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Fred's avatar

Dani, I appreciate your viewpoint here, but a question I've been wrestling with.

Speaking broadly, Christians would not hesitate to affirm the intrinsic goodness of marriage. For Christians, it pictures the relationship between Christ and the church. And within true (e.g. monogamous, male-female, for life) marriages even among non-believers, Christians would also affirm the goodness of marriage, perhaps using natural law, family, etc. Additionally, as Piper writes: "[portraying the covenant love between Christ and the church] is done obscurely even in a lifelong, promise-keeping, adultery-avoiding, unbelieving marriage. So marriages accomplish some of God’s purposes imperfectly, even when the spouses are unbelieving."

I agree that Christ redeems the single life (like Danylak argues in his book) and that eschatologically, singleness points to how believers will relate to one another in the new heavens and new earth. But would you say that singleness is intrinsically good even for the non-Christian (similar to my example of marriage)? Or is its goodness contingent on the single being redeemed by Christ?

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Annie3000's avatar

I personally resent how you rope in widows and divorcees. Singleness is not the same, not even close. Never having is not the same as “having and losing.”

And it feels like you don’t intend to be serious — just marketable. It still feels like you’re playing the church game where truly single people and their challenges are never taken seriously in their own right.

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