Christian reflections on (Christian) dating, courtship and marriage

Excerpts from four article in Touchstone-- "a symposium on dating, courtship and marriage"...

That Could Be Arranged by S. M. Hutchens
Not-So-Blind Date by Jocelyn Mathewes
Three’s No Crowd by Kevin Offner
Father Knows Maybe Not by James Hitchcock

From Hutchens, on arranged marriages:

One can see, in light of modern experimentations in these matters, why in traditional societies marriages are arranged by the parents. A return to this in some form is perhaps the next step in the right direction for groups of Christian families that wish to leave the dating culture as (it has turned out to be) one of the fundamental dynamics of family life.

But for this, children will need to be educated from their earliest years that (1) we are Christians, and think and do many things differently than the surrounding culture, in which pagan influences predominate, and (2) your parents will be choosing your mate....

From Mathewes, on good dating:

I think the problems we see in dating really originate in deeper cultural problems: particularly the distorted culture of romance and the tendency to extend adolescence....

I vividly remember a number of conversations with my mother during my mid-teenage years. We often sat together at the kitchen table, sipping tea and talking. She would tell me how frustrating her dating experiences were in college: the pressure for sex, the disillusionment with marriage, and the noncommittal guys who were a “waste of time” (so much for “learning something”). She recounted awkward blind dates when she actively avoided or disliked kissing, and told me how wonderful it was to discover that kissing someone she loved—in this case, my father—was so exhilarating.

My mother taught me that you start looking when you’re thinking about getting married. Through my parents’ example, I learned from an early age that sex was completely intertwined within a relationship, sanctified by marriage, in which you shared your thoughts, your feelings, your whole life together. So when we started dating, Stephen and I were looking towards marriage as our possible future. It seems to have worked....

From Kevin Offner, on getting the (married) Church involved...

In my dating talk, I emphasize the importance of male initiative, the dangers of “casual” dating, the need to refrain from physical and emotional intimacy before marriage, and facing the reality that not everyone who wants to get married necessarily will get married. But without fail, the point in my talk that gets the strongest positive response is when I talk about the importance of “third parties” in dating....

How can the Church be of some countercultural help to her young single adults as they seek to move towards marriage? There is no silver bullet that will revolutionize today’s dating culture, but one practical change can and should be made, and it is this: Third parties need to begin taking some responsibility to help single Christian adults meet each other....While I applaud S. M. Hutchens for targeting parents here, getting parents involved in arranging marriages for their twenty-something or thirty-something single progeny usually just isn’t that realistic. These single adults often live hundreds of miles from their parents, and their parents often aren’t Christians....

We marrieds need to take the time and effort to get to know the singles in our churches....we must pray for them—praying specifically for God’s will for their marital status....Couples could be encouraged to have dinner parties where [singles] are invited...not chosen haphazardly but only after much prayer and hard thinking. The evening should mix light and serious activities and conversation....

And from James Hitchcock, on the overarching importance of building character in one's children and the a-biblical promotion of "arranged marriages"...

Parents should attempt to influence their children’s decision to marry, most fundamentally by forming their children’s characters over many years, subsequently by offering advice and, if necessary, strong opinions about prospective mates (although such opinions may often prove to be counterproductive). But for parents to attempt actually to choose their children’s spouses is ultimately not defensible in Christian terms....

Obviously, people often make catastrophically bad choices, and sometimes parents can see those coming, but parents sometimes make equally bad judgments, not only about their children’s marriages but about their own as well.

Civil freedom, including the choice of a spouse, comes to us ultimately from God...Arranged marriages, like imposed state religions, are attempts to forestall sin by diminishing freedom, thereby short-circuiting the economy of salvation itself.