Andrew Evans responds to Rowina Seidler’s thoughts from the April issue of EN
April’s Evangelicals Now included an article by Rowina Seidler entitled ‘Why boyfriends are unbiblical’.
Here’s the essence of her thesis: ‘A boyfriend is a guy with whom we are in a committed, exclusive, emotionally intimate, physically affectionate relationship... As far as the Bible is concerned, such a relationship is only permitted to begin at engagement and find its fulfilment in marriage’.
The article argues that the concept of a ‘boyfriend’ is a 20th-century construct and that we ought to prefer the earlier (biblical) concept of a ‘pursuer.’
Five reasons are then offered as to why we should prefer this to ‘boyfriends’:
• It’s very hard to guard your heart with a boyfriend.
• We are called to have absolute purity in our relationships with our brothers
• We can take away his role as pursuer
• We can become anxious about pleasing him
• Boyfriends are un-Christ-like
I think there is quite a lot of pastoral wisdom here. There is, undoubtedly, a tendency in our culture to develop an inappropriate emotional (and often physical) intimacy with boyfriends/girlfriends. There is a constant need for us all to seek godliness in this area, where we are all tempted to stray from Christ.
But it seems to me that banning the concept of ‘boyfriends’ is a wrong, indeed possibly a counterproductive, way of dealing with this issue that could indicate both an ignorance of history and a failure to understand the human heart.
Some observations on each of her five headings.
‘It’s very hard to guard your heart with a boyfriend’
Yes. It is. In fact it’s very hard to guard your heart in everything because the heart is deceitful above all things. Rowina tells us that in a pursuer/pursued relationship there is much less emotional closeness and therefore things are easier.
Which is odd. Because all that romantic poetry written for centuries before the ‘boyfriend’ was invented doesn’t suggest that people found the emotions associated with pursuit easy at all!
The article quotes Song of Solomon with its advice to not to stir up love until it pleases. But it’s not at all clear in the Song of Solomon that the couple concerned are ‘betrothed’ or ‘married’ and it’s very clear that, whatever their ‘status’ they are finding it pretty hard to guard their hearts.
Guarding your heart is a real problem – thinking this will be achievable by not having a ‘boyfriend’ is a false solution.
‘We are called to have absolute purity in our relationships with our brothers’
Yes. We are. But there is a name that we generally give to people who invent rules that are not in the Bible (you shall not have a boyfriend) in order to ‘protect’ or put a hedge around rules that are in the Bible (be pure in your relationship with brothers/sisters).
‘We can take away his role as pursuer’
I am a complementarian. That is a battle for me – something I believe because it’s what the Bible says, not because I am in any way naturally inclined to believe it.
But I have yet to find a Bible verse that says (as the article does) ‘God has given men the role of pursuer and leader in romantic relationships’. I find some verses that say that husbands are to lead their wives and families. I think it is legitimate to infer from these verses that it is wise for men to start their marriage relationships as they mean to go on; with initiative and leadership. I would (and often do) encourage men to do that.
But where is the Bible command on this? It’s striking that the Bible verse used in the article in support of this position, i.e. Proverbs 18.22, uses a Hebrew word translated ‘find’ in most English versions which can just as easily be passive (happen upon) as active (seek). If that’s the best we’ve got, it’s not much to build a confident assertion on.
I also detect some linguistic sophistry here. Apparently it’s OK for girls to be ‘cheerful around a guy, as well as friendly, kind and attentive.’ If this is the kind of kindness and friendship we should show to all, then it’s not going to tell him anything.
If however, as I suspect, Rowina here means singling out particular men a girl likes to be more friendly towards… can we not just call a spade a spade and say it’s OK to flirt with them? And if a guy flirting with a girl is ‘pursuit’ why is it not ‘pursuit’ when it a girl is flirting with a guy?!
In any case a glance through the Scriptures suggests that marriages come about in all sorts of ways, many of which do not involve the man as pursuer.
The female character in the Song of Songs seems to do plenty of the pursuing. Ruth definitely takes the lead with Boaz (before their betrothal!). The Scripture doesn’t comment negatively on either of these cases. I was particularly disturbed by the comment that for a girl to pursue would be to ‘go against Scripture.’ Would we really ask a woman who initiated a romantic relationship or engagement to repent?
Probably the most common historical model in the biblical period for spouse finding is how Isaac and Rebekah got married: Abraham’s servant was commissioned to find Isaac a wife and he went and chose the girl who could draw water for lots of camels. This remains perhaps the dominant global model for spouse finding across the world – why is this not being commended? Presumably because she thinks that romantic feelings towards a spouse are important – but you could make a pretty strong case that it’s not important in the Scriptures.
If by a ‘biblical’ model of spouse finding she means ‘what they did in the Bible’, we need to go back to arranged marriages. If she means ‘things that Bible specifically commands’, the Bible does not specifically command not having boyfriends.
‘We can become anxious about pleasing him’
Yes. We can. And I am prepared to bet that for centuries women were pretty anxious about pleasing their ‘pursuers’ – reading any Jane Austen novel should be sufficient to persuade you of this. Again – the problem is a real one. The proposed solution is a false trail.
‘Boyfriends are un-Christ-like’
Essentially the argument here is that our human (romantic) relationships must parallel Christ’s relationship with his church. So Christ doesn’t stir up emotions that he might not follow through on (like a boyfriend might) and Christ only treats us as his once we have committed ourselves permanently to him.
The trouble with this is that the article offers no biblical control on the parallels. Christ is the Saviour of the church – is that what should be true of our pursuer? Christ is our enemy who will judge us, until we commit ourselves to him when he becomes our friend – is that what should be true of our pursuer? Christ chose us to be (part of) his bride before the creation of the world – is this a commendation to ‘love at first sight’ relationships only?
Yes, marriage relationships do parallel Christ’s relationship with his church – but not in every way and there is a considerable danger of ‘over interpretation’ here.
In conclusion
As I say, I think there is real pastoral wisdom here – there is a constant and real temptation for single Christians to let their intimacy run ahead of their commitment to each other.
But, as one of my colleagues pointed out, saying that boyfriends are unbiblical is like saying telephones are unbiblical. True, they don’t appear in the Bible. And it’s possible that we can use telephones, or have boyfriends or girlfriends, in an unbiblical manner.
But not having a telephone will not change the things in your heart that make you use it to surf internet porn or to text unkind things to people.
Equally, abolishing the category of ‘boyfriend’ won’t change the things in your heart that make you look for intimacy beyond the commitment you have made to each other.
