I must say that I thought this courtship idea was a lot more widespread than it seems here. Anyways, I’ll try to give some of the points a whirl. (In fact, I read both of the books by Joshua Harris this past year.)
Again, I guess I thought this was a lot more widespread than it seems here. I forget whether or not it has been mentioned already, but “Boy Meets Girl” is a sequel to “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” by Joshua Harris (although I must say, “I Swore Off Dating Forever” would certainly be a more catchy title).
There are oodles of Biblical citations in both books. However, many Christians are deeply divided on the issue of courtship itself. At the time the first book came out, I was in college - a big target age for the first book - and also deeply involved in my conservative evangelical church and associated conservative evangelical school clubs. I’d take a wild guess and say the sentiment ran about 50/50 whether or not this was a preferred alternative to dating.
I’d guess that a lot of these courtships are initiated through church or church-related activities/organizations.
I have never studied Biblical passages on divorce, but here’s one about Jesus talking on divorce (see Matthew 19). Discussing what specifically constitutes grounds for a “Christian divorce” would likely send this straight into GD
Let’s see… yup, I was. You missed the part where I said “bobkitty and Mr. Bobkitty had dinner with Mr. Bobkitty’s daughter (henceforth known as SD) last night.” She’s Mr. Bobkitty’s daughter, my stepdaughter (therefore, SD). Which is why they’re more interested in getting his blessing than mine, and why this sort of snuck up on us. In case you’re wondering, there’s a 14 1/2 year difference between Mr. Bobkitty and I, and we’ve been married for 5 years.
Lel, Sandpiper, Noc, and BalmainBoy… all excellent posts that I will show to Mr. Bobkitty (who I can see is starting to pull a bit into himself). I did try to read some of ‘Boy Meets Girl’ before I wrapped it for her, but honestly I was in such a bad place with the whole religion thing that it not only set my teeth on edge, but had me seriously re-considering giving it to her.
It is appearing more and more like the church has more to do with the way this is carried out than Young Mr. Harris and his books. As I’ve already mentioned, I have no problem with the idea of not bed-hopping or even relationship-hopping. I even think that, as sandpiper pointed out, that dating can have certain undesirable qualities. And if it was an incidence of them meeting on a church-based project or event, then getting to know one another on a friend-type level, then deciding to take it further, I probably wouldn’t have such a violent reaction. But while they did meet at a church function, there was no intermediary stage… just ‘hey, you’re neat, let’s get married.’ They’ve only known each other a couple of months, and compounding the issue is the fact that he lives in the next state so they haven’t spent much time together. They just ‘know’ that God wants them together. I feel like somehow we’ve been thrust back into the Victorian age, and not in a good way.
Thanks again, everyone. Mr. Bobkitty and I try to do the right thing for both his kids, but it just seems sometimes that we’re dismissed out-of-hand. It’s hard for him, and I hate to see him hurting this way. He’s terrified that she’s going to wind up like her maternal aunt, living in a church-owned single-wide trailer, no car, no job, pumping out kids that wind up in jail by the time they’re 18. We both wanted so much more for her.
Bobkitty, it definitely isn’t a widespred practice. I am a believer and first encountered some of the concepts that you have mentioned back in 95. Some of my girlfriends had read a book by Elizabeth Elliott, called, Passion and Purity. Elizabeth Elliott has some really far out ideas, some I could see implimenting in my life…others not. I think that is part of the issue here. I personally believe that God requires different things from each of us. If you are interested in what I mean here, I can share more this evening after work. (I really need to be heading out, but, I just felt the need to reply to your post.)
Yes, there are some scriptures that support this concept. But, they don’t demand this!
This concept of no dating encourages group activities. No pairing off.
Bobkitty, I realize that reading the books and lurking might make you bite through your tongue :), but my thought was that if you’re going to have any influence in this situation, you’re going to have to be able to speak SD’s language as well as possible, and come from a position of knowledge about all this. There was a chapter listed, f.x., that looked like it had a lot to say on the concept of getting to know your person before getting engaged, which you could use to try to get her to slow down.
Oh, and try this one–if you’re really in love and meant to be together and God wants you to get married, then waiting is not a problem. You’ll still be in love a year from now. There isn’t any hurry if you’re sure of each other.
I’ve been looking around a bit on this subject, and I tell you, I had no idea that people got married this young. Yow.
The 11th chapter of 1 Corinthians (the “marriage” chapter) begins a long rant about what love is. It starts out “love is patient…” Are we seeing the problem yet? It’s very serious when Christians ignore this (even non-Christians should heed this basic advice).
A quick story. I am a Christian. I lost my girlfriend to a guy who was “more” Christian (he handed out tracts for a summer, I wouldn’t). On their first wedding anniversary this January, she will reach the point where she has known him for as long as I had known her when we broke up (which coincided with their starting to date). What happened was that she read a book called “Love is a Decision” and based her high-speed relationship on that. Even though I countered it with “Love is a decision? Gee, the bible say here that it’s a commandment.” I went on further to point out the above chapter in which every point defining love was contrary to their relationship. What we have in my example and yours is known as the blind leading the blind. Rather than biblical practice, we have a makeshift pop-psychologist whipping out a rule book saying that people should not date, but just marry the right person. “Right” has become measured as follows:
“Are you a Christian?”
“Yes.”
“Wanna get married?”
“Alright.”
A week after my ex-girlfriend was proposed to, he asked her what her favorite television show was and her favorite food. Doesn’t this seem like a problem? Shouldn’t you know something about the person you are claiming to be committed to? I have heard that Christian marriages end more frequently than non-Christian, but I have no cite. I have no doubt that the “God brought us together” bull has something to do with it. I’ve got an arsenal of biblical knowledge that could make this nutty engagement crumble. Hats off to you and Mr. Bobkitty, you are completely in the right for not giving a marriage blessing and for trying to talk sense into this kid.
