are told over and over again that the real problem with a qualified Christian woman being appointed to an editorial position within a Christian publisher (instead of a Christian man and father) is, yep, you guessed it: Feminism. Also known as the “feminizing” of evangelicalism (it’s a woolly word, remember?).

Thankfully, a bunch of male Christian leaders (eventually) came to the defense of this Christian sister who had been turned into a social-media punching bag. But a primary argument—especially amongst the most conservatively minded of them—was that her appointment wasn’t problematic because:

1. They knew her personally and could confirm that she isn’t a feminist. Stand down, everyone. She’s not one of “them”.
   
   and/or…
   

2. It’s not like she had been appointed as CEO or something. Her editorial work wasn’t significant enough to trigger the feminist alarm.

In other words, it turned out that (some) of Christian Twitter decided her appointment was to be allowed. But not because of what it was. No. It was to be allowed because of what it wasn’t: feminism in action.

A regular team challenge featured in some of my favourite strategy-based reality TV shows involves contestants entering a dark room tricked out with red-laser beams acting as digital trip wires. One by one, they need to contort their bodies over, under and around all of those beams without setting any of them off. Recently, the producers of one particular show upped the ante by making the wires invisible to the naked eye. They divided the contestants into pairs and gave one of each pair a set of goggles that magically (OK, probably scientifically) allowed them to see the laser beams. That person’s job was to yell out verbal instructions to guide their metaphorically blind (and usually very confused, frustrated, and even panicky) partner through the maze of metaphorically dangerous beams and safely out the other side.

That’s precisely how “feminism” is used by many evangelicals today. It’s a complex maze of invisible and highly sensitive trip wires, each rigged to be set off as soon as someone (especially a woman) brushes up against it.

But many of us (especially women) can’t see the wires. We’re told that we have become so conditioned by and to our environment that we’re now blind to their location. Even their presence. And so we need to rely upon (typically male) guides who have the special ability to see the invisible wires on our behalf. They need to instruct us on exactly how many steps we can take in any one direction before we trip over one of them and tumble headfirst into that thing called “feminism”. They have the authoritative knowledge and insight. They tell the rest of us when we must freeze and go no further. They yell when we have taken a step too far and set off the alarm.

Meanwhile, our job is to accept without question that the laser beams they can see are not only there but in the exact location they claim them to be. When they announce that we’ve triggered one of the beams and tripped the warning system, our job is to retreat without hesitation or investigation.

Here’s the problem, though. For a guide who:

1. Sees in the woolly word whatever meaning they wish to see in it, and…

2. Sees feminism as the nasty boogey(wo)man set on devouring church and society as a whole…

… then pretty much everything they don’t like is a tripwire.

Or as J. put it in her comment:

“[Feminism] has become an almost empty term that often means “person [usually woman] whose ideas about gender I find too progressive.”

The boundaries are whatever they say they are. The limits are whatever limits they have decided to set. They dictate what feminism is and is not. They proclaim which women do and do not have a “feminist outlook”. They determine which jobs a woman can and cannot do without tumbling into the pit of ideology from which there can be no return.

And we… well, we have no right of reply.

And if we do dare pop our head above the parapet and say “Ummm. Are you sure? That doesn’t seem quite right”, we are immediately met with “Shut up you feminist!”

Being seen to have any sort of affinity with anything that could be remotely considered to have any vague association with feminism immediately renders you an evangelical transgressor. (Unless you are a Megan Basham-esque figure with a profile that is high enough, an agenda that is conservative enough and a platform that is useful enough to earn you a pass). You’re surrounded by invisible tripwires whose complex layout has been pre-determined according to the goggles someone else is peering through. Indeed, there are multiple sets of tripwires, multiple people, multiple goggles to negotiate.

The deck is stacked. The game is rigged. You’ve lost before you even made your first move. So why even try and play them at their game?

That’s the third reason I don’t call myself a “feminist”.

Because I’m a Christian

But here’s the most important reason why I choose not to articulate or advocate for my beliefs about what it is to be a woman in this world in association with feminism.

It’s because I am a Christian.

Now, before some of you get your metaphorical knickers in a metaphorical knot, let me say what I don’t mean by that.

• I don’t mean that being a Christian and having any sort of affinity with feminist thought is always and utterly incompatible.

• I don’t mean these things are always and obviously compatible with each other either. I think there is plenty within (particularly recent/later) feminist ideology that stands in direct contradiction with life lived in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

• I don’t mean that Christians should not be alert to, able to discerningly evaluate and speak out about where secular ideology (including tenets of contemporary feminism) corrupts faithful theology and life in the household of God.

So, what do I mean by saying that I’m not a feminist because I’m a Christian?

I mean that the primary reason I don’t align myself with or borrow from a secular or ideological feminist framework to determine and describe what it means to live, love and relate as a woman of God is because I have a far more eternal and reliable framework for doing precisely that. It’s a Jesus-shaped one.

The tenets of feminism (woolly word that it is) do not account for what I believe. The teaching of the Bible informs what I believe.

I don’t need historical feminism to defend the rightful equality of women and men. God himself has made it clear that both men and women are created in his image and that salvation in Christ comes to male and female alike.

My impulse to identify misogyny where I see it is not informed by “pretty obvious…tendencies towards a feminist outlook”. Rather, it is compelled by how Jesus himself loves, dignifies and values his female disciples and calls us to do the same.

I’m not a feminist because, before, over, and above anything else I could ever be, I’m a Christian.

And that is more than enough for a woman like me.
In fact, that is everything.

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Incoherent

In that last post we saw how, in a recent podcast episode, Rigney correlates empathy (i.e., what he defines as emotional enmeshment, being swept away by one’s feelings/passions without the tether of reason or truth) as uniquely and destructively feminine in orientation.

But here is something else he said in that same podcast episode:

“The additional [argument] is that good men, particularly good men… [who] want to be sensitive and kind and caring for women as the Bible tells them to… good men then find it really difficult to deal with female distress, female agitation. And therefore it agitates their own agitation which gets covered over by their empathy. They start to share that agitation and they want to do anything they can to make it go away. This is why churches that are trying to appease or accommodate sensitive women, agitated women, eventually go woke or go liberal as well. Even the men go along with it because it is hard to resist that kind of emotional agitation.” Time Stamp

Well, this is a little awkward.

It turns out that wrestling with empathetic feelings towards another person isn’t primarily female-coded after all. According to Rigney, not only do men feel empathy but their innate male reasonableness can be overwhelmed by their innate male empathy. They too struggle with the hurt, agitation, anxiety, distress of others and “want to do anything they can to make it go away”.

Errr. This feels a little contradictory.

But then… note that what is an inherently harmful liability in women is seen by Rigney to be characteristic of “good men, particularly good men”. In other words, what makes a woman bad and destructive is what identifies a man as good and caring. Her depth of empathy is a curse while his is evidence of his “goodness”. So it is that the sensitive but misguided empathetic “good” man is left vulnerable to being exploited and manipulated by Medusa. He says more about this in Chapter 5 of The Sin of Empathy:

In fact, we might state the challenge in this way. Faithful men know how to resist unfaithful men. Good shepherds are willing to fight wolves. But even faithful men struggle to resist unfaithful women. She-wolves, especially ones who present themselves as victims, give faithful men fits because of the unavoidable asymmetries in play. What’s more, ungodly women are often willing to exploit these asymmetries in order to steer entire communities. And it’s not just the she-wolves who cause trouble—its also the compromised (female) sheep, the ones who Paul calls “weak women,” captured by false teachers due to their emotional instability, immaturity and sin (2 Tim. 3:6-7)

The Sin of Empathy, Kindle Edition pg.115

Those poor faithful men. There they are ready and eager to fight the ferocious wolves prowling around God’s people. But add a she-wolf into the mix—or even a compromised female sheep—and their goodness makes them powerless to resist her manipulation or instability.

According to Joe Rigney, women get swept away by their empathy because they lack the ability to tether themselves to reason and truth. But when men get swept away by their empathy, the blame does not lie with the same in themselves. No. The blame lays with manipulative, exploitative, unfaithful, troublesome women.

This line of argumentation is not only deeply offensive to women (and men), but it undermines his broader argument that the real issue with empathy as it is deployed today is that it is primarily female-coded and reason-resistant.

Rigney’s argument is internally incoherent.
But it is also theologically incoherent.

We’ve seen (here and here) that he contends feelings and passions sweep women away from reason, rationality and discernment. This is why they need male reason and rationality to protect them and to guard society from their empathetic folly. In other words, Rigney argues that female feelings are compromised and corrupted while male rationality is reliable and privileged.

Such a conclusion utterly fails to account for the noetic effects of sin. The Bible teaches us that sin has corrupted the mind and its reason just as equally as it has corrupted the heart and its feelings. Indeed, according to Romans 1:21 and 28, the futility of our thinking and the foolishness of our hearts are irretrievably connected.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And what is sin if it is not suppression of the truth? The fact of the matter is that the reasoning of our minds is no more inherently trustworthy than the feelings of our hearts. Put another way, we are no more inclined to think rightly than we are to feel rightly.

And so, even if we were to agree with Rigney’s dichotomy of male-coded reason and female-coded emotions (and we shouldn’t… keep reading), God’s word rejects the premise that men are more inherently reliable in the exercise of their reason than women are in the exercise of their feelings.

Tragically, sin has corrupted the hearts and minds of men and women alike.

Wonderfully, the Spirit renews the hearts and minds of men and women alike. Which brings me to my next point…

Inaccurate

According to Rigney, reason and rationality are in some way more indigenous to men than women, while feelings and emotions are in some way more indigenous to women than men. So pervasive is this dichotomy that Rigney uses it to make broad assertions about (what he sees to be) glaring differences between male and female constitution and character.

Yet, as with all patriarchal ideologues, he is so reliant on emphasising the distinctions between men and women that you’d be forgiven for thinking that he’s talking about two different species of creatures altogether. Put another way, Rigney is so eager to refute any suggestion that men and women are interchangeable (by the way, they are not), that he is myopically fixated on how men and women are different to one another. In so doing he not only fails to appreciate, celebrate and signify the aspects of humanity which are foundationally the same for men and women alike, but he also feels free to make stuff up about how men and women are “naturally” different in order to bolster his agenda. Namely, women are the kind of humans who get carried away by their emotions while men are the kind of humans who are able to be reasonable and rational in the face of emotions.

But here’s what the Bible says.

Both men and women have been created with the gift and capacity to think. To reason. To rationalise. To know. Indeed, Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil partly because “she saw it was… desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis 3:6).

Likewise, both men and women have been created with the capacity to feel. To emote. To yearn. To hurt. We only need to read the Psalms of David to know that men are capable of feeling just as deeply as women.

Before God made Eve in any way distinct from Adam, he made her from the very same stuff as him. Put another way, men and women are both human. And to be human is (amongst many other things) to be creatures who both think rationally and feel deeply. This is part and parcel of what it means to have been made in the image of God.

Yes, there are good and essential differences between men and women. And yes, some of those differences involve general distinctions in how we engage our thinking and express our feelings. But a man is not “the thinking kind of human”. A woman is not “the feeling kind of human”.

No. Women were created to exercise reason just as much as men were. Men were created to feel things just as deeply as women were. Tragically, sin has corrupted women’s minds just as much as it has corrupted the male heart. And vice versa.

But gloriously, God’s Spirit has come to dwell within both his sons and daughters:

Contrary to Rigney’s argument, female disciples of Christ are equally capable in following God’s decrees and keeping his laws. They too are able to exercise their rational knowledge of who he is and how he would have them live according to his truth.

Why? Because female members of the family of God have been given the same new heart and the same new spirit as their male counterparts. Men and women are both co-heirs with Christ. The same indwelling Spirit has come as the helper to both of them. They are equally members of the body of Christ. Equally called to one-another ministry in the church. Equally called to build up the household of God.

Ultimately, Rigney’s contention that male Christians have been enabled to exercise reason and hold to truth more innately, more capably or more readily than women is inaccurate.

By which I mean it is unbiblical.
By which I mean, it is unChristian.

But we’ve got one more “in” to go…

Inconsistent

Joe Rigney claims to be a complementarian by theological conviction and association. He serves as a council member for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. According to CBMW’s website, its council members:

“…agree with the mission and vision of CBMW, including the Danvers Statement and the Nashville Statement, as well as contribute to the ministry by speaking, writing, and/or giving leadership support to the organization.”

And yet, Joe Rigney’s claims, contentions and conclusions about men and women in The Sin of Empathy (and other related resources) do 👏 not 👏 represent 👏 the 👏 complementarian 👏 theology 👏 of 👏 the 👏 Danvers 👏 Statement. 👏

As a Danvers Complementarian, this is deeply concerning to me. Let me explain.

To be frank, it is unclear to me whether Rigney thinks women are inherently untethered from reason, swept away by empathy, and willing to compromise any truth or cross any boundaries so long as they get to “kiss the boo-boo” better is because:

1. He thinks this is part and parcel of how God designed women in the garden…
   
   or because
   

2. He thinks this is a unique consequence of sin upon women’s character, constitution and conduct.

I suspect the reason I’m unclear about Rigney’s thinking on this is because Rigney is unclear about his thinking on it. Or at the very least, he has been unclear in the communication of his thinking on it.

His language of how women are “wired”, what God has “built into” them and what is “natural” would seem to lean towards option 1. But on what possible biblical or theological basis would he maintain that God’s good and perfect design for women included inbuilt flaws such that, even though Eve was made quite literally from the same stuff as Adam, she was designed to be incapable of holding onto reason and truth like Adam and was bound to become an inherent liability when her compassion ran up against God-ordained boundaries? Option 1 is theological nonsense.

But Option 2 is also theological nonsense. Yes, the curse of the Fall plays out in some distinct ways for men and women. But those distinct ways are spelt out in Genesis 3. They have nothing to do with women being enslaved to their empathy and incapable of exercising reason. Nor do they have anything to do with the male sex (as a whole) being inert victims of the manipulation and instability of the female sex (as a whole). We’ve also already seen that sin has corrupted both the minds and hearts of both men and women alike. The fallen male sex is no less fallible when it comes to reasoning and commitment to truth than the fallen female sex is. The fallen female sex is no more enslaved to their emotions and feelings than the fallen male sex is.

Whatever his reasoning is, Rigney’s conclusions are utterly inconsistent with his claimed complementarian convictions. The theological affirmations of the Danvers Statement are clear that any distinctions in sexed personhood, and so also relational roles between men and women, arose from God’s good ordained order (in which Adam was the firstborn and Eve his fitting helper) and not as a postlapsarian reality. Put another way, loving male headship in the home and church and, what Danvers calls, women’s “intelligent” submission in those contexts (Sidenote: it’s hard to be intelligent if you can’t hold onto reason, huh?) is based on God’s perfect created order between men and women… not on some inherent flaw he built into women but not men, nor on some selective distortion of women’s ability to hold to reason as a result of sin

Joe Rigney’s argument is inconsistent with the complementarian theological position he claims as his own and officially represents.

I’ve previously expressed concern about how Rigney’s insistent conflation of complementarianism with patriarchy is at odds with the theological affirmations of the Danvers’ Statement. I’ve asked CBMW’s leadership for clarification on that count, but unfortunately to no avail. Ultimately, I was left with little choice but to conclude that:

CBMW’s affiliation with certain people and promotion of certain resources that go well beyond Danvers, means it is no longer clear to me that Danvers remains the org’s position in actuality…

That was bad enough.

However, the latent public support by some complementarian commentators for the misogynistically-reliant and theologically-compromised argument laid out in The Sin on Empathy alongside (what from my perspective has been) silence from CMBW leaders and governors after one of their own Council members has publicly contradicted the very theological tenets their organisation not only holds but gate-keeps… well, suffice to say I find it absolutely extraordinary. But sadly, no longer surprising.

I’ve been concerned about the slow but steady hijacking of authentic complementarianism by patriarchy (or what is now more palatably being referred to as “natural complementarianism”) within CBMW for some years now. Many in their circles have pegged (and dismissed) me as an embittered functional egalitarian. Many in my own circles have pegged (and ignored) me as paranoid and alarmist.

But so long as these false theological claims about women (and men), made by a member of their own Council goes uncontested by CBMW, well, I stand vindicated.

Trust me though. This kind of vindication is a bitter pill I’d rather not have to swallow.

Sadly I have no faith that my raising this (again) will gain much traction amongst the CBMW decision-makers. After all, I’m easily dismissed as a ‘thin complementar[ian] that softens evangelical institution for progressive steerage’. Perhaps those with some degree of personal relationship and trust with CBMW Board members (NB. a different group to their Council members) might have more success.

To bring us back on track and round this discussion off, Joe Rigney’s argument in The Sin of Empathy is misogynistic, internally and theologically incoherent, deeply unChristian and not consistent with his self-asserted complementarian theological convictions.

What a missed opportunity that book is.

There are real problems with the adoption of secular commitments within the church. There are real issues with the forgoing of theological truth for progressive ideology. There are real concerns with how many Christians have come to venerate victimhood at the expense of calling people to know and follow the one who was crucified as a truly innocent victim for their sake.

But Rigney’s poor theology, obvious tribalism, stalwart commitment to his own agenda and misogynistic bias has resulted a deeply flawed book that fails to diagnose the real issue at stake—our universal sinfulness—and its real solution—the saviour God who empathetically entered into our suffering, empathetically took on our sin and empathetically bore our shame so that, underserving though we are, we might participate in his grace and glory.

Bring biblical and theological truth to blow gently on the fuse of Joe Rigney’s empathy bomb and 💨… out it goes. Just like that.