Should Christian Women Marry Non Christian Men? (discussed at another blog)
All right, here’s a topic that is recurring on my blog here. It’s being discussed at SSB, Spiritual Sounding Board here:
Yes, Christian men can be abusive, or negligent, or raging porn addicts – even ones who work as preachers.
I routinely blog such examples, many of which can be found in these two posts (both threads contain examples of Christians who abuse, murder, molest, etc):
-contains examples of news stories of Christian men who murder their wives, molest kids, rob stores, etc.
-contains examples of news stories of Christian men arrested for rape, molesting, etc
I have been to blogs for Christian women who divorced their abusive husbands.
I seriously doubt that any of these Christian women intentionally wanted to marry a fraud, a man who claimed to be Christian but really was not.
I doubt these women sought to marry a self-professing Christian who would abuse them, or turn out to be a pedophile or whatever.
I’m sure these women probably prayed before they married, “Lord, show me your will, is this man the one? Should I marry this one or not?” – etc.
They probably prayed about it, felt okay about marrying the guy, the guy appeared to be Mr. Nice Christian, he attended church weekly, carried a Bible under one arm, and gave sandwiches to homeless people and rescued kittens from trees… yet, after marriage, these women saw that the guy was not the same behind closed doors as he was in public.
He was abusive, or hooked on porn, or was a serial adulterer.
No Christian woman knowingly wants to marry a guy who has those issues.
Christian women who believe strongly in “be equally yoked” don’t want to marry a pervert or an abusive man, but devout Christian women end up marrying these jerks all the time. I have seen it time and time again on forums and blogs the last several years.
I’m sure these Christian women have nothing wrong with their discernment skills. I don’t know why, if there is a God, he permits these trusting, faithful women to end up with perverts or abusers for spouses.
I started out a wide-eyed, sincere, devout Christian and remained fully on board with all things conservative Christian until about a year or two ago, where I’ve been working through the faith, thinking do I want to stay in it or not.
Now, growing up, I heard from preachers, or read in Christian books, that Christians should only marry other Christians, and the “be not unequally yoked” verse and the like was repeatedly tossed at me. So I sat around, praying and asking God to send Mr. Christian Right into my life.
I was engaged at one stage to a Christian guy but broke things off with him. I dated a guy who may have been marginally Christian – but that he wasn’t a committed Christian enough (if at all; I was unsure -I had met him years prior to meeting my ex-fiance and was much younger at the time) I did not pursue things with him.
So, I find myself still unmarried and in my early 40s. I had wanted to marry by 35 years of age at the latest.
One factor of several that kept me single this long is precisely this dippy “be not unequally yoked teaching.”
For one thing, it is notoriously difficult for a single Christian woman to find single Christian men in churches, and the ones who claim the faith on dating sites tend to be perverts. The ones who do show up at churches tend to be obese or weird.
As so many Christian men are pornography addicts, turn out to be wife abusers, pedophiles, or to seek out prostitutes or have affairs, I see absolutely no sense in Christian single women maintaining the “be equally yoked” teaching.
If you visit the link to the SSB above, you can see a couple of Christian women say they started out married to Christian men, but their Christian spouses turned out to be abusive or jerks, and they married later to Non-Christian guys who treat them a million times better. Proof is in the pudding: you can be just as happy – if not more so – married to a Non-Christian guy as to a Christian one.
Christians also have many weird, unbiblical, odd ideas about dating that are also contributing to why there are so many Christian women still single over the ages of 30, 40, despite the fact they wanted to marry.
The church is doing nothing to help such women get married – if you approach them asking for prayer or help, you will often times be shamed for wanting marriage, told to “be content in your singleness” or given other ridiculous cliches such as “Jesus is your husband” and so on.
At any rate, I no longer subscribe to the “only marry another Christian” view since it is one contributing factor to why I have remained single into my 40s.
I have also come to see that Christian men are immoral, a lot of them, though not all. I’ve learned you have to judge people based on their actions and character, not what they profess to believe about God or Jesus.
Edit. I think someone at the SSB blog also mentioned this, but one thing I’ve come across in years past are marriages where both partners are self professing Christians but one becomes an atheist after marriage – many years later.
Just because you have a marriage where two people start out as Christians (“equally yoked”) does not mean they will both stay Christians, not in their perceptions.
So, I’m have even more trouble understanding why a Christian single woman should have to limit herself at any point in relationship building to only Christian men, whether it’s before marriage or not. If the Christian guy she marries will later turn atheist in another 15 years, what was the point in initially only sticking to Christians in the dating phase? She might as well have dated atheist guys too.
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I have a slew of posts at my blog about this ‘be yoked’ topic (and similar ones), if you would like to read them; here are links to some of them:
(Link): Being Unequally Yoked – should Christians marry Non Christians or only marry Christians
(Link): Forget About Being ‘Equally Yoked’ – Article: ‘My Abusive ‘Christian’ Marriage’ (written by a lady at another blog)
Hey, single Christian ladies, how would you like to be Equally Yoked to this:
Hey, single Christian ladies, how would like to be Equally Yoked to a Christian guy like this:
(Link): Brotherly Love: Christians and Male-Female Friendships
Hey, single Christian ladies, how would you like to be Equally Yoked to this, guys who like wife swapping:
Hey, single Christian ladies, how would you like to be Equally Yoked to this (I’d prefer to marry a Non Christian guy who doesn’t find animals a sexy turn on):
Hey, single Christian ladies, how would you like to be Equally Yoked to this:
Hey, single Christian ladies, how would you like to be Equally Yoked to this (I’d prefer an atheist who keeps it in his pants):
(Link): Males and Females Raped at Christian College, College Doesn’t Care – Equally Yoked is a Joke
Hey, single Christian ladies, how’d you like to be Equally Yoked to this nutter:
Hey single Christian ladies:
Christian Pundit 