The Curse Of Recreational Dating

[JLofton]

The Curse of Recreational Dating

By Robert Mallory

A teenager named Tyler Frost has made headlines in May, for being suspended from his Christian school. He violated his contract with the school by taking his girlfriend to a prom. His excuse, which he shared on “The Early Show” on CBS, was that the prom wasn’t on school property. He can hardly be blamed for coming to that conclusion. For many professing Christians in America , their Christianity begins and ends at the doors of a brick building they attend on Sunday mornings. It’s no wonder he felt he didn’t have to behave as a Christian while he was off school grounds. The story didn’t end there, as Tyler ’s father announced on the show that he’s planning a lawsuit.

This sad case underlies another problem: many Christian parents have forsaken God’s law, and along with it, the command for fathers to protect and nurture their children. We hear the pundits on Fox News tell us that we are a Christian nation, and perhaps parents feel it’s safe to send their children out into the world without any supervision or protection because of that. We were in fact founded as a Christian commonwealth when our ancestors came here. Yet all current signs (Fox News included) point to us being a Marxist democracy, rapidly marching into a government dictatorship. In no area is this more pronounced than in the destruction of the family, and the abandonment of our children to the world’s ideals.

Recreational dating is a phenomenon of 20th century Western Civilization, yet little research has been done examining the correlation between that practice and our skyrocketing divorce rates. Indeed, anyone who criticizes the practice of teenage dating is immediately branded a Puritan and their arguments are dismissed out of hand. Yet there seems to be a direct link between the practice of allowing teens to date, and the adult attitude of throwaway marriages.

Scripture tells us that it pleased Moses to dwell with Reuel, and that he kept Reuel’s flock. In exchange for that Godly labor and diligence, Reuel gave his daughter’s hand in marriage to Moses. A similar account is told of Jacob laboring for 14 years for his father-in-law, to win Rachel as his bride. We are not told that they attended chariot races together unsupervised, or that they went to an ancient prom to commit fornication before marrying.

Moses and Jacob demonstrated their character to their future father-in-laws, and this was accomplished through working for them. N othing shows a young man’s character and attitude faster than having him shovel the manure out of your horse stalls. Moses and Jacob not only proved themselves worthy of marrying and caring for their brides, they stayed married to them. They realized that marriage was for life, and that it was precious enough to work hard for it. It cost them dearly to marry, and they paid that cost. Divorce never entered into the picture.

This was the ideal for marriage for nearly six thousand years of history. The practice of laboring for the price of a bride was eventually downgraded to courtship. Young men still were not allowed around young women unsupervised, and the practice was overseen by the parents, because it was understood that a lifelong marriage was the probable outcome of it. A short visit took place in the young woman’s living room, with the door left open, and the father could walk by occasionally to check in on them, while brandishing a pistol. This continued for months, and eventually the young man would ask the father for his daughter’s hand in marriage. If he consented, the young man would propose. While this was a far cry from herding sheep for a man for seven years, the protection of the daughter was still involved. The outcome, a marriage, was still prized, and the parents had helped facilitate it. Divorce rates increased slightly during this
time, but the laws of our society still didn’t make it easy for couples to call it all off.

Then along came 20th century America , and the practice of recreational dating. Courtship was now unsupervised. A young man would take his potential target out of her father’s home, and take her out to a movie or dinner, or the aforementioned prom. Slothful American fathers eventually adopted an attitude that if the young man has a driver’s license and brings his daughter home by 1:00 a.m., he’s probably trustworthy enough to take her out again. Recreational dating led to many of the attitudes which we still hear today.

Man has an uncanny ability to create excuses for his sin, and American mothers and fathers pulled off a major shift in cultural thinking, in light of letting their sons and daughters stray out of the home and into troubled waters. The practice of dating quickly evolved into the practice of dating multiple people. This in turn led to millions of heart-broken teenagers, unable to cope with the emotional strains of “true love” coming to a sudden end, often based on a whim. Rather than slapping themselves on the forehead for introducing their children to romance when they were too young, and repenting of a grievous sin, parents turned to humanistic psychology to excuse themselves. They taught their children the arguments that we still hear today when a teenage romance breaks up. “Don’t worry; there are othe r fish in the sea.” “It’s all right, you’ll find someone else.” Or the perennial favorite, “It just wasn’t meant to be. The next one will turn out better.”

Those excuses have now grown even more out of proportion, and parents explicitly tell their children when they reach “dating age” that they’re not going to be marrying the person they’re dating, and therefore shouldn’t get their hopes up. The attitude that romantic relationships can be thrown away and exchanged for new ones has been carried into adulthood by several generations of Americans now.

Our divorce rate hovers somewhere around 50 percent. The statistics are different depending on who does the counting, but we see the picture clearly. Marriage is no longer something that Western Civilization values in any sort of meaningful way. The family is no longer thought of in terms of God’s word, but in terms of a group of individuals, each vying for their own interest. Our godless lawmakers have only made things worse, by expanding the range of acceptable reasons for divorce. Who would value a marriage if the law says it can be ended for something as nebulous as “irreconcilable differences?” As Christians, we should recognize that nothing is irreconcilable at the foot of the cross.

If fathers would get back into the business of protect ing their daughters, we would see a rapid decline in the amount of teen pregnancies, diseases, and emotionally damaged youths. If young men like Tyler Frost were forced to labor to find a bride, they would actually appreciate a wife like the treasure she is, rather than making a spectacle of her on national television. Recreational dating was a seed planted long ago, that is bearing rotten fruit today.
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Mr. Mallory is a television news anchor and the assistant news director for an ABC News affiliate, writing news stories on a broad range of topics from politics to family issues. Prior to television journalism, he was the producer and host of a regional conservative talk radio show in Eastern Oregon (which he has since repented of). He lives in Alaska with his wife and three children.

[The Chief]

Thats it! I'm definitely going to stay single the rest of my life and pray to God for the gift of celibacy. Maybe focus more on my law enforcement career.

I admit, the dating scene today is incredibly frustrating. I myself am 36 years old and never been kissed.

I did read Joshua Harris' book "I kissed dating goodbye". While I thought the book had some good points, I was almost like "dating, relationships, marriage kiss me good bye!" because I am confused about this courtship thing and if such a system could work for people like me who are in their late 20s, 30s or more who don't have Christian parents and the field of suitable mates gets smaller and smaller.

[f308gtb]

Great article, thanks!

Originally Posted by The Chief

Thats it! I'm definitely going to stay single the rest of my life and pray to God for the gift of celibacy. Maybe focus more on my law enforcement career.

I'm speaking only for myself, but I think we need a lot more Godly marriages and a lot less law enforcement in our society.

That doesn't mean I know exactly what to do in your situation, as in 36 and single, but I think perhaps a Bible-believing God-fearing church, or the elders thereof, would assume some of the "parental" oversight.

[The Chief]

Originally Posted by f308gtb

Great article, thanks!

I'm speaking only for myself, but I think we need a lot more Godly marriages and a lot less law enforcement in our society.

I'm one of the few people in my profession that is trying to work his way out of a job so that nobody would need to replace me when I leave this career field. Problem is the people in the city that I serve don't really cooperate!

That doesn't mean I know exactly what to do in your situation, as in 36 and single, but I think perhaps a Bible-believing God-fearing church, or the elders thereof, would assume some of the "parental" oversight.

Hmmmm....you may have a point.

The North American church in general hasn't really figured out what to do with us. There was this book I read at a Barnes and Noble called "Quitting Church" and goes into detail why singles are leaving or shunning the church. The author believed that some churches just chastize singles for not being married. But alot of churches today "warehouse" singles and use them as a labor force and tell them to be content with their status, even if some wish to be married. And while we don't have kids, we single people tend to be busy too!

Fortunately, my church does neither. My church is very accepting of singles and we don't "warehouse" them. We just don't have alot of them like myself in my congregation like we used to.