Friday, November 17, 2006

Debbie Maken's blog

Her blog. Her book.

Camerin Courtney's response

How Churches Have Failed Singles
Mixed messages and counterproductive 'singles ministries' have forced many Christians to endure protracted singlehood.
By Debbie Maken

Getting to Marriage: What You Can Do by Candice Z. Watters
Rethinking the Gift of Singleness by Debbie Maken

4 comments:

Seraphic Single said...

Debbie Maken's history is seriously, seriously flawed. She needs to read Peter Brown's "The Body and Society", pronto. St. Paul certainly did NOT privilege marriage over the single state; quite the contrary. And does she want to go back to the Puritan practise of fining and shaming men who don't marry and the wider practise of shaming "spinsters"?

The take on "the wife of your youth" is quite thought-provoking, though 21st century America is not the same as the Second Temple period of Judea. I'm tempted to point out to Debbie that Jacob loved his second wife better and that he best loved Joseph and Benjamin as the children of his old age.

I concede that she might be onto something about marrying young. Younger people are often much more beautiful than we oldies in our thirties. (Sadly, they are also more immature, and the societal supports to help young marriages survive are no longer there.)

My blog is not for twenty-somethings but for women over thirty or who have painfully but with common sense realized that they aren't going to make it easily in the marriage market.

papabear said...

Debbie Maken's history is seriously, seriously flawed. She needs to read Peter Brown's "The Body and Society", pronto. St. Paul certainly did NOT privilege marriage over the single state; quite the contrary. And does she want to go back to the Puritan practise of fining and shaming men who don't marry and the wider practise of shaming "spinsters"?

She is a Protestant.

Seraphic Single said...

Yeah, and she seems to think St. Paul arrived to America on the Mayflower.

Captain Sensible said...

My blog is also for singles, although possibly from a slightly different perspective to the comment posters here.