asking the obvious about holy Christian singleness

1) Sexual attraction is part of Christian marriage. 2) Sexual attraction outside a marriage relationship is a sin. #1 and #2 are widely held to be true.

BUT where does that leave people who are Christian and unmarried? According to #2, he or she is forbidden to experience sexual attraction. According to #1, he or she probably shouldn't marry if the component of sexual attraction is absent. So how could an unmarried Christian pursue holiness and marriage simultaneously? It's a serious question. Some say, "Single man, keep your mind entirely pure, flee from the experience of sexual attraction, treat all women as kindred souls." Some say, "Single man, keep on the lookout for a woman who excites you, and after finding her you should embrace your sexual attraction by wooing her with amorous aggressiveness yet with total chasteness." Some say, "Crucify the flesh and devote your whole soul to the thought of eternal matters." Some say, "Follow your natural inclination to go forth, devote your body to a spouse, and produce offspring before you die."

Constantly instructing unmarried Christians of sexual maturity to see everyone they meet as non-sexual beings, and then acting surprised when they fail to act like sexual beings (by dating and eventually forming marriages), is extremely absurd, don't you think? Think of it this way. If looking at a particular person leads to sinful thoughts, why wouldn't an unmarried Christian cope by immediately averting eyes and thoughts? And when he or she takes the holy course of action by urgently running away from such carnal temptation, how exactly can that person also go on dates? How is someone to reconcile the two pieces of advice, "Don't even think of someone as a potential sexual partner" and "Go find someone in the church and start a family"? How can it possibly work?

This is not in any way a hypothetical concern. It's a deeply practical matter that deserves due consideration and very specific answers. Concrete answers that are likely uncomfortable to discuss. Where's the dividing line? Because some forms of sexual attraction between the unmarried are quite necessary for reproductive marriages to be the result, what distinguishes those forms from sinful sexual attraction? Conflicting directions aren't helpful! Generalizations aren't doable!

I am Christian. I am human. I am unmarried. How should someone in all three categories act? The reply, "Be less conscientious about holiness until you're married", is ludicrous, but so is the reply, "Be vigilant in guarding your mind and therefore never marry."

the subtle danger of WWJD

I'm genuinely surprised that I haven't ever mentioned the years-old concept WWJD, "What Would Jesus Do?". In accordance with my monotonous blog litany that Christianity should be something done in addition to something said, I approve of WWJD to the degree that it reminds people to constantly contemplate the effect of Christianity on their actions. WWJD is better than asking, "What can I do for me, right here and now?"

However, the simple formula of WWJD presents a subtle danger. It could mislead the questioner. The essential problem is that it encourages people to replace divine judgment with their own moral intuitions. In the worst case, WWJD is interpreted as WSG, "What Seems Good?"

And that consideration is too important and tricky to be taken lightly. WWJD shouldn't mean creating a flawed mental image of Christ to model one's decisions. It should mean the determined attempt to uncover and apply the stated values of the true God. Like they have for centuries, Christians study and meditate on the Word, consult with their present and ancestral fellow Christians, and use reason as well as the noblest inner part, the Spirit. WWJD doesn't involve remaking Jesus into your image of Him. A slogan isn't a shortcut to right decisions.

the living God

This comment is appropriate for Easter, but I'm too late. Fortunately, it's not specific to holidays. It's specific to every day.

The Trinitarian God lives. The Son intercedes to reunite us to the Father, and the Spirit dwells. All these acts are ongoing. The Spirit changes the Christian by overpowering sin and enabling new motivations. And those acts are ongoing. The Spirit's direction is a "live broadcast". Talk about what someone must do to be "saved" is a debate about the starting line of the race. Or about how to plug the engine into a power outlet. You're saved, surely, but then you must go on to live!  We aren't saved in order to transform into beautiful statues. We are saved in order to be actors who find the passion of our performance by capturing the mind behind the play. "Mission" and "purpose" aren't addendums to the Good News, but are what happens when live people reconnect with a living God. Rituals that reorient the person to the God are life-giving, not "dead rote". A God-inspired Word is more than historical documentation. It's a path for the living God to stroll inside the willing scholar. Perhaps the most instructive dividing line between Christians is not the numerous theological distinctions. It's the difference between those who live as if in tribute to a dead God and those who live as if in communion with a live God.

attitude toward personal discretion

Not all Christians agree on some arenas of behavior; not all actions are commonly known to be "sin" or "holy". As conscientious devotees enact their personal discretion, there are two basic categories of possibilities: 1) restriction, 2) allowance. Which attitude shall fellow believers take? Are they to cheer restriction or allowance?

In my opinion, that question is a trick. People who always lean toward either of the two categories aren't properly exercising their own discretion. Sometimes restriction is prudent, and sometimes allowance is quite harmless. It's not a question that can be answered in general. Default answers are too often unexamined answers.

Furthermore, Christians must be highly alert to the danger of amplifying differences in personal discretion into haughy attitudes. Some consider the embodiment of commitment to consist of constant sacrifices of virtually every delight in the pursuit of holiness; some consider the embodiment of Spirit-led freedom from the Law of death to consist of joyful and love-filled improvisation combined with continual self-monitoring in every individual at every time. An accusation "Your restrictions close your mind to understanding and reaching the unbeliever" can be just as toxic as "Your permissiveness clouds your heart to understanding and reaching the Holy One".

Personal discretion isn't an excuse to take revenge on the downfalls of your upbringing through attacks on differing Christians. Whether you feel that your physically or emotionally absent parents failed to give you a firm compass, or that your domineering and humorless parents failed to give you affection for God, your opportunity is to move beyond rather than merely react against their excesses.

problematic virtues

Oddly enough, I suspect that for too many Christians the mental barrier to greater spiritual growth is what they call their "virtues". Whenever a Christian conveniently considers a personal flaw as a virtue, it's a blindness. How can someone start to improve without first recognizing the need for improvement? Ponder the possibilities...

• "I'm bold". But are you also impatient or foolhardy?
• "I'm truthful". But are you also attentive and wise about when and how to speak the truth?
• "I'm compassionate". But are you also respectful of others' autonomy?
• "I'm holy". But are you also contemptuous?
• "I'm visionary". But are you also willing to incorporate feedback?
• "I'm strong". But are you also distant?
• "I'm joyful". But are you also responsive to the pain around you?

These variant inclinations are just one reason for Christians to join together. Christians in a group can expose and smooth everyone's rough edges. And since not all strengths are appropriate at all times, they can cooperate to send the best person for each task. Even the difficulty of confronting and accepting Christians who are radically different from oneself provides a stage for exercising Christianity.

For instance, I'm aware that I have far to go. I struggle with the assumption that people who are typically courageous have tiny and limp imaginations. I think to myself, "If he, like I, had any creative inkling of what could go wrong or how extremely unpleasant it would be, he wouldn't have that rather blank facial expression of nonchalance." Then again, I was one of those children who couldn't watch monster movies without experiencing subsequent horrific phantasms that stealthily stalked me...

is it there or not?

This is supremely illuminating about the public's way of thinking. People have spent extended periods of time debating how and why there is a Christianity without Hell, only to abruptly shift to the opinion that a specific "truly awful" dead person must be in Hell.

Arguments about the very existence of something cannot be murky or half-resolved. The answer is "yes" or "no", "aye" or "nay", "true" or "false", "reality" or "fantasy", "fiction" or "nonfiction". There can certainly be discussion about the precise nature and characteristics of the disputed thing, but those are separate prior questions.

I could assert or retract innumerable rhetorical claims about the absence of my hairbrush. But the fact is that it's sitting right over there in another room, with volume and mass quite independent of my imaginings to the contrary. I could do the same about the presence of my rowboat in my backyard. But the fact is that no rowboat is in my backyard.

Hell is the same way. People can think and say whatever they like, but if they constantly contradict their own statements, it's difficult to figure out how their beliefs, ill-defined guesses that shift around like the tide, could ever be confirmed or violated. If someone isn't taking a position either way, or taking opposite positions simultaneously, it's more honest to just express one's total lack of clarity than to give away one's lack of intellectual commitment by spewing out half-considered sentiments on a deeply important topic.

a metaphorical Bible

Not too long ago I read a heartfelt essay from a self-identified Christian. He attempted to argue that "overly literal" interpretations of the Bible may reflect a disdain for truth. To summarize, he claimed that since the Bible contains apparent contradictions with itself and with external reality/history, e.g. locations that are difficult to distinguish, timelines that are too compressed to be real, etc., then no serious believers should try to put their faith in dubious biblical facts. Rather, he advised them to acknowledge metaphorical truths of the Bible. Therefore the stories have moral points, the events have mythological impact or emotional heft, and of course God's actions are presumably hypothetical examples for mankind.

My reaction to this is a little complex. I don't think the Bible is intended as a stringently historical document. Not all of the tiny details of an eyewitness account must be perfectly accurate in order for the major points to be materially true. I also don't think the Bible is intended as a science textbook (flashback to 2007 with that link!). Its focus is clearly on interactions between God and pre-scientific people.

However, my assumption remains that the Bible is an imperfect communication of absolute truth. God is a creator, ruler, provider, and savior. God has acted in many ways as the Bible describes. Given these premises, "miracles" are quite possible. Furthermore, God came in the flesh as the man Jesus, died, and rose. Regardless of the fuzzy narrative liberties that may exist in the Bible, these items happened. Christians settled on such theological points. Their goal wasn't to stifle reason or individual experience. It was to avoid mass confusion and false education as the spread of Christianity inevitably led to people who wanted to use it as a base ingredient of flashy/attractive sects and religious mishmash.

Here, a metaphorical Bible begins to break down, because the entire Bible surely isn't intended to be entirely metaphorical. "Metaphorical truth" is convenient above all. By definition, metaphors don't have independent/self-evident meaning and implications. Like poetry, metaphorical language requires the reader to reconnect the text with something else to attain the whole word-picture. They must read between the lines, expand, contract, whitewash, recolor, add, erase. A metaphorical Bible is ideally suited for a postmodernist who wishes to construct a "brand new text" from out of the interaction among writer, text, reader, subtext, context, etc. In this process, the reader's expectations are automatically confirmed.

Shifting meanings of metaphorical truth are also convenient guides for behavior. Commands that seem right to a man are less metaphorical, and the lesser-liked are more metaphorical. In extreme cases like that exhibited by the essay that I read, there isn't anything unique about the Bible in comparison to any other "metaphorical book". After all, morality tales elsewhere are also good for encouraging nice living and knowledge about basic human nature. I anticipate the next essay from the writer (the following is not a quote, only a guess):

Perhaps we should form an afternoon church service around intense study and celebration of Aesop's Fables. In fact, all the Christian singing and recitation about atonement is a really difficult metaphor, so let's drop it. That applies tenfold to the awful stuff about being a "bought slave to Christ". And Easter can't be about actual resurrection; it's an existential literary illustration of the positive human ability to continually redefine your personal identity as you see fit. No wonder all the people whom we like will join us in heaven regardless of religious inclination. Their sacred books are just as metaphorical as ours. And those atheists who don't live like jerks are gonna look so surprised when they receive their reward of eternal blessings right alongside us...