Sex, Dating, and Relationships: The Dating Friendships Alternative (review by CP about a book by by Gerald Hiestand and Jay Thomas)
(Link): Book Review at CP about Dating, Sex
They’re hyping another book filled with Christian advice about sex and dating.
I stopped paying credence to dating advice books, sites, columns, and magazine articles eons ago, not that I was ever a fan to start with. Such material is a huge waste of time.
If you read the article about the book, the authors hold the view that most Christians are horny horn dogs who have fornicated all over the place. I didn’t see any acknowledgement that there are Christians remain virgins past the age of 30.
On the plus side, the review/ad of this book on CP says that the authors of the new book about sex and dating are not encouraging “courtship” or “kissing dating goodbye” strategies, which is a good thing, because such teachings are one reason Christian singles remain single.
See, most Christian dating advice (such as “kiss dating goodbye”) tells men to stay away from women because Christian single women are big whores who will have sex with them on a first date, and no man can resist sexual temptation. So a lot of Christian single men (and women) accept this screwball teaching and avoid each other.
Now, when single men and single women avoid each other so as to avoid fornication, they can’t chat, get to know one another, fall in love, and ergo, they do not marry. (please click the “read more” link below to read the rest of this post)
Here is the authors’ novel approach to how Christians should approach dating:
- Hiestand and Thomas call their approach to relationships “a fresh approach” and this is an accurate way of describing it. They don’t kiss dating goodbye and they don’t advocate a return to the courtship of years gone by. Instead they encourage Christians to form “dating friendships.” In this little phrase “dating” is the activity and “friendship” is the relational category. You are not boyfriend and girlfriend, but friends, and you spend time together (i.e. date) as friends for the purpose of seeing if there is mutual interest and compatibility. Romance and sexual activity and commitment can wait; for now, it is simply “two friends getting to know each other with a view toward marriage.”
That sounds like good old fashioned, secular dating, for the most part. How idiotic is Christian culture that Christians need to be reminded about “Dating 101.”
The remainder of the review says the book authors go on and on about how sex is for marriage only.
I no longer care about purity teachings in so far as they apply to me personally. I have already decided when I begin dating again, that I will have sex outside of marriage if I so choose, if the guy is right, if we’ve dated long enough, and other considerations. Not every act of pre-marital sex ends in S.T.D., or out of wedlock pregnancy.
I’m an adult, and I can make my own choices. I no longer waste my time caring too much about what other Christians think, or what the Christian dating material says.
I find it interesting, though, that the authors of this new “Christian dating book” goes out of its way to say they abandoned the “kissing dating good bye” and “courting” models of relationships and dating.
You know why? I suspect it’s because it’s obvious such teachings, which were popular for the last 15 – 20 years FAILED MISERABLY.
Despite all the K.D.G. (“kissing dating good bye”) and “courtship” advice of the last 15 – 20 years, and the handing out of purity rings to teeny boppers, there are still a lot of Christians fornicating (though not all, of course), and a lot of delayed marriages, or some women like me, remaining never married into their forties. The older married Christian adults have been starting only recently to catch on that there is a problem among Christina singles, and the “KDG” type garbage didn’t help singles.
Christian Pundit 