Christian Dating Rules

Rules for Christian Dating

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            I usually don’t write on this subject. I am a sixty year old bachelor. The last thing a single Christian who hopes to get married needs is advice from a never married sixty year old. I write now in the hope to encourage younger people with struggles perhaps similar to mine to have the sort of advice I think might have helped me in my younger days.

            My reluctance to marry probably grew out of my family background. My parents never divorced but there was a day when my father discovered something that made him feel like his marriage had been a sham. My father was a Stoic. He had his principles and they firmly ruled over his passions. He had made his bed, so he would sleep in it. My mom was not a stoic. She might well have been bipolar or something akin to that. When my mom was happy and thoughtful towards others, you learned to cringe because that was often the calm before the storm. Her normal state was to be depressed and self-absorbed. But sometimes she would try to rise above that. She would be happy and try to be outgoing and thoughtful. But soon something would break and then things could get nasty. As the affliction was never understood, the thing I got from it was not to give your trust to kindness. Kindness seemed like a temporary mask worn over the real personality. I felt more the need for a distant stability than a troublesome nearness. There seemed to be wisdom in holding relationships to a comfortable distance. Intimacy is frightening.

            It would be nice if we could say that my background was unique and few people face anything like that. But I fear that many people living in our post-modern world are damaged people for whom intimacy is frightening. Many kids grow up in broken or dysfunctional homes. They grow up not knowing exactly how or whom to trust. It is estimated that one in four women are sexually assaulted at some time in their life. Many of those find partial healing, but probably very few find complete healing. There are many ideas of the rules Christians need to adopt for good relationships. Few of them, in my estimation, are meant to encourage people to build healthy loving relationships.

            My reason for writing this piece is that I recently was following a Twitter conversation about dating. A thirty-something gal, a responsible entrepreneur, was being given the Christian dating rulebook. I replied that we Christians tended to put so many rules on dating that no one gets married until they figure out which rules to ignore. I propose three brief relationship rules for Christian dating.

1. Respect the person you date.  That is the first rule of Christian dating. If dating is a way of entering a relationship which might end up in marriage and intimacy – respect the person. I went to a diner recently. Sometimes when you are alone you notice people. A young couple came into the diner. He was black and she was white. In every way in which they acted and carried themselves there was a dignity and respect they showed for one another. You could see that respect was written over their relationship. I felt good about what I saw. Without respect, no two people will ever be able to create a sustainable partnership. An intimate partnership will only be built upon the respect each person shows to the other.

2. Honor the person you date. Perhaps honor and respect are the same things. In my mind they are related but slightly different. Maybe I don’t use the words correctly or the same way you do. So I will tell you how I differentiate the two words. Respect acknowledges boundaries. When I respect someone I realize that my domain ends at the top of my head, the reach of my fingers, the bottom of my feet, and the tips of my toes. I have to respect that my self-control is limited to my body form. Honor is one step further. I look at a woman and I realize she has opinions, passions, dreams, and feelings. Respect teaches me that I don’t have the right to impose my opinions, passions, dreams, and feelings over hers. Honor is a step further. I realize that not only do I not have the right to force mine upon hers, but I have a responsibility to help her realize how to express her opinions, passions, dreams, and feelings. Respect makes us not want to impose our particularized sense of personhood. Honor leads us to desire to empower another’s sense of inner personhood.

3. Don’t Sin. This is self-explanatory.

I believe these rules are sufficient. They will serve you from the moment of your initial friendship. They are broad enough to grow with you in your relationship. They will help you to be content if you reach the determination that your friendship is a friendship not meant for marriage. These rules will help you to be committed partners if you come to the point that you believe marriage is a right avenue for your relationship to take. Most other rules – will seem trite and silly (and sometimes even harmful and creepy) in comparison.