Opinion: Singleness- one of the Church’s biggest failures
Rebecca Holmes, Entertainment Editor
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The views and opinions expressed on in this article are solely those of the original author. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of The Vision NGU or North Greenville University.
The Church has notoriously been a hard place to be single. The very essence of our Christian culture elevates marriage. I’m not saying that marriage shouldn’t be elevated because it’s definitely important, but as the Church we can’t cater to married people and leave the single people out in the cold.
Often times, single people need more of the Church’s guidance than married people do. It’s my opinion that we have to be hyperaware to ensure that while marriage is important, it should never become something that we idolize.
Both as a culture and as the Church there seems to be a mounting pressure around single people. Especially once a single person turns 30. Once you turn 30 and you’re still not married people in the church start asking things like “I wonder what’s wrong with them?” or “Maybe they’re just too picky when it comes to relationships.”
The idea of singleness is almost never viewed in a positive light within the Church, even though it’s equally as biblical as marriage. According to Paul singles “will do even better” than those who are married.
The example of Paul makes me wonder if as the Church we haven’t gotten it completely backwards. Instead of looking at our singles and thinking how disabled they are, maybe we should be looking at them with honor. Honoring them because we all recognize that the call to singleness isn’t for everyone, and we all know it’s not a walk in the park.
I don’t think that the Church intends to send the message that singleness is crippling, but it’s definitely subtly or sometimes not so subtly communicated. As a single person, I definitely hear it loud and clear.
I think what it comes down to is that in the grand scheme of things marriage is such a minute part of our total existence, and while we all may not be called to a lifetime of singleness, we are all called to at least a season of singleness.
It’s time we learn to view our singleness as a gift rather than a curse.
To all of you who’ve been struggling in your singleness, marriage isn’t the end all be all, and singleness isn’t God’s next best option for us. The Church doesn’t define who we are, only our Creator can do that.
