Yeah, I've got a problem with it

This has got me fumin'. Ok, I'll admit. I'm "angry-blogging" right now. But, I just read something that has pissed me off (let's just blame it on the red hair). It is books like THIS that makes my stomach churn and that gives a bad name to God's view of singleness and single people. Now, in all fairness, I have not read this book. All I have read are a couple reviews (both positive and negative) that make me never want to read the book EVER. I'm even actually kind of mad at myself for linking to a seller of the book. Here are a few excerpts from a pretty comprehensive review I found on ChristianityToday.com. But first, here is the synopsis that the book advertises.

Singleness is a "gift," at least that's what we've been taught. But if singleness is a gift, then why does it make us feel so miserable so often? Does God really want his children to embrace a gift they resent so much?

Ok, it starts off ok. I'm thinking it's something I could probably read and benefit from. But wait, there's more.

Debbie Maken proposes that marriage is the fundamental design and structure for life that God chose for his people. She argues that the church needs to reemphasize the importance of the gift of marriage. This book issues a challenge to churches in their teaching and attitudes toward singleness and to believers in their understanding of God's intentions regarding marriage.

I bet to differ. I think the church's problem is the exact opposite. How about we focus on God's view of you as a PERSON, not as a spouse of another person. Singles are ostrocized in the church nowadays. See?? I just did it myself by labeling us "singles". Your relationship with God is just that....YOUR relationship. It is not your husband's or your wife's. In God's eyes, every person is whole and complete and worth saving and loving, regardless of their marital status. Why can't we think that way too??

Ok, on to the review of the book. Girlfriends, prepare your percolators....

Now happily married and the mother of two young girls, Maken drew a map—in the form of her book, Getting Serious About Getting Married—to the Land of Marital Bliss. She hopes to prevent her daughters and countless single women across the country from having to experience any more "unnecessary protracted singleness."

Yes, those poor poor sinners that are "unnecessarily" single. Suckers....

Maken seems to think a vast majority of singles view their solo status as a special gift from God.... Based on this assumption, she spends the lion's share of the book arguing a case for marriage. Unfortunately, she doesn't stop there; she also makes a case against adult singleness, going so far as to call it unbiblical—and marriage a "biblical mandate" for all but the few who have been called to full-time kingdom work that makes family life impossible (a la biblical singletons Paul, Jeremiah, Barnabas, and John the Baptist) or who have a medical condition that makes them unable to perform marital "duties."

Yeah, let's just forget about God's will, shall we?

She also employs a troubling technique common in Christian circles—making the descriptive prescriptive. The Bible mentions "the wife of your youth" a couple of times, so Maken extrapolates that all should marry young. Maken found her spouse by "enlisting agency" and therefore asserts that all singles will find resolution in the same manner.

Oh dear, if I married the guy I was dating when I was 17 or 18......geez, I don't even want to think about that disastor...

The 30 pages of solution at the end of the book suggest that dating is a harmful, ineffective means of meeting a spouse; that single women should move home or at the very least employ a father or father-figure to find potential suitors; that we should limit men's access to single women (which apparently lowers their motivation); and that singles shouldn't take much more than three months to figure out if someone is a good marriage match.

I love my mom and dad and all. And I respect their opinions greatly, especially when it comes to my future spouse. But I'd like to pick my own husband, thank you!

I loved the author of the review's response in her final paragraph..

Most of us still-singles aren't trying to glorify singleness but to redeem it from second-class citizenship, to remind ourselves and our family-centric churches that God loves, values, and wants to work through all his kids—whether married or single. If we're going to get serious about some of these difficult singleness realities, and I think we should, why can't we also get realistic, accurate, and gracious?

Amen.