Getting Serious About Getting Married: Rethinking the Gift of Singleness

Getting Serious About Getting Married: Rethinking the Gift of Singleness by Debbie Maken is a controversial book. It only takes a quick spin around a few blogs to note that. Many of the criticisms people make are partly accurate. However, my dominant response to this book is thanksgiving that someone had the intelligence and courage to tell things the way they are.

Albert Mohler Jr., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, states the problem in a comment on the back cover of the book. “One of the most urgent questions facing today’s generation of young Christians is this – does God really intend for us to make marriage a priority? Confusion reigns in this area of the Christian life. Far too many young Christians sideline marriage, delay marriage, and avoid marriage in an extension of adolescence that is truly unique in human history.” Debbie Maken has done a great deal of research into this unique phenomenon, and the church’s response to it. What she has to say is sobering and necessary. Even if you disagree with her conclusions or applications, she is worth listening to on this topic because she has read and listened widely.

Anyone who has felt uncomfortable with common interpretations of 1 Corinthians 7 will appreciate Debbie’s explanation of what the Bible has to say about marriage. I have commonly heard 1 Corinthians 7 used in an attempt to ‘comfort’ single people. I have always felt uncomfortable with this use of the passage. For a start, Paul says his advice is given because of “the present distress” (1 Corinthians 7:26). His advice that it is better to remain single is for a particular circumstance, not every circumstance. It is surely unwise to allow it to overwhelm the weight of Biblical teaching that marriage is ordinarily God's will. Applying this passage to every single is also unwise because Paul indicates that everyone has different gifts (1 Corinthians 7:7). A present state of singleness is no indication of a gift of celibacy. This passage appears to be talking about a choice of lifelong singleness. If so, it is a mistake to apply it to cases of temporary prolonged singleness where a person has no call to celibacy.

As well as exploring the Bible’s teaching, Debbie presents historical precedents. In the past, the church considered marriage a duty for those who did not have the gift of celibacy. It was considered unwise and even unkind to delay marriage without good reason. Those who chose not to marry, or to delay marriage until late in life, were judged to be depriving a man or woman of a spouse. Christians in the past appeared to be more realistic about sex. Although the Puritans are presented as prudes now, they recognised that the desire for sex is a God ordained natural appetite. Christians in the past recognised that protracted singleness in the absence of a gift of celibacy often led to sexual sin.

Debbie also explores past attitudes to how marriages came about, and the fact that families saw themselves as responsible to help their children form good marriages. This was not a matter of forced and loveless marriages, as Christians in the past also saw the importance of romantic love. Women were supported in their desire to marry. Today, as Debbie says: “forget any sympathy for being single, but be prepared for a lecture on contentment” (p. 61). Getting Serious About Getting Married: Rethinking the Gift of Singleness is worth reading just for its exploration of history.

Part 2 of this book review is coming soon.