Married To Person With Kid From Previous Marriage: Guy Says His Wife is Putting Her Son Before Their Marriage – on Not Wanting to Date Single Parents

Married To Person With Kid From Previous Marriage: Guy Says His Wife is Putting Her Son Before Their Marriage – On Not Wanting to Date Single Parents

This following letter to an advice columnist (which is linked to and excerpted much farther down this blog post) is interesting, because I guarantee you had the guy written to “Ask Amy” of the “Ask Amy” column with the same concern, Amy would  not have been sympathetic to the guy.

Amy would’ve raked him over the coals for not oozing with love and compassion for the misbehaving stepchild.

Amy, as I’ve seen, always sides with the kids or the biological parent.

If you are a person married to someone who has a bratty kid who is driving you crazy (and even to the point of wanting to divorce!), Amy will shame you terribly over it.

Amy will scream and yell about you being selfish, and she will ask you to empathize with the misbehaving, rotten kid.

(That I can recall in all my years of reading her advice column, Amy has never shown empathy to the adult who is stressed and whose marriage is strained over a hard- to- handle step-child.)

This advice columnist,  though, takes the opposite approach and blames the biological mother; he holds her accountable for the poor marital dynamics.

Mega Church Preacher Bill Hybels in Trouble Again For More Sexual Harassment

Mega Church Preacher Bill Hybels in Trouble Again For More Sexual Harassment (2018)

I don’t think I ever blogged about this Hybels guy before.

He was first in the news many months ago for sexually harassing several different women in his church years before, who had worked as church staff.

His church first denied that this was true, and they attempted to say the women who stepped forward to discuss their harassment or abuse by this guy were lying.

There are so many of these pervy pastors it’s hard to keep up with them all. If all I ever did was blogged about perverted pastors, it would be a full time job, and I’d never have a break from this blog!

I’m pretty sure that Hybels is a married guy, too. Christians keep teaching that marriage is necessary to make a person a godly, responsible adult, and to keep them out of sexual sin, but as we see (yet once again!) marriage does not necessarily instill character into anyone, nor does it keep anyone from sexual sin or from sexually abusing others.

Let this story also go to show that a person does NOT have to become perfect, godly, or sinless to “earn” a spouse from God.

Yes, there are some Christians out there who teach that if you are single and want to get married, God will with-hold your spouse from you unless you become more godly, mature, or whatever quality. As  you can see from news reports such as this one, that is total bunk.

God did not withhold a spouse from Hybels (again, I’m fairly certain he has a wife), even though God had to know what a pervert the man is.

(Link): He’s a Superstar Pastor. She Worked for Him and Says He Groped Her Repeatedly.

Excerpts:

Bill Hybels built an iconic evangelical church outside Chicago. A former assistant says that in the 1980s, he sexually harassed her.

SOUTH BARRINGTON, Ill. — After the pain of watching her marriage fall apart, Pat Baranowski felt that God was suddenly showering her with blessings.

She had a new job at her Chicago-area megachurch, led by a dynamic young pastor named the Rev. Bill Hybels, who in the 1980s was becoming one of the most influential evangelical leaders in the country.

Married Man Looking to Cheat is Mocked After Leaving a Crib in the Background on His Tinder (Dating Site) Photo

Married Man Looking to Cheat is Mocked After Leaving a Crib in the Background on His Tinder (Dating Site) Photo

Parenthood and marriage do not make all people more godly, mature, and responsible. Which you should already know, unless you’re a conservative, complementarian Christian who has made an idol out of the Nuclear Family, in which case the following story may shock you.

(Link): Married man, 42, is ripped apart for posting a topless selfie on Tinder looking for an affair – and he scores ‘douchebag points’ for leaving a MOSES basket in the background 

(Link): Married father gets shredded online for Tinder profile looking for affair 

A married father has been labelled a ‘douchebag’ after posting a Tinder profile of himself looking for an affair.

But it’s not the extramarital activity that has most people riled up.

The unnamed man uploaded a photo to the dating app, careful to crop out his head, and simply named himself ‘P’, so as to not be identified by his wife.

Marriage & Motherhood Are No Longer The Milestones Of Adulthood. Now What? by J. Filipovic

Marriage & Motherhood Are No Longer The Milestones Of Adulthood. Now What? by J. Filipovic

I’ve done several blog posts on this blog for years now mentioning how secular culture used to equate getting married as signifying one is an adult – and they unfortunately still do this in regards to sexual intercourse: you’re not considered a true adult until you have sex.

Christian culture is 100 times worse at both: Christians are not counter-cultural. They like to think they stand in opposition to the moral decay and laxity of sexual values in our society, but they actually take those secular attitudes and run with them. Christians can be ten times worse at maintaining and perpetuating falsehoods about sex and marriage more so than the secular culture they often complain about.

Christians also regard sex and marriage as necessary rites into adulthood. If you are over the age of 25 or 30, not married yet, and still a virgin, Christians also think you are stunted, repressed, weird, a freak, and you’re immature.

Christians don’t seem to stop and think that Jesus of Nazareth never married and never had sex, and the Apostle Paul actually wrote to the Corinthians it was better to remain single and celibate rather than to marry and have sex.

(Link):  Marriage & Motherhood Are No Longer The Milestones Of Adulthood. Now What? by J. Filipovic, June 2018

Excerpts:

… As more and more women around the world delay marriage and childbearing, or never marry or have children at all, the traditional markers of adulthood are shifting.

Half a century ago, adulthood in America came along with marriage, then a home, then children, in that order, with women typically marrying before they turned 20.

Today, the average woman marries at 27, while the average age of first birth is just over 26 — in other words, many women are having babies before marriage, and many others aren’t getting married or having babies at all.

Wife Says She Sliced Off Cheating Husband’s Penis and Threw It Out the Window

When I first began this blog a few years ago, I assumed that these “wives chop off husband’s penis” news stories would be so rare I’d not have to come up with a blog tag for it, but I was wrong. I have several of these types of news articles on my site.

So much for the conservative Christian claim that marriage makes people more moral and mature, or that it stops sexual sin…

(Link): Wife Says She Sliced Off Cheating Husband’s Penis and Threw It Out the Window

by Nicola Stow,

July 2018

A jealous wife has been arrested after allegedly hacking off her husband’s penis Tuesday with a 12-inch-long carving knife.

Karuna Sanusan, 24, carried out the bloody attack on 40-year-old Siripan after discovering he was having an affair, she told police.

She said she then hurled his severed manhood out the bedroom window, leaving Siripan writhing and screaming in agony in a pool of his own blood.

Neighbors heard his howls of pain and called the police, who arrived at the couple’s home in Sriracha, near Bangkok, Thailand, at 6:20 a.m.

The Media Should Stop Ignoring When Sexual Misconduct Perpetrators Are Married

The Media Should Stop Ignoring When Sexual Misconduct Perpetrators Are Married

Yes, and conservative Christians should stop ignoring that some adulterers and sexual perverts are MARRIED, and they are cheating on their spouses, in some cases, with OTHER MARRIED PEOPLE.

Why do I feel Christians should stop ignoring this?

Because most Christians continue to stigmatize single adults – especially single women – because they feel that single adults present a threat to married people. They believe that all single women want to strike up affairs with married men, that all unmarried individuals are horn-dogs who have sex with 54 different people per week.

(Link): The Media Should Stop Ignoring When Sexual Misconduct Perpetrators Are Married

Excerpts:

by Timothy P. Carney
June 14, 2018

There’s a new detailed account of how New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush repeatedly would fondle or kiss journalistic colleagues after hours, or take home inebriated women. But you have to read about 3,000 words to learn one detail: He’s married.

Even then, that fact is mentioned only once, in passing, in a quote. And the lack of care for that fact is the norm. A separate Vanity Fairstory on Thrush this week is 1,300 words and it never mentions his marital status.

The Entitled, Insensitive Comments Left by Entitled Christian Mothers, and the Men Who Support Them, Under the Post ‘Don’t Ask Moms To Stand In Church This Sunday (Mother’s Day)’

The Entitled, Insensitive Comments Left by Entitled Christian Mothers, and the Men Who Support Them, Under the Post ‘Don’t Ask Moms To Stand In Church This Sunday (Mother’s Day)’

As of 2018, the snotty entitlement and insensitivity of some mothers – and Christian men who support them – continues.

I’ve been blogging about this topic for a few years now on this blog. It makes me sad to see this still going on.

DefendTheSheep (person on Twitter) tweeted out a link to this reasonable essay imploring Christians to be more sensitive towards those who find the Mother’s Day holiday painful. Link to that:

(Link): Don’t Ask Moms To Stand in Church This Sunday

My problem is not with the essay itself.

As a matter of fact, I encourage you to click the link above to visit the page and read it.

My problem was with some of the hideous comments various people left below the page.

Some of the comments were just incredibly insensitive or very mistaken about why some people find Mother’s Day – especially when it’s celebrated during church services – to be hurtful or stressful.

Christians often like to teach that parenthood and marriage are necessary to make people more giving and loving and compassionate, but that is not so. The married parents leaving comments under blog posts such as the one I am discussing here are very selfish and entitled – being parents has done nothing to make them more loving, caring, or empathetic.

Gold State Killer and Serial Rapist Joseph James DeAngelo Is a Father

As I was just saying in the last post:

Let us once more, for the millionth time on this blog, point out what Christian – and sometimes secular – conservatives get wrong (I am speaking here as a conservative myself, one who at times disagrees with other conservatives), in lieu of news stories like the one I am copying below:

-Marriage does not make people more godly, responsible, mature, or ethical

-God does not require a single adult who desires marriage to become pure, holy, godly, or perfect before he sends them a spouse

-The Christian “Equally Yoked” rule is unnecessary and too limiting for Christian women who’d like to marry, since there are not enough Christian single men for Christian single women to marry.
Furthermore, many Christian men turn out to be adulterers, pedophiles, wife abusers, and god only knows what else they are guilty of (see (Link): this list for examples), so that Christian single women are better off selecting a man to marry based on his actions and character, rather than his stated religious beliefs.

I mention all that because news broke today that some guy known to be a serial rapist and serial killer in 1970s and 1980s California was also apparently married, or at least the father of children (this is from a Tweet by the New York Times):

The suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, who has adult children, was twice employed as a police officer in California: In Exeter from 1973 to 1976, and in Auburn from 1976 to 1979, according to the sheriff of Sacramento County.

Nothing about being married or a parent (or even having been a police officer) at one stage turned this guy into an up-standing, law abiding citizen.

More links:

Golden State Killer: Ex-cop Joseph James DeAngelo arrested as suspect in serial murder-rapes

by Doug Stanglin, April 2018

After six days of surveillance and the analysis of a discarded DNA sample, police in Sacramento arrested a 72-year-old ex-cop Wednesday as the suspected Golden State Killer in a series of rapes and murders that terrorized California communities in the 1970s and 1980s.

Megachurch Pastor Les Hughey Admits ‘Sinning’ After 4 Women Accuse Him of Back Rubs, Sex

Megachurch Pastor Les Hughey Admits ‘Sinning’ After 4 Women Accuse Him of Back Rubs, Sex

Let us once more, for the millionth time on this blog, point out what Christian – and sometimes secular – conservatives get wrong (I am speaking here as a conservative myself, one who at times disagrees with other conservatives), in lieu of news stories like the one I am copying below:

-Marriage does not make people more godly, responsible, mature, or ethical

-God does not require a single adult who desires marriage to become pure, holy, godly, or perfect before he sends them a spouse

-The Christian “Equally Yoked” rule is unnecessary and too limiting for Christian women who’d like to marry, since there are not enough Christian single men for Christian single women to marry.
Furthermore, many Christian men turn out to be adulterers, pedophiles, wife abusers, and god only knows what else they are guilty of (see (Link): this list for examples), so that Christian single women are better off selecting a man to marry based on his actions and character, rather than his stated religious beliefs.

(Link): Megachurch Pastor Les Hughey Admits ‘Sinning’ After 4 Women Accuse Him of Back Rubs, Sex

By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter | Apr 23, 2018 10:12 AM

Les Hughey, the founder of Highlands Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, has been placed on leave as the megachurch investigates accusations recently made by four women who say that he took sexual advantage of them when they were teenagers.

Hughey responded to the accusations, published in The Modesto Bee, on Saturday by admitting that inappropriate relationships did take place in the past, but insisted that they were of a consensual nature.

Woman Chops Off Her Ex-Husband’s Penis With a Kitchen Knife After He Turned Up At Her Home and “Demanded Sex”

Woman Chops Off Her Ex-Husband’s Penis With a Kitchen Knife After He Turned Up At Her Home and “Demanded Sex”

(Link):  Woman Chops Off Her Ex-Husband’s Penis With a Kitchen Knife After He Turned Up At Her Home and “Demanded Sex”

Lira Plaksina said her ex-husband arrived at her home drunk and demanding sex

The 47-year-old told a court he had attacker her at the house in Tatarstan, Russia

But judge found she severed the man’s penis as he was lying asleep on the sofa

The Dating Project: A Documentary Movie About Singleness and Dating

The Dating Project: A Documentary Movie About Singleness and Dating

I saw one of the movie-makers for The Dating Project interviewed, and she says that this movie is promoting the idea that people start dating again.

The focus is on younger people, but I see this problem among folks over the age of 30 as well. If you are 30 or older now (as of April 2018) and grew up in a conservative Christian family or church, you were probably taught (and still taught) a bunch of dating concepts and ideas that have actually kept you single (see this post as an example).

I am over the age of 40 and have never married. I was engaged in my late 20s to my early 30s but broke up with my fiance. I have always wanted to be married, but I never found the right person.

As far as I could tell in seeing the interview with the woman film-maker of this dating movie, the assumption seems to be that being single is “second best” or weird.

Let me just say, as I’ve said many times on this blog, that on the one hand, while there is nothing wrong with being married or wanting to get married, that there is also nothing wrong with being single, and it is wrong to (Link): to denigrate singleness to promote marriage.

I’d like my desire for marriage to be respected, but at the same time, so long as I remain single, (Link): I’d also like myself and my singlehood status to be respected, not jeered, mocked, or put down by conservatives, who frequently shake their index fingers in the faces of singles like myself, and who write fear-mongering articles about how supposedly single life is so much more horrible than married life (see anything written by (Link): Bradford Wilcox or (Link): Mark Regnerus), all because they are worried about declining marriage rates.

I want to be married one day, and I don’t appreciate Christians telling me that my desire for marriage is “an idol” (for it is not), but I also do not appreciate Christians or secular talking heads on television news stations shaming singles for being single and for making singleness sound as though it’s a disease one should be ashamed of having.

Many times, conservatives (of which I am one) assume, quite wrongly, that any one who is single past the age of 30 is single deliberately. Especially if one is a single female past age 30, Christian talking heads will write blog posts or opine on television news programs that such women must have put career over marriage, or they are harpies who hate men – but this is usually not the case.

As a right wing (conservative) woman who always desired marriage, I find myself single by circumstance, not due to choice. I did not put career above dating or marriage, and so on and so forth. I find such assumptions, which are often held by other conservatives and by many Christians, deeply insulting and ask my fellow conservatives to stop making such assumptions.

The Dating Project Movie

Here are some links to articles about The Dating Project movie (a movie which I’ve only read a little bit about, I have not seen it yet):

(Link):

(Link):  From hook-ups to romance, ‘The Dating Project’ explores the one thing we all want

(Link):  BC Professor Says Traditional Dating Has Deteriorated 

(Link):  Dating 101: Film takes aim at America’s hookup culture and the death of courtship

Excerpts:

The shock of reading Laura Sessions Stepp’s 2007 book, “Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both,” hadn’t worn off when I was offered the opportunity to view an advanced screening of “The Dating Project,” a film about modern relationships that will be released nationwide—for one night only—on April 17. Both are a wake-up call for Americans, many of whom are in the dark about how dramatically dating has changed.

So dramatically, in fact, that it no longer exists. Dating is officially dead.

Toby Willis’ Daughter Jessica Reveals Decades of Sex Abuse, Beatings, Secrets in Christian Family

Toby Willis’ Daughter Jessica Reveals Decades of Sex Abuse, Beatings, Secrets in Christian Family

Review of common motiffs covered on this blog:

-Complementarianism (Christian patriarchy / male headship) is sexist trash and doesn’t produce “godly” men (actually, men under comp take advantage of women and hold women responsible for the sins of men);
-marriage does not make people more “godly” or responsible than singleness; and,
-God does not grant spouses to perfect people only (if God did so, the depraved idiot in this following news story, who fondled his own kids would not have gotten a spouse).

(Link): Toby Willis’ Daughter Jessica Reveals Decades of Sex Abuse, Beatings, Secrets in Christian Family

By Stoyan Zaimov , Christian Post Reporter | Apr 17, 2018 9:50 AM

Jessica Willis Fisher, the 26-year-old daughter of The Willis Clan patriarch Toby, has revealed that she suffered decades of sex abuse, beatings, and manipulation at the hands of her father.

The Willis Clan, originally made up of a Christian family of 14 from Nashville, Tennessee, shot to fame through season 9 of “America’s Got Talent.” They were also featured in “The Willis Family” TV series on TLC between 2015 and 2016, before Toby Willis was arrested on charges of child rape.

Father, Son of Texas Baptist Church Both Arrested for Raping Teens, Sexual Assault of Children – So Much for Marriage Making People More Mature and Godly

Father, Son of Texas Baptist Church Both Arrested for Raping Teens, Sexual Assault of Children – So Much for Marriage Making People More Mature and Godly

But I thought that the nuclear family was supposed to erase all sin, including rape and child abuse, and that Male Headship under Complementarianism and Parenthood and Marriage made people more godly, loving, and ethical, as some Christians teach?

Here we have an another example where none of that is true (my Twitter friend ymmarta passed this along to me):

(Link): Father, Son of Texas Baptist Church Both Arrested for Raping Teens, Sexual Assault of Children

And why should any single Christian woman who desires marriage bother sticking to the “Equally Yoked” rule when so many Christian men – even ones who work in and for churches!! – are perverts? It makes no sense.

And why do so many Christians keep telling singles who desire marriage that they won’t get a spouse until they become more spiritual, more mature, more holy, or more “whatever?” If God permitted these teen-raping perverts to have a spouse, why not a law-abiding single adult?

After Threatening Suicide, Pastor Ronnie Gorton (Married to a Woman and a Father) Indicted on 47 Charges of Sexually Assaulting Boys

After Threatening Suicide, Pastor Ronnie Gorton (Married to a Woman and a Father) Indicted on 47 Charges of Sexually Assaulting Boys – Ditch the Equally Yoked Teaching, Christian Single Women!

I believe the article, which is linked to much farther below in this post, says that this child- raping pastor is married to a woman, and he and the woman have two or three of their own children.

Once more, contrary to what many to most conservative Christians and conservative think tanks teach, marriage does not make people more godly, loving, or mature. Being married to a woman did not stop this guy in this article from sexually assaulting boys.

Once more, the “equally yoked” teaching as applied to dating and marriage is detrimental and irrelevant: if you are a single Christian woman, you need to get past this mindset of “I can only date or marry another Christian” because many Christian men will abuse you, or they turn out to be perverts.

Disgusting, Creepy, Married Pervert Youth Pastor Exulted When Girl He was Bedding Turned 18 and ‘Legal’: Cops – Another Example of Why Equally Yoked Teaching is a Waste of Time

Disgusting, Creepy, Married Pervert Youth Pastor Exulted When Girl He was Bedding Turned 18 and ‘Legal’: Cops – Another Example of Why Equally Yoked Teaching is a Waste of Time

This guy was married and raping teen aged girls he met by way of his youth pastor job at a church.

First of all, contrary to what many conservative Christian leaders (such as Al Mohler) teach, marriage does not make anyone more godly, loving, ethical. You either have character and morals, or you do not.

Wearing a gold band on one’s finger, standing in front of a judge or preacher and reciting wedding vows, does not magically instill good character into a person.

Secondly, “equally yoked” is a heap of nonsense. So many perverts masquerade as Christians, or claim to be Christian, I honestly feel if you are a single Christian woman who desires marriage, you’re better off ditching the Equally Yoked rule.

I’d rather be married to, say, an Atheist Non-Raping man than a church-going, self professing Christian Rapist.

And to think my parents told me often when I was a kid that if I wanted to be married to seek a spouse at a church! BAH HA HA HA HAAA, I don’t think so.

In the several years I’ve been running this blog, I’ve seen (Link): far too many of these news stories of Christian men (some who even work as preachers!) who are arrested for rape or child molesting to be able to convince me that “equally yoked” is a wise, good, “biblical” or advantageous philosophy for single women.

(Link):  Youth pastor exulted when girl he was bedding turned 18 and ‘legal’: cops

Excerpts:

by J. Miller, March 2018

A youth pastor in Colorado had a sexual relationship with a high school senior — and gave the teen a card on her 18th birthday that read, “We’re legal,” according to an arrest affidavit.

Joshua Clemons, a former pastor at Cross Roads Community Church in Parker, was arrested Tuesday by Denver police on suspicion of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust. He also faces two of the same counts in Douglas County, police in Parker (Link): told the Denver Post.

Volleyball Coach Raped Six Girls ‘Hundreds’ of Times While Wife Bullied Victims, Lawsuit Claims

Volleyball Coach Raped Six Girls ‘Hundreds’ of Times While Wife Bullied Victims, Lawsuit Claims

The “most powerful coach in youth volleyball” assaulted some victims multiple times while his wife threatened victims through their volleyball club, the suit claims. 

I first saw this headline by way of Amy Smith’s (Watchkeep’s) Twitter feed.

As I told Amy below her Tweet about this article:

Not only is this guy a deviant sicko, but he’s a MARRIED deviant sicko whose wife enabled this & victimized the victims? And Christian guys like #AlMohler & #BradfordWilcox keep saying marriage makes people more godly, ethical, responsible, etc

Marriage does not make anyone more godly, loving, ethical. You either have character and morals, or you do not.

Wearing a gold band on one’s finger, standing in front of a judge or preacher and reciting wedding vows, does not magically instill good character into a person.

(Link): Volleyball Coach Raped Six Girls ‘Hundreds’ of Times While Wife Bullied Victims, Lawsuit Claims

Excerpts:

The “most powerful coach in youth volleyball” assaulted some victims multiple times while his wife threatened victims through their volleyball club, the suit claims.

article by Olivia Messer

“Because I can.”

When one of Rick Butler’s young victims first asked why he was assaulting her, that was his answer, according to a new bombshell class-action lawsuit filed against the coach.

…Butler was for years considered “most powerful coach in youth volleyball,” according to the 72-page complaint, which alleges that he used his position to rape at least six underage girls “hundreds” of times.

Is Early Marriage Really THAT Counter-Cultural? I Think Not – Re: Christianity Today Editorial by Rebecca Brewster Stevenson

Is Early Marriage Really THAT Counter-Cultural? I Think Not – Re: Christianity Today Editorial by Rebecca Brewster Stevenson

So, I saw this headline from Christianity Today.

This seems to be an annual thing with Christians.

At least once a year, I see a major Christian magazine or blog publish some kind of article lamenting the declining marriage rates, or the rising age of first marriage, and that also push the idea that people should marry before they hit the ripe old age of 22.

Here we go again. Yet another one. (There will probably be another one in 2019, and one in the year after that, and so on and so forth.)

I notice that often times that the people who write these types of articles admit to having married pre-age 25.

I take it that the REAL motivation is that these people feel defensive about their life choice – they feel as though culture is “looking down their noses” at them for marrying young because most people today are not marrying at all, or not until they get to age 30.

The thing is, though, nobody cares that they married when they were 21! These sorts of articles are largely unnecessary.

If anything, the opposite type of editorial is needed, because authors like this one shame or judge people for not marrying young, or for not marrying at all. Christians continue to push marriage and baby-making as the “norm,” when the Bible does no such thing.

I will excerpt the editorial then comment on it below:

(Link): Why I’m Happy My Son Married at 20

Excerpts from that editorial:

In a world of hookups and cohabitation, he took a leap— and made an act— of faith.

by REBECCA BREWSTER STEVENSON

…Then in 2013, the Knot Yet Report revealed that those averages are higher still: Couples now are postponing marriage to age 29 for men and 27 for women.

Wife Chops Off Husband’s Penis and Testicles and Flushes Them Down Toilet

Wife Chops Off Husband’s Penis and Testicles and Flushes Them Down Toilet

(Link): Wife Chops Off Husband’s Penis and Testicles and Flushes Them Down Toilet

Feb 21, 2018

A woman in India allegedly chopped off her husband’s penis and testicles after accusing him of cheating on her.

Ed Stetzer’s Marriage Article on Christianity Today and C. Allen’s Response

Ed Stetzer’s Marriage Article on Christianity Today and C. Allen’ s Response

This post first published Feb 2018

Christianity Today magazine (Link): tweeted about an article about marriage by Ed Stetzer.

I have written about another Stetzer piece before, this one:

(Link): Hey Ed Stetzer: Opposite Gender Friendships Are Not Sinful

Ed Stetzer’s Advice: “Avoid Any Hint” – More Like: Re enforce UnBiblical Stereotypes About Men, Women, Sex, and Singles

The CT piece I am (Link): referring to in this post is entitled
“Love & Marriage… Go Together Like… A Few Comments on the Covenantal Practice Today ”
with a sub-heading of,
“Marriage is a created good, is not a ‘must,’ isn’t easy.”

Before I could click on and read the Twitter-based link to the CT piece by Stetzer, I saw a set of Tweets below by someone named C. Allen, who I presume is a woman (though Allen could be a man – I’ll just say for the sake of this post that Allen is a woman).

The link to the main tweet is (Link): here, and if you scroll down, you can see the responses by C. Allen.

Before even reading the actual page by Stetzer, C. Allen’s take on it on Twitter was all I needed to know. (I read the Stetzer page later.)

I replied to Allen, telling her I completely agreed with the comments she Tweeted below the CT Tweet.

Here is Allen’s (Link): first comment in that Twitter thread:

In that entire article, only about two brief paragraphs were dedicated to Christian singleness. The rest was lamenting the degradation of the marital institution and reiterating with the same old words why marriage is important. And people wonder why singles feel disenfranchised.
/// end

It’s Better To Be Single, According To Science by Erin Brodwin

(Link): It’s Better To Be Single, According To Science by Erin Brodwin

Excerpts:

• Being single has a handful of benefits, scientific research has found.
• Studies suggest that single people tend to have stronger social networks and develop more as individuals.
• They even tend to be physically fitter.

Being single has a handful of benefits, scientific research has found. Alone time is one of them.

Single people are more likely to not only embrace solitude, but benefit from it, recent studies have suggested.

Bella DePaulo, a psychologist at the University of California Santa Barbara, advocates the single life and travels the nation to present these findings, which she says are too often dismissed by the larger psychology community.

In a TEDx Talk she gave last spring, she called (Link): living single her “happily ever after.”

Studies suggest she’s onto something.