Epiphany blessings to you and your household!
Recent Out of the Ordinary articles have been an encouraging, enjoyable way to put forward churches that are setting good examples of Gospel ministry in the DCOH. I pray you consider these featured observations as invitations to take the initiative, get in touch with other leaders, learn principles and practices, and “spur each other on to love and good deeds” (Heb 10:24).
Today I am reaching back to a parish visit to Church of the Cross, Boston, last September. I want to leverage that visit to bring to the table an increasingly significant Gospel concern in the current cultural moment – how to ensure the church sees, welcomes, and values single adults similarly to the way it did in the early centuries of its existence.
Following the example of Jesus, singles had place, prominence, and respect. St Paul famously commended it as a particularly effective way to serve Christ. Most leaders (and martyrs) we know from the early church followed the footsteps of many apostles and remained single. Yet now, the Church, in its (absolutely correct!) teaching on God’s clear boundaries for sexual activity within lifelong covenant marriage between two people born biologically male and biologically female, often falls into an emphasis on “marriage as ultimate” that does not match the reality of the early church.
Marriage and family were highly honored, and children were prized, but the nuclear family was not the end-all-and-be-all. The Church in the US has (in)famously put marriage at the center of our concerns. But stop and connect that to the overriding cultural narrative, soaked into our collective soul: “Sexual expression (i.e., sexual activity) is essential and defining for human identity.” Those narratives combine to leave Christian singles in a conundrum, standing on the outside of what the Church sees as “an ultimate life goal” (the nuclear family), in a community that teaches the correct boundaries for sexual activity (within marriage), and on the outside of a world that says, “Sexual activity is a necessity and a right for our very identity.”
What if the culture is wrong and the Church has truncated its view of community, relationships, and love? What if sexual activity is actually not essential for human identity and flourishing? (That would agree with Scripture.) Even more to the point: What if the Church in the US falls far short of the most common image of the Church in the New Testament, the OIKOS, the household of God?
Biblically, OIKOS paints a rich image of a multigenerational, multi-social, highly diverse community where life is lived in a deep, intentional, interactional community of love where giftedness and calling are not connected to marital status. Within that, what if the members of the OIKOS believed and practiced a truly biblical ethic of sexuality, that it is both secondary, or even tertiary, to human identity and flourishing, and that, when it is God’s will, it is limited to covenantal marriage between one man and one woman? And what if, just what if, in the OIKOS, non-sexualized friendship is recaptured in the power demonstrated in passages such as John 15:9-17, 1 Samuel 18:1-4 and 2 Samuel 1:25-27? What if we agreed with Peter in his list of ascending Christian virtues, where the highest loves are PHILADEPHIA (brotherly love) and AGAPE (charity), and EROS (sexual passion) doesn’t even make the list (2 Peter 1: 5-7)?
Church of the Cross is experiencing solid spiritual and numerical growth in urban Boston. Between 30% and 40% of the active adults at Church of the Cross are single, including a number of same-sex attracted members. Rather than feeling marginalized in a church dominated by families and children, singles are deeply integrated into every dimension of the life of the body. Singleness is a normal, viable way of life.
Because the entire congregation seems to move so freely across the marriage/single line, I questioned some singles from the vestry and congregation at large. “Is what I am seeing actually your experience? If so, how has this church made you so welcome and loved?”
The testimony is that these three elements – OIKOS, sexual boundaries, and rich friendship – are in the water at Church of the Cross. OIKOS is woven into the strategy and conversation of small groups. Rich, non-sexualized loving friendship between members of the same sex, married and single, is embodied. Biblical sexual ethics are believed, acknowledged, upheld, exemplified, embodied, visualized, and taught directly when appropriate. Supportive care is practiced when walking alongside singles in the arena of sexuality. Celibacy is a hard, unasked call for many singles, but over time, it becomes plausible in a congregation where biblical OIKOS is a reality. In addition, there are singles whose singleness enables them to move in significant Gospel work in ways married people cannot. Their kingdom service is admired and celebrated; its expression of meaningful Christian vocation is affirmed.
Singleness is increasing in our culture, but if we read the history of the Church correctly, it has always been a strong, honored, dimension of Christian community. So has a strong ethic of bounded marital sexuality. The result, when added to an OIKOS where PHILADELPHIA runs strong, offers a compelling alternative to a world often exhausted by unattainable goals of limitless, meaningless, non-obligatory sex. I encourage those who are thinking about these things to network with Rev’s Dave and Anna Friedrich, other leaders at Church of the Cross, and many other leaders in the DCOH who are thinking about this and seeking to realize rich, biblical OIKOS where singles are full, essential, everyday members of the family of God.