by Andrew Godsall, who was ordained in 1988 and has held various posts in London and Exeter Dioceses. From 2010 to 2017 he was a member of General Synod. He spent the early part of his career with BBC Radio, including as a Producer of Religious Programmes, and it was there that he encountered Monica Furlong.
The late Monica Furlong – writer and astute observer of all things religious, but especially the Church of England – wrote a wonderful little paperback in 1975 called Christian Uncertainties. Writing about sex she notes: ‘That sex can be healing and joyful (sometimes outside marriage as well as in it), that it can lead to personal growth, that it is a way of knowing God, above all that it is Good, still takes a certain nerve to say in Christian circles’. Has much changed since 1975?
Whilst it has been possible for many years to meet a potential mate through the personal columns of various newspapers, online dating apps have proliferated that possibility of coupling. Local churches have long been a way for single Christians to meet others and so naturally even Christian dating sites have become a thing. Why do people ‘date’? I want to explore four reasons, though I’m sure there are others that make up the fullness of our desires to ‘couple’.
Firstly, as a means of intimate companionship. By that I mean a companionship that is different from work colleagues, or friends, or members of a club of some sort. Intimacy is not simply about sex but rather about making a deeply personal connection with another person. It’s a remedy for loneliness, although that can make it sound rather sad. The second chapter of Genesis expresses it like this: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a partner as his helper.’ Whilst Genesis goes on to describe the particulars of the first man’s partner, the general and more inclusive principle is located in the need not to be alone. We seem to have an innate need to couple up.
Secondly then, in daring to date another and so overcome that sense of being alone, we discover who we really are ourselves. We might find our worth in work. We might find our ability to be part of a team at the club. But we find our intimate selves with a partner as our helper. Too often that phrase from Genesis has been taken to imply that the ‘helper’ is somehow an assistant; the secondary to the primary who is the man. Yet our understanding by the practice of companionship is that help is a truly mutual process. The helper is more truly a partner. Both those who prefer a partner of the same sex, and those who prefer one of the opposite sex, will find that this partner becomes a co-equal helper. The fact that Eve is described as the first helper doesn’t detract from the principle. The blueprint is for partnership, and not subordination. With a partner, as part of a couple, we discover who we truly can be.
Thirdly we have a need to be desired. In the animal kingdom, birds will often display extreme beauty as a way of attracting a mate. Think of the peacock. It is natural to need to be desired. Even those of us who are shy and reticent about our attractive qualities will want the affirmation that goes along with being desired. Jessica Martin’s wonderful book Holiness and Desire: What makes us who we are? explores some of the theology of desire. She notes that ‘behind all the desires for connection is the desire to be fully known’. That of course echoes the transcendent beauty of St Paul’s assurance to the Corinthians that even though we know only in part, a time will come when ‘I will know fully, even as I have been fully known’. To be desired by someone, especially when we are stripped naked and are particularly vulnerable, gives us some fleeting assurance that our journey of courtship, our coupling, is an echo of a movement towards God. In being more fully known by a partner, we sense what it could be like to be fully known by God. We don’t call sex ‘making love’ for reasons of politeness. In making love we have the potential for transcending the ordinary. As Jessica Martin puts it, ‘desire is our bridge out of the rule of time’. When someone desires us, we glimpse something of the eternal.
Fourthly, in dating we find the need to express the intimacy of partnership in physical contact. ‘Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh’ is ultimately expressed when bones and flesh are coupled in mutual sexual expression. I don’t know about all the ‘rules’ that Christian dating sites might want to enforce, or at least recommend, about online dating, but I am certain that some would insist that sexual expression is not permitted outside of marriage. Indeed, the C of E officially continues to take that line.
Monica Furlong was prophetic. ‘That sex can be healing and joyful (sometimes outside marriage as well as in it), that it can lead to personal growth, that it is a way of knowing God, above all that it is Good, still takes a certain nerve to say in Christian circles.’ I am not persuaded that the Bible proscribes a sexual relationship in dating prior to marriage. Marriage was in any case a very different relationship, arranged by families rather than by the couple, and dating in our sense did not exist. I am aware that custom and tradition would make it risky and could cause a couple to be ostracised. That was still true relatively recently, until reliable contraception made sexual intercourse the ultimate intimate expression free from the outcome of childbirth. I am also fully aware that while dating, many people find creative ways other intercourse to satisfy each other sexually, ways which have always been available to the unmarried as well as to the married.
Custom and tradition have so changed in the last two generations that a guide to intimacy in dating needs to be reclaimed by Christians. I don’t believe that can, or should, be done by forbidding sexual intimacy. I believe it should be done by having the courage to be honest about the healing, and joy, and personal growth and goodness that sexual expression, including before marriage, can lead towards. It can lead towards God. This means that the Church needs to own the myriad of sexual expressions that are viable agents of help for the individual and the couple who are daring to date. It is not good for people to be alone. Especially perhaps because, when it comes to sex, people start alone.
The Church needs to be a place where people can find the key to not being alone, even if it isn’t necessarily the place where people will find a date. So the Church needs to be a safe space to talk about sex. This is far better in Church than in the playground or online. Just as many parents conclude that they would prefer their children to be having sex safely under their roof rather than in more degrading circumstances, so the Church could offer hospitality for more honest and open conversations about sex and sexuality if it isn’t to face further rejection. Dating and sex are too good and too important to leave to secular society alone.