Author: D. Brown

Rev. Leroy Thompson, along with the popularizing help of Rev. Creflo Dollar, coined the phrase, "Money cometh, now!" He frequently encouraged his congregants to stand and shout the declaration. Claiming the entitlement of being God's children, and therefore claiming the prosperity owed to them through the blood of Christ, all declarations concluded with a loud, almost angry, "NOW!" to emphasize the authority of the commands. Not next year. Not next month or next week or tomorrow...Now.

Whether or not Rev. Thompson's teaching is biblical is not my concern here. Because what I'd like to bring up is the thinking behind the "now" part of it all and how that relates to the concepts of Christian dating, versus courting.

Courting has been around for thousands of years, and has recently, within the past couple decades, made a minor comeback in America. It is a reaction against the ‘secular' notion of dating, which appears to have gained wide acceptance during the Enlightenment period. In a time when marriages were arranged and, in some countries, when young ladies could be killed for having any contact with any male who was not officially her husband, it came as a relief just to have the freedom to select your own mate. Of course, that also came with the responsibility of figuring out exactly how to select that person, and then to determine the process of how and when a casual relationship would develop into marriage. And the disappointment of any failed relationship was certainly a terrible reality, not to mention the various risks associated with promiscuity.

To be sure, many held fast to the traditions of their ancestors, relying on parents to regulate all the actions of their daughters. But overall, since the Enlightenment, ‘dating,' as it came to be called, became the standard process of finding and marrying a mate. Throughout the ages, however, there was this sort of compromise process, called courtship. The dictionary defines it as, "The act or period of wooing a woman." In social terms, it had the commitment level of arranged marriage but some of the freedoms of dating. One could court whomever they chose, but as soon as any decision to become an ‘item' was made, it was expected that the couple would certainly get married. And any separation of the couple was tantamount to divorce. So there was nonetheless the associated obligation to please one's family, because if you broke up with the person you were courting, God knows you would be in trouble. It was sort of like instant engagement.

So there have been significant (and some successful) efforts to make courting the standard for 21st-century American singles, especially among Christians. With Joshua Harris' 1997 book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, among others like it, a resurgence of courtship has been trying to gain steam. But I think it has been running into some serious walls, the most important of which we might simply call...American culture.

Those of us who happen to be single in America, including Christians, are steeped in a culture of individualistic instant gratification. And this brings us back to Thompson and Dollar. To say the Church has been affected by the culture would be an understatement. When you have ministers preaching concepts based on the command, "Now!", that just might indicate a self-centered, on-demand slant, don't you think?

It is therefore reasonable to say that the entire collective consciousness of our nation, including our religious institutions, is hard-wired to promote individual pursuits within the context of instant-gratification. Why then, should we expect lasting results from efforts that run directly counter to our very nature? And is it realistic, in any stretch of the imagination, to expect a 21-year old single person to not date, but somehow find their perfect help-mate, and commit to marrying them before any trial period of any sort? I'm afraid not. But I must confess I'm not an expert on the ins and outs of exactly how contemporary courtship is supposed to work.

And that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. All revolutions have to start somewhere, and usually within a minority of the general population. I wish people like Joshua Harris and other courtship proponents all the best. They are undertaking an admirable feat. And in the meantime, perhaps we should encourage change toward a culture of commitment, but at the same time establish realistic expectations, especially of our children.

Can courting work? In a place and time when divorce rates hover around 50%, even among Christians, we need to find some way of re-energizing the ideals of unselfish commitment and patience. We should be able to expect God to help us find the right person, in His time, through His ways...while we do the groundwork. But to try to enforce pre-Enlightenment ideals on contemporary American culture is a monumental task. Especially when such ministers as Reverends Thompson and Dollar shout in unison with the likes of Jim Morrison of The Doors, (in his chant from When the Music's Over,) "We want the world and we want it now!"

 

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