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How Churches Have Failed Singles

...Here some Christian singles may parrot churchy platitudes that they don't need marriage or that they're satisfied in Christ alone. But both experience and the Bible show that adults need companionship and sexual pleasure--and that "two are better than one" in daily life and in the mission of the church. Christian churches need to define healthy biblical adulthood and take steps to bring singles to that state....

...The Church behaves as though every Christian single is uniquely equipped to weather protracted singlehood by the mere fact they have Jesus. Saying that all Christian singles have the gift of celibacy doesn't make those who are suffering unwanted singleness feel better. It also doesn't admonish those who should be held accountable for being chronically single and causing someone else to forfeit marriage.

Blurring the distinction between singleness and celibacy has grave consequences. For one thing, the natural inclination of a young man to be irresponsible is validated when he has the church's permission to put off establishing a permanent home. Similarly, in the guise of compassion, churches often counsel young women to ignore the costs of protracted singlehood and to focus instead on Christian activities or missionary work. Such women forgo legitimate sexual relations and the physical and spiritual protections of a husband, experience waning fertility, and may miss out on having biological children of their own. This garners only resentment, not more Christian servants.

Delaying marriage forces many Christian singles into the abstinence marathon, against which every cell in their bodies revolts. Struggling to endure this suspended, unnatural and unbiblical state for a protracted amount of time, many fail to keep their purity. Giving singles "Biblical twelve steps" to manage sexual desire and find more satisfaction in Jesus won't work, because we're spurning God's blueprint for mankind....

...Contrast that with the situation today. If someone who's single and doesn't want to be asks for help, she can expect to hear glib sayings like "Bloom where you're planted," a lecture on contentment, or suggested courses available at the local seminary to create more busyness and distraction. For women enduring forced singlehood today, the monastic walls have merely been extended....