Single People Often Feel Alienated in Churches

The great Christian blog The Wartburg Watch has had a series recently about how single Christians often feel alienated and rejected by conservative churches. Whether they were divorced, widowed or simply hadn’t married by the time they were in their late 20’s on up, many people have been sending in their stories to The Wartburg Watch.

People have talked about feeling pressured into poorly run singles groups organized seemingly for the purpose of trying to set up singles in relationships so they will get married, (some called them “meat markets”), people trying to set them up with other church members, when they clearly weren’t ready for a relationship yet.

Other issues have been people questioning whether they were gay because they chose to remain single (which would be scandalous in conservative/anti-gay churches), pastors constantly giving sermons on marriage, but not sermons of advice or encouragement to single people, and single people being made to feel that they are inferior to married couples (implications that get married and having children is god’s “perfect plan” for people).

Here are some quotes from the series:

From an e-mail titled “Singlness: SGM Style”:

I will provide background in my email below, but what strikes me most about how singles are treated in the church is that they seem to want to treat our "condition" as temporary. Little focus is given to singles because the goal is to get you married so you can become a couple and really be part of the vision of the church. So why invest too much time in ministry to singles when the goal is to get you out of singlehood as soon as possible. 

  I am stunned to believe that churches invest so much in children's ministry, college ministry, and family centered ministries and then if you don't get your MRS or MR in college (Bible college that is) you fall into a black hole. Singles are treated like they are in the waiting room of God's Will. We really don't matter until we get married and start having all those babies and homeschooling our kids. I also want to stress that by and large I believe most of my encounters within these churches were with earnest believers who truly want to serve God and were interacting with me in love - they are just misguided.

Undercover Agnostic: (Update 12): Christmas in June

The real estate agent who is handling the sale of the house for me had some big surprises for me today. First of all, the closing will happen sometime next week. The vacation I had planned will have to wait, but that's not a big problem, actually. I still have the time off from work, and no plans were greatly wrecked by this. 

The second surprise that he had was that a relative of his had recently replaced all the windows in her house, and was going to get rid of the old ones, and didn't know what she would do with them.

Most of the windows in the foreclosure house I bought need replacing, and this will save quite a bit of money at a time when finances are already stretched. I bought a gift card for a local restaurant chain that is very well known for good pasta and fried chicken that I will give him when I see him again. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, but apparently my family doesn't. Though they were glad for the gift, and thanked the real estate again, for them it's all about praising god over and over and over, and counting it as a small miracle. 

It's kind of tiring to hear, but oh well....

I say thank those here on earth who do good things, and do all we can to make this world a better place for everyone, but that's just my opinion. ;)

Anyway, I still will be rather busy, even though I won't be out of state for vacation, and I don't think I will be posting more than once or twice a week to the blog for a while, until everything settles down. Not only will the house take some time, but I will have to plan for living post-fundamentalism.

Q&A With Samantha Field of Defeating the Dragons

I'm happy that Samantha Field of the blog Defeating the Dragons recently agreed to a Q&A interview for the blog. Like Lana, who I did a Q&A interview with several months ago, Samantha is a survivor of the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement and a homeschool alumni

I've been reading her blog for a while now, it's funny how the name of the blog reminds me of the band Imagine Dragons. I will have a guest post of my own on her blog post this upcoming week, I will let you know when it's published

I asked her about her time in the IFB, (you can read more about it here), and about why she thinks that some people who leave fundamentalism leave Christianity altogether, and why some people stay in Christianity. (This is a question that I have been pondering for some time).

1. For my readers who may not be familiar with your blog, Defeating the Dragons, or with the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) organization, can you explain what the IFB is, and what your experiences with them were like?

On the surface, IFB churches all have extremely conservative "standards," (known as "legalism" in mainline evangelicalism. IFB churches re-define "legalism" to mean something entirely different). These standards usually show up in no contemporary music of any kind, Christian or otherwise, no dancing, no alcohol consumption, never go to a movie theater, do not have cable TV, and insane "modesty" rules for men and women. 

Dinosaur with saddle at Ken Ham's Creation Museum

Ideologically, you are Tea Party Republican, and a Young Earth Creationist. Many IFBs homeschool their children and are extremely anti-public education. I grew up in the South, so most of the IFBs I knew were explicitly racist-- they believed that segregation is "biblical" and that inter-racial marriage is a sin. 

The biggest part about being IFB, though, is being absolutely certain that you have "the right doctrine," and you essentially despise anyone who disagrees with you-- so, pretty much everyone, including Christians who aren't IFB. IFBs have a persecution complex like none other-- they glory in being the laughingstock of everyone, and frequently rail against "being politically correct" (which, they also re-define). This results in the IFB doctrine known as "Separation," which means exactly what it looks like. They do their best to never encounter anyone or anything that disagrees with them.

2. What convinced you to stay in Christianity despite what you went through in the IFB? Was there ever a time where you considered giving up on Christianity altogether?