“This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were [single] as I myself am.” 1 Corinthians 7:7

The Single Christian

John Piper writes the foreword to our main text (yes, we have two prefaces and a foreword.) Here he writes a series of arguments, mostly quoting single folk, about why being single is not actually a bad thing. When writing a book that focuses primarily on the dynamics of men and women, husbands and wives, there is a need to establish where single people fit into your dichotomy. Piper believes that male leadership is not just a personal thing between married folk, but extends into society and into workplaces, so this does not mean that single women escape this paradigm either. However, he does lay out, I think, some very good defenses of single lifestyles, especially among ministers/missionaries/church folk.

I. Marriage, as we know it in this age, is not the final destiny of any human.

            Piper opens with the most obvious defense of singleness in Christianity. Christ is clear that marriage does not exist in Heaven or in the world to come. Christ says in the resurrection people, “neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels.”[1] Piper draws from his own experience of having a mother who died in 1974 and a step-mother some time later. If marriage is only an aspect of this life, then expecting it to be mandatory of any person is strange. Love, especially romantic love, is perfected in the resurrection such that we transcend the current bounds, expectations, and limitations which earthly life put upon us. Piper, I believe correctly, states that a single person is therefore, “[made] a candidate for greater capacities for love in the age to come.” Because they have trained to live sacrificially in a way married folk do not.

            I am married, and I love my wife more than just about anything. We are good friends, partners, and coconspirators in life. We embody the idea of becoming “one flesh,” in that we are always trying to help each other, even if we do so imperfectly. I cannot imagine at this point in my life what eternity will look like, when marriage is abolished and we evolve to some deeper love of each other and of the world and people around us. In the resurrection, where we are no longer husband and wife, what can that possibly be like?

            I do not know. Yet, I think it is an important consideration as part of our discussion of human sexuality and gender relations. All aspects of this life are transient, and someday in perfection even the categories taken for granted in this book will no longer exist. Piper quotes missionary Trevor Douglas as he closes this section, “The social cost of not fitting in a couple’s world will be exchanged for socializing with Jesus around his throne.” Douglas sees every part of his earthly life which he gives up as being enhanced through Christ somehow. He does not have a wife, but he has fathers and mothers in this world. He does not have children, but he has spiritual children, et cetera. There is, therefore, a strong Christian argument for singleness.

II. Jesus Christ, the most fully human person who ever lived, was not married.

            Piper opens this section by discussing his disbelief in “safe sex,” and his opposition to advertisements for condoms in the midst of the AIDs crisis. This is a good time for me, the writer of this blog, to say that I am not in a good position to talk about LGBT issues. I am a cis, white, straight man. I will do my best to point things out when they come up, but I will mostly focus on my main wheelhouse of heterosexual, cis, relationships throughout this critique. That being said, I feel like starting an argument about how Christ’s singleness is a sign of the legitimacy of singleness in our lives with a bad take on public health is a strange starting point.

            Piper brings this up, from his perspective to highlight his argument that “extra-marital sex and homosexual activity are destructive to personhood, to relationships, and to the honor of God…” Objectively, however, I believe he brings this up only to provide the quote from a letter he received in response to his article. “… we think a life of slavery to virginity,” the letter said, “would mean being only half human.” From this, Piper gets to his actual thesis, “The most fully human person who has ever lived, or ever will live, is Jesus Christ, and he never once had sexual intercourse.”

            We will have time to talk about Piper’s argument about “destructive,” sexual behaviors elsewhere in this book, so I will not tackle that just yet. I want to focus on the issues regarding sexuality as an aspect of human nature for now.

            What part did sexuality have in Jesus’s ministry? Christ was fully human, so he had the same hormones and neurotransmitters we did. Christ had the same capacity for sexual desire and conduct that we do and yet we are presented with a, seemingly, sexless messiah. It makes sense on one hand – how can an infinite God, placed into a human body, possibly experience desire for anything in the world which he had created? On the other hand, if Christ truly faced all temptation and was truly human, there must have been something in his mortal frame that desired touch, connection, intimacy.

            The exact make-up of Christ’s human will is unknowable to us. We do know, however, that Christ’s humanity was perfect – therefore he could live as we will only live in the resurrection. Christ’s perfect love transcends marriage, sex, friendship, into something else. Piper is right to point to this as a justification of singleness, because to live as Christ lived must naturally make us more like Christ. Quoting Cheryl Forbes he completes this section, “Jesus is the example to follow. He was single. He was born to serve…”

III. The Bible celebrates celibacy because it gives extraordinary opportunity for single-=minded investment in ministry for Christ.

            These subject headings are too long…

            Building off of 1 Corinthians 7, Piper argues that singleness is a great advantage to ministry. When you are single, you do not have to worry about how your family will react to your ministry work or how to balance their needs and the needs of a ministry. Anyone who is actively in a relationship and in ministry knows this is a hard balance to strike. How many nights can I miss bedtime in a week and still let my son know I am there for him? How many weekends can you plan a ministry event before you deprive your kids of time with you away from work?

            Risk is also a factor. You cannot be involved in advocacy, or in ministry in dangerous situations in the same way as a married person (especially with children,) that you could as a single person. Quoting Rhena Taylor, “Being single has given me freedom… And this freedom has brought to me moments that I would not trade for anything else this side of eternity.”

            Piper ends this section with the additional note that single persons still need boundaries in their life. “This thinking [that singles are “expected” to do constant work for ministry,] can turn into an abusive situation.” It is easy to put eternal significance on work in and for the Church, and Piper is right to highlight the way churches will take any availability a person has and run them into the ground with it. Burnout is not just for clergy, but for anyone who volunteers for a position in the Church and finds they are then expected to do it till they die… And preferably after if they can work it into their schedule.

IV. The Apostle Paul and a lot of great missionaries after him have renounced marriage for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

            I do not feel the need to comment on this section or to add to it. The argument is simply that there have been many missionaries who choose singleness for the sake of the Kingdom. I think that is just a reiteration of the previous point, with more stories about folks who have followed through on it.

V. The Apostle Paul calls singleness a gift from God.

Piper’s explanation of singleness as a gift of God begins with praise of a specific kind of fortitude that chaste singleness develops. Firstly, he quotes two separate people who highlight how they have not lost anything by lacking sexual contact with others. The first (Margaret Clarkson,) specifically describes themselves as losing a desire for sex precisely because they abstain from it. Appetites are developed as much as they are innate and so, the argument goes, if someone does not feed into a desire for sexual contact, that appetite will weaken over time. The second testimony (Ada Lum,) is less enthusiastic about the celibacy, but nonetheless agrees that they are empowered to fulfill this role through God’s help.

This section then goes on to counter opposition to singleness. Specifically, it pushes against the notion that Genesis 2:18 demands for people to find partners (“It is not good that man should be alone.”) Piper answers this by raising the possibility that, if humanity had not fallen, we all might have had perfect matches for each other. Without sin, all humans could be with their help-mate and all would be well. In a world of sin and the potential for bad matches, however, singleness can be preferable to a bad relationship. Secondly, Piper points out that marriage does not ensure a lack of loneliness. Many married people are miserable, and so marriage does not automatically fix this problem.

I do not know if there would be a better place to answer those criticisms of singleness, but I think this is a strange section to highlight the potential pitfalls of marriage. “Singleness is a gift,” seemingly because it avoids the potential troubles of marriage. I tend to understand a blessing of God as cultivating virtue more often than it avoids trouble. A thing is good because it promotes growth and goodness in an individual, not just prevents them from experiencing difficulties. This section argues, however, that the primary blessing God confers in singleness is avoidance of trouble that comes from marriage… That seems strange to me.

VI. Jesus promises that forsaking family for the sake of the kingdom will be repaid with a new family, the Church.

This section begins with a very poorly worded response to the Jesus’s words in Mark 10:29-30:

“I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mothers or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields-and with them persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.” (The parenthetical is seemingly added by Piper.)

“Many singles have discovered these hundreds of family members [promised by Christ,] in the body of Christ [the Church.] It is often not their fault when they haven’t. But many have.”

I am not offering a substantive critique here but look at that. “Many people benefit from this promise… Not everyone… And who could blame them if they don’t? But a lot do, nonetheless.” If I was an editor here, I would ask John to maybe take another pass at that one.

Piper lifts up Bonhoeffer as an example of a single Christian who, “knew the needs of single people for family, and was moved, in large measure for this reason, to write his little book, Life Together.” Bonhoeffer, firstly, was single for a good chunk of his life… But he did get engaged before his imprisonment and execution. Life Together, is written within the same context of many of his other books, namely the Nazi Regime. I think it would be accurate to say that Life Together is influenced by Bonhoeffer being single at the time of its writing, but I think the primary cause for it being written was to rebuke Nazi ideology and popular theology of the time, not to instruct the Church in its conduct toward single people.

Ellisabeth Elliot is the second voice called upon to speak for the blessings of a church family. Elliot, the widow of Missionary Martyr Jim Elliot, is one of the strongest pillars of Biblical Womanhood. Her book Passion and Purity, is the inspiration for I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and so has indirectly touched many a millennial Christian in ways they probably never knew. We will read some work directly from her later.

She is asked how a single woman can become a mother if she is single. “She may be a spiritual mother,” answers Elliot. Why a woman must have the experience of motherhood is not elaborated on here, but we will grapple with this as we go. Piper, generally, is advocating for us to understand that relationships can exist, meaningfully, outside of our expectations of romantic relationships. That is true, even if poorly argued here.

VII. God is sovereign over who gets married and who doesn’t. And He can be trusted to do what is good for those who hope in Him.

This section is more quotes and affirmations of the kind of thing expressed above. It does not try to answer who God chooses to marry or not marry. The people quoted are toward the end of life, so I believe it is meant to be an affirmation that they do not feel that singleness has been a bad life. However, this is a section that asserts its title and then is written assuming you agree with that assertion.

VIII. Mature manhood and womanhood are not dependent on being married

“Man does not become man by being married. Woman does not become woman by getting married.” This statement from Piper summarizes this section and is a succinct way of understanding the gender essentialism of the Biblical Manhood and Womanhood movement. A man is always in a position of authority over women, but how that manifests is dependent upon his relationship to her. A woman is always in a position of affirmation of male leadership, but that is dependent upon her relationship to him. Quoting Paul Jewett, Piper affirms that “At the human level there is no “I and thou” per se, but only the “I” who is male or female confronting the “thou,” the “other,” who is also male or female.”

This section also sees the first use of the term “sexuality,” as a term to mean “our whole personhood as man or woman.” (Ada Lum.) This will be used in tandem with “sexuality,” as a term for sexual attraction, so do not take this to mean every time I or anyone I quote uses the term “sexuality,” they are using this definition, but it does mean we will have to police our terminology a little closer to be sure what is meant where.

The idea that manhood and womanhood are essential, defined conditions of the self, expressed in specific ways is the philosophic root of all that this movement discusses and seeks to be. Chapter 1 attempts to define this paradigm to a certain extent, but it is taken for granted here. Women, regardless of marriage status, are to be “homemak[ers]”  and curators of beauty. (Cheryl Forbes) Cooking, cleaning, gardening, warmth and comfort are all the things that women are expected to create in their lives and the lives of others. Men are to discuss, “masculine things in masculine ways.” They are to be leaders in any group that they are in, especially if they are given the opportunity to lead women.

Piper is deeply concerned at what he sees as a denial of the “reality,” of gender differences in the face of secular society’s “impersonal competencies and gender-blind personality traits.” This book, as will be said again and again, is meant to firmly educate the reader that there are differences between men and women, that they are essential to their character, and they must be taught, encouraged, and, ultimately, enforced to properly produce human flourishing.

Conclusions on Singleness

            It is hard to address many of Piper’s assertions here, because he has not laid out his argument for his central thesis yet – namely that men exist to lead and women to follow. Until he lays out that argument, I can only respond in my own terms to it, which would not be fully fruitful without knowing his particular arguments. I can, however, say that I support the spirit of this foreword, insomuch as it supports the legitimacy of single life.

            In life, singleness is often seen as a curse. In the Church especially, where marriage and family is often emphasized to the point of obsession, it can be debilitating for a person to see themselves stay single for very long. Many have rushed into relationships, marriages, children, and subsequent divorce because they felt compelled to be part of the family that was sold to them by the Church. It is good to affirm that you do not need to be in a family with 2.5 children to live a full life.

            However, Piper fails to make this argument really work given his framework. Unless you are a missionary or a minister, being in a relationship is the most natural way to fall into a specific gender role. If you have this sort of essentialism at the root of your ideology, then the only way you can talk about the positives of singleness is in terms of chastity and avoiding the negative aspects of marriage. Fundamentally, that is just not a compelling argument for singleness. In summary, I like the theological reflections on mission and Christ-likeness among single persons, it falls apart once you talk about gender performance and the single person.

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[1] Matthew 22:30