Doug Wilson responds to “Why Courtship is Fundamentally Flawed"

• Purity is the model: “abstain from fleshly lusts” (1 Peter 2:11); “But fornication …. let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints” (Ephesians 5:3); “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14); “It is good for a man not to touch a woman” (1 Corinthians 7:1)


• Marriage is normal: “Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. ” (1 Corinthians 7:2-3); “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4); “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” (Genesis 2:18)


• Singleness is OK but for the majority of believers marriage is normal


• What is abnormal (aside what what is sinful): extended adolescence, delayed adulthood.

One issue that I haven’t seen discussed much in this debate is what the term “dating” means. I read somewhere that in current usage it often includes casual sex as a fundamental component. At some point in the pre-courtship world, the term did not include that - going down to the drug store and having a soda or taking a girl to lunch counted as a date. Somehow the courtship model has hyper formalized events like this and there seems to be very little ability for a guy and a girl to get to know the other person as a person. I took Thomas Umstaddt to mean that kind of dating in his piece. As I look at dating, that kind of casual friendship is very helpful for developing (or not) deeper relationships.

Bottom line: count me as opposed to the courtship nonsense.

I was a hopeless bachelor w no cooking skills. I was 1000 miles from home (having been transferred from Cincinnati to Tampa FL). My weekly cooking schedule:

• Grilled cheese sandwiches
• Grilled peanut butter sandwiches
• Canned chili
• Canned hash
• Hamburger helper
• Hotdogs and beans
• Steak
• Repeat (sometimes I would have granola for dinner)

God brought my wife to me. She was hired by my company and was providentially assigned to my quad of desks. She had pity on me and knowing my ineptness in the kitchen won my stomach and my heart. (Her Mom could cook too!)

Our first date: I invited her and a friend to my house for a steak dinner. That day I bought a used vacuum cleaner and vacuumed my apartment for the first time in about a year.

with that menu plan. ??? I don’t see it!

I do appreciate my wife’s touch around the house though. When I was baching it she took pity on me and cleaned the apartment. Found a contact lens that I had lost the year before. Enough said.

I cooked everything (except the steaks) in a Sunbeam aluminun electric skillet. Steaks were done on a grill on my patio. This was pre-consumer microwave. God forbid, if I had to, I could probably live with a microwave.

Famous cooking mistakes (while wife away on business):

• Waffles that fell apart …. something not mixed right I think …. I made the kids eat ‘em and like ‘em
• Baked potatoes with canned chili on top …. kids hated ‘em
• Met to turn oven top to simmer but turned the wrong burner down. Other one on high with meal in it. Coming out of the shower the kitchen was a smoke . Ruined wife’s calphalon pan.
• Reheated left over pizza on high in microwave. 7 min too long. See above for “a smoke”

Now when she is gone: Subway … McD’s …. et cetera

[Jim]

I cooked everything (except the steaks) in a Sunbeam aluminun electric skillet. Steaks were done on a grill on my patio. This was pre-consumer microwave. God forbid, if I had to, I could probably live with a microwave.

Famous cooking mistakes (while wife away on business):

• Waffles that fell apart …. something not mixed right I think …. I made the kids eat ‘em and like ‘em
• Baked potatoes with canned chili on top …. kids hated ‘em
• Met to turn oven top to simmer but turned the wrong burner down. Other one on high with meal in it. Coming out of the shower the kitchen was a smoke . Ruined wife’s calphalon pan.
• Reheated left over pizza on high in microwave. 7 min too long. See above for “a smoke”

Now when she is gone: Subway … McD’s …. et cetera

That’s funny Jim.

On the other hand, most chefs are male (I think). In our household my wife has never, ever, cooked us a meal. I am the chef and she loves it this way (She does all the clean up though). I have the life of Riley: I cook up all kinds of creations and get to leave the mess!

As for courtship, the church can be a good place to observe and recognize traits suitable to form a partnership. I think I knew right away my wife’s characteristics which attracted me. My wife said something early on in our relationship which was profound to me (and still is): It is important to “be the right person”. All the time I was trying to find the “right person” instead of being the right person for someone else. Walk with the Lord and try to be the right person is probably the best way I would counsel a young person today. The Lord will either open or close doors in each case. God superintends and meets His people’s needs in all things. “Wait, I say on the Lord”.

Regarding the quoted portion, fortunately those are not the only choices, as the post he is responding to shows.

I got to know my wife pre marriage by:

• We worked together. She was an engineer and me a salesman. We made several sales calls together. One famous one: I had to drive some demo computer equipment to a customer site (this was back when mini-computers were kind of large). On the way back, I turned quickly and the equipment shifted in the rental van and smashed against the side of the van. So she saw some of my zaniness and tendency to get into interesting jams
• Her Mom and Dad (living a the time in Saint Petersburg, FL) were building a cabin in the woods near Brooksville. We would drive up Friday night and I would help her Dad on Saturday before we drove back on Sunday. Whole family slept in cots in a garage for the weekend
• Also Kathee and I took a family vacation to Michigan with my parents. Spent a week in a cabin together with them (the week Nixon resigned .. all we had was a radio to keep up with the news)
• She saw my work ethic … that I made $$, paid bills, provided for self, advanced my career (besides the spiritual side of me). I got to know her parents very well and she got to know mine.
• We both come from fairly humble backgrounds. She was born into poverty and lived in a very small farm in Wisconsin. At my birth my parents lived in a trailer (I mean a real …. pull behind a car trailer). I thought I was very conservative with $$ but she was uber-conservative. Both of us paid our own way through college with no loans and no help from parents (who couldn’t afford it anyway). Interestingly in college, both of us (although we did not know each other then) had VW bugs ….mine a ‘68 her’s a ‘66

…had a signature sermon on Ps. 127 (“…except the Lord build the house…”) in which he stated something akin to “a successful marriage is not so much in finding the right person as in being the right person.” I might add for this discussions’ sake “not so much finding the right person or method….”

Selfish people do selfish things, like pursue divorce.

Those conformed to the image of Christ preserve the marriage union in the face of practically any obstacle regardless of whether the marriage is based on the courtship model, the dating model, or was arranged at the cost of a couple of chickens and a goat.

[Lee]

…had a signature sermon on Ps. 127 (“…except the Lord build the house…”) in which he stated something akin to “a successful marriage is not so much in finding the right person as in being the right person.” I might add for this discussions’ sake “not so much finding the right person or method….”

Selfish people do selfish things, like pursue divorce.

Those conformed to the image of Christ preserve the marriage union in the face of practically any obstacle regardless of whether the marriage is based on the courtship model, the dating model, or was arranged at the cost of a couple of chickens and a goat.

Dr. Ben, my former pastor, influenced me to go to Pillsbury back in 1973 (I wanted to go to TTU for certain reasons but they were filled that year). I did not hear the “being” quote from him probably because of brevity of actual sitting under him.

[redacted by moderator at request of author]

I agree with you Lee that selflessness is vital in the marriage union.

It’s a matter of

• not proper footnoting
• preaching a message your congregation could have easily read in the Sword of the Lord.
• if this wasn’t the only non-original message he preached, the leadership could well ask what he was doing with his sermon prep time.

[redacted by moderator at request of author]

[Rob Fall]

It’s a matter of

• not proper footnoting
• preaching a message your congregation could have easily read in the Sword of the Lord.
• if this wasn’t the only non-original message he preached, the leadership could well ask what he was doing with his sermon prep time.

[redacted by moderator at request of author]

Without knowing the situation fully, it seems the church did have certain expectations of originality (which, again, I fail to see the need for STRICT adherence). I have never, ever, heard of footnoting a sermon and the idea seems a bit preposterous to list every source in a message unless the source could be helpful to others for further perusal. What pastor hasn’t used either unoriginal illustrations, commentary helps, lexicons in crafting their sermon? As I recall, the sermon was one of those ‘classics’ which had all the elements which makes a certain message great: A timely principle based on careful exegesis with a close and careful reading of the text offering insight applicable to the congregants’ everyday life.

This was not a “Sword of the Lord” type of sermon but much deeper. As for Dr. Strohbehn’s work ethic, it was unquestioned. He earned his doctorate in education instead of the fake ones of the Sword of the Lord variety. I do think his gifts were pastoral care and administration, counseling, and hospitality too. He was very godly and an overall diligent person. He once shared a tip with me that when he was at a red light he would get his prayer list out and pray for the needs of his flock. He had a long list of different needs on 3x5 cards he kept in his shirt pocket. He really was a ‘peoples pastor’ who was also very moral and I might say ethical. I am sure he did not feel that he was ‘cheating’ the church in any way, but instead, giving them an insightful message.

Again, this ‘burning requirement’ of originality probably causes more harm than good but maybe the church felt that they needed to be consistent with the philosophy of ministry given at Pillsbury. The Owatonna church could have done much worse in choosing a pastor such as Dr. Strohbehn.

I footnote all my sermons extensively, so I can follow my own train of thought when (or if) I ever come back to that passage again. I admit, though, that this is probably a very rare and strange practice.

I made no secret that I used commentaries in my preparation; I assume most pastors do. I shared sources with anyone who was interested. I only attributed quotes or unique thoughts while I was preaching; general information was considered fair game.

the people who create them and use them are flawed.

“The way men and women get together is a grand mystery. Those who want to reduce this grand mystery to a paint-by-numbers approach, whether that safe and predictable approach is a “courtship” approach, or a clunky approach to traditional dating, are missing something important.Systems won’t solve personal problems.”