Juneau is his Narnia.

Friends, our new friend Matthew has made his first regular post at Boundless.  I’m not sure there’s much we can do for him.

An excerpt:

Roughly two weeks ago, I returned home from leading a missions trip to Juneau, Alaska, with Campus Crusade for Christ. This was my fourth time up to Juneau with Campus Crusade; I spent the summer there back in 2004 as a college student on the Juneau Men’s Project, and I’ve been back each of these last three summers to help lead Alaska Transformation, a two-week version of that summer-long missions trip I attended as a student.

I could seriously talk your ear off about Juneau. I love it there so much. My first summer in Juneau was, most definitely, the watershed experience in my life. And my subsequent three visits — two years as a small-group leader and this summer as the guy in charge — have each been phenomenal. That place and my time there are, collectively, very present to me.

Goodness. I’m getting nostalgic just thinking about being there.

I wish you all could know the joy Juneau brings me. I mean, Juneau is my Narnia, people.

……

Also: I totally talk to the animals and they talk to me. Bald eagles are as regal as you would imagine; whales are patient, gregarious folks; and sea lions, as a general rule, could use an attitude adjustment.

Are those crickets I hear? Did this post just get weird? No, I’m not crazy, people. But I do refuse to talk to crickets. I don’t like them.

Um, OK.

Uses of totally: 2

Uses of seriously: 1

Uses of phenomenal: 1

Total number of adverbs used that end in -ly: 8

Uses of goodness (as exclamation): 2

Uses of italics for emphasis: 2

Uses of unironic exclamation point: 2

Odds that Matthew will find a churchly wife before I find a churchly husband:  4:1

How to write a beta profile.

Boundless has a new blogger by the name of Matthew. Here’s an excerpt from his introductory post:

I’m excited to be blogging here. Why? First of all, I’ve been reading Boundless for about six years, so I’m a little bit emotionally invested in the site. Also, I think we could use more single guys one here. Can I get an “amen”?

(That’s the first time I’ve ever said “Can I get an ‘amen’?” And I promise it’ll be my last. I’ll leave those kind of comments to Lisa A.)

OK, so, how about I share a little bit about myself here. Considering that you could read my bio, I’ll keep the cutesy details to a minimum. Mainly just some Boundless-type deets.

Such as: I mentioned above the fact that I’m single — contentedly single. That’s not to say I don’t want to be married; I certainly do. I should admit, though, that I’ve become truly, legitimately “marriage minded” only in the last little while.

…..

Also: I’m 27. Which feels so much younger than I thought it would back when I was 17. As it turns out, I’m enjoying being in my late 20s: I have enough experience out in the world — career-wise and otherwise — that it seems people are beginning to take me seriously. And I feel like I’ve honed in on what it is I want to do with my life — be a professor. So I guess getting older isn’t all bad.

Overly chipper, overly wordy, overly cutesy, on-the-nose, and super qualifying.  He has Future Youth Pastor written all over him.

One of these days I’ll do a post on writing, but here is a very good example of how to write about yourself in a way that advertises that you find cats more exciting than women.

Yes, true tale.

The latest hubbub at Boundless is over this article in Christianity Today.  Gina R. Dalfonzo, the article’s author, writes:

Once there was a good Christian girl who dreamed of growing up, getting married, and having children. She read all the right books and did all the right things. She read about how she was a princess in God’s sight and how he wanted the very best for her. She committed herself to sexual purity, to high standards, and to waiting for the good Christian man that God was going to bring her.

Just as she was getting old enough to start dating, however, she noticed something. Some of the popular Christian books were talking about not dating at all, and just being friends, until God had made it clear that the guy she liked was exactly the right one for her. Her Sunday school teachers taught from a very popular book about how dating was unbiblical, and how a truly righteous young Christian man would initiate a courtship with marriage as the goal, working in tandem with the girl’s father and the pastor and others in the church body.

……..

The girl was given to understand, from various quarters, that it was girls like her, girls who delayed marriage, that were the trouble with her generation, with Christianity, and with the country in general. She was informed that it was her own fault that she didn’t have the things that she longed and prayed for. She started to hear words like “spinster” and “bitter” and “self-absorbed” and “career woman” whispered around her.

And the girl grew tired.

She was tired of advice. She was tired of waiting. She was tired of hearing about Prince Charming and Mr. Darcy. Perhaps most of all, she was tired of shaking heads.

So she ran off with the first non-Christian man who showed some interest, asked her out, and treated her with respect. And the knowing ones shook their heads and said, “What happened to her? She used to be a good Christian girl.”

I’ve never read a more succinct compendium of all of the bad dating advice bandied about in church circles.  While not every single Christian woman over a certain age will run off with the first man who looks twice at her, whether or not he is a Christian, the temptation to do so will increase and the rationalizations will start to creep in.  As long as he had good morals… But if we got along really well… He wants the same things in life that I do… He’s kinder than any of the Christian men I know, and smarter and funnier, too… He’s the only man who has ever thought I was beautiful…

It’s tiresome to hear married Christians lecturing singles about God’s good gift of marriage and how we must wait patiently for God’s perfect timing, and the meantime work on perfecting our marital skills (except for sex), or some other drivel.  At some point, every Christian longtime single asks him- or herself, “Are my Christian principles the hill I want to die on?”  What Dalfonzo’s article points out is that for some, the answer is no.

A Christian woman who holds on to her principles sometimes ends up in limbo:  not cute and girly enough for Christian men, too prudish and boring for non-Christian men.  This is how a non-ugly-faced, non-fat young woman can spend over a decade with minimal male attention thrown her way.  I have this suspicion that men think that if they see a woman and think she’s attractive, the woman somehow automatically knows and it counts toward her inner mental count of male interest.  For many women, however, short of a definitive action such as being asked for her number or out on a date, the woman will never know.

By the way, yesterday was my birthday, or, more aptly, the __th anniversary of my increasing SMV irrelevance!  Feel free to congratulate me in the comments.

Even Christian girls want men to put the moves on them.

I am not advocating that men pressure women for sex, or refuse to take no or other signs of disinterest/discomfort for an answer.  But even a Christian woman wants to know that the man she is dating has some sexual interest in her.  This is not easy to determine if the man refuses to touch her in any way* or basically acts like there is a 3-foot virginity forcefield surrounding her that will not allow him to get any closer. (*Sidehugs excluded.)  If this goes on for long enough, the woman will seriously start to question why the man is even dating her.

The other reason a man should not act like he will become electrocuted should he touch the woman he is dating is that it’s a DLV.  It makes the man seem deferential and complacent – maybe even fearful – without even having tested the waters.  This is a big tingle-killer.  If a man tries to put his hand on the woman’s waist and she pulls away, and he doesn’t try again for the rest of the night, a woman will respect him more than if he never tried at all.

One caveat:  this kind of touching is generally not appropriate for a “getting to know you” date.  If you’re meeting a stranger or someone you only cursorily know at a coffee shop, for example, it’s better to keep your hands to yourself.  Otherwise you’ll just get branded Grabby McHandsallover:  Sex-Crazed Pervert.  But if you’ve been on a few dates and it’s looking like this may turn into a regular thing, a woman is going to want you to assert your sexual interest.  A little touch goes a long way in assuring a woman that you are attracted to her.

Why the church encourages young women to be plain.

As someone who grew up steeped in evangelical church culture, I will attest that I never once received specific church guidance on how to make myself look physically beautiful (or at least better than my reflection in the morning).  Virginity pledges, sex-is-beautiful-because-God-created-it-and-God-doesn’t-create-junk talks, See You at the Pole, myths of evolution, evils of rock music, sanctity-of-life instruction – yes.  How to make the most of the body and face God gave me – no.  Apparently, physical appearance is just something that girls are expected either to know innately or to absorb through the constant bombardment of The Media (which, as we all know, belongs to The World, out of which nothing good can come and which sends the wrong message to impressionable minds not sufficiently girded with the Sword of the Spirit, et al).

It seems to me that the modern evangelical church lives in fear of the male sex drive* and does nearly everything in its power to deny its motivations.  When I was in high school, youth group sex talks usually stressed the importance of “modesty.”  It was important to dress modestly because if you didn’t, disgusting sex-crazed boys would think about you with lust, which was gross and wrong.  (That’s enough to scare conscientious young girls into covering up.  At that age, there’s no need to remind them of pervy old men, either.)  The greatest sartorial enemies of modesty were low-cut tops and mini-skirts — ergo, any girl caught wearing such an item of clothing was immediately branded, if not outright, then definitely through knowing glances and innuendo, one of those girls.  Wearing a short skirt was practically one step away from asking to be raped.  Don’t tempt the brothers!  Just being female is enough temptation!

In addition, evangelical girls are taught, almost as a catechism, that true beauty comes from Christian spirit and from nowhere else, on the basis of the following verses:

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. -Proverbs 31:30

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.  Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. -1 Peter 3:3-4

Never mind the fact that the Bible is brimming with beautiful women and that in some cases, it was the woman’s looks that made the difference between good and bad outcomes, and that an entire book of the Bible is devoted to the pleasures of sex and pleasing physical traits of the woman – isn’t it HOBBBVIOUS from these verses that looks don’t and shouldn’t matter?  Other corollaries naturally follow, such as:

Physical appearance isn’t worth my time because I should spend all my time focusing on the Lord.  Oppressed Chinese people need Bibles more than I need Mary Kay!

My looks will wither anyway, so why try to attract someone on the basis of something that won’t last?

If I spend any time trying to look really, really good, I will be considered shallow and not focusing on the things above.

And, possibly the most deadly:

My personality and character are where true beauty comes from, so anyone who evaluates me on the basis of my looks doesn’t appreciate true beauty or have his spiritual priorities straight.  Therefore, I am free to condemn his rejection of me as sinful and hate prettier girls who get all of the male attention, because if they were real Christians, they’d be working on their personalities instead.

So, when you consider the sex fears that the church instills in young women, along with the imperative to downplay looks (I remember reading that classic tome I Kissed Dating Good-bye and being surprised that author Joshua Harris actually boasts at one point that his attractive female friends don’t dress to stun), and you end up with women who dress plainly, partly out of conviction and partly out of fear of being socially ostracized, and who do it as a badge of honor and courage.

*I am not not acknowledging the destructive power that a sex drive uncontrolled can wield.  Certainly caution is prudent, given the number of men throughout history who have destroyed their lives and the lives of their loved ones on account of lust.  However, I continually get the impression that many in the church would love nothing more than to completely snuff out male sexual impulse, along with all the good it can do when properly directed.  Sex drive is like fire:  incredibly productive when harnessed, devastating when not.

Why Christian girls have so few boyfriends.

I was reading the comments at another blog, and one commenter mentioned how “shocking” it is that so many cute Christian girls in their late 20s/early 30s have only had one or zero boyfriends in their entire lives.  Honestly, this kind of news is only “shocking” if you don’t know anything about conservative Christian culture.  Here’s how a reasonably attractive, non-psycho Christian girl of, say, age 32 can go boyfriend-less her entire life:

• Very poor male/female ratio of singles at church. If mating is a numbers game, women are on the losing side.  Most churches that are not specifically targeted to single professionals (a.k.a. “seeker churches”) have a low singles population.  Of the singles who are regular attenders, the majority of them will be women.  Of the men, a lot of them will be “old” or weird.
• Single men at church do not initiate. If there are any single men who pass muster, they often aren’t asking out the single women at their church.  Sometimes this is due to fear of social ostracism (i.e., ask out too many women and you get a rep of being an indiscriminate player who’s only looking for a warm body), sometimes it’s a lack of sexual interest…in general, sometimes it’s immaturity, sometimes it’s apathy, and sometimes it actually IS that all of the single women at church are fat and/or damaged.
• Refusal to date both non-Christians and nominal Christians. Most “good” Christian girls will not hang out at places where the average (non-Christian) man will go to meet women, such as bars, clubs, sporting events, house parties where alcohol is served, or the mall.  They are much more likely to be found in the church nursery, leading a youth group retreat, helping out at a women’s shelter, attending a small group Bible study, baby-sitting the children of married Christian friends, on a missions trip, hanging out with her parents and family, or at a game night sponsored by the college & career group at church.  Should a good Christian girl actually meet a non-Christian man who is attracted to her, she will most likely be very wary of him as a romantic prospect and will refuse to go on a date with him if he asks, due to the biblical command not to be yoked (married) to unbelievers (2 Cor. 6:14).  Ditto for a man who is nominally a Christian (i.e., claims to be a Christian yet doesn’t “bear fruit”).

Other factors can come into play as well — being too picky is a problem regardless of creed — but these three points cover the major reasons that Christian girls endure such long periods of singleness.  In the end it’s pretty much a numbers game, and the girls are losing it.