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One of the 1998 Academy of Parish Clergy Top Ten Books of the Year! Nearly half of adults today are unmarried. But most churches emphasize marriage and family, leaving many Christian singles feeling marginalized or alienated. Though they look to Jesus and Paul as role models, many suspect they would be more acceptable to the church--and God--if they settled down and got married. Albert Hsu challenges this view. Christian singles don't need tips on finding a mate or advice on suffering through the single life. What they need is a truly Christian understanding of singleness--a biblically grounded, theologically informed perspective that honors singleness equally with marriage and family. Moving beyond pat answers, Hsu
- debunks the myth of the "gift of singleness"
- chronicles how the church has overemphasized both singleness and marriage
- works through discerning God's will as a single Christian
- explains why searching for the right marriage partner can be misguided--even unbiblical
- grapples with loneliness, aloneness and community
- warns of common mistakes regarding dating, love and sex
- Sales Rank: #961704 in Books
- Published on: 1997-11-27
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x .60" w x 5.50" l, .54 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 194 pages
Review
"Named a Top 10 Book for the year 1997." (The Academy of Parish Ministry)
From the Back Cover
Nearly half of today's adult population is unmarried. But most churches emphasize marriage and family, leaving many Christian singles feeling like marginalized, second-class citizens. Many suspect they would be more acceptable to the church - and God - if they "settled down" and got married. Albert Hsu challenges this point of view. Christian singles need neither more how-to books for meeting the perfect mate nor trite advice on suffering through the single life. What is lacking is a truly Christian understanding of singleness - what it means to be single and Christian. Hsu suggests that a balanced, biblical view is one that honors singleness as a status equal to marriage. Moving beyond pat answers, this book debunks the myth of the "gift of singleness"; works through issues of discerning God's will as a single; explains why searching for "the right one" can be misguided and even unbiblical; grapples with loneliness, aloneness, community, dating and sex; gives practical guidance for temptations singles face; and provides questions for individual or group study.
About the Author
Albert Y. Hsu (pronounced "shee") is senior editor for IVP Books at InterVarsity Press, where he acquires and develops books in such areas as culture, discipleship, church, ministry and mission. He earned his PhD in educational studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. Al is the author of Singles at the Crossroads, Grieving a Suicide and The Suburban Christian. He has been a writer and columnist for Christianity Today and served as senior warden on the vestry of Church of the Savior in Wheaton, Illinois. He and his wife, Ellen, have two sons and live in the western suburbs of Chicago.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
ALMOST Debunking the "Gift" of Singleness Myth
By gortexgrrl
"The Gift of Singleness" has recently (finally!) become a hot topic among Christian singles. Used almost universally among Christian writers ministering to singleness (13000 websites and counting), its most recent detractors argue that it is too closely linked with "called to singleness", an obsolete notion that places inordinate emphasis on receiving special revelation or "word from the Lord" about his plan to either marry or stay single. Debbie Maken is one of the critics who believes that it also overemphasizes contentment in the face of a growing problem of protracted singleness that affects mostly women, creating confusion about God's will, as well as complacency about taking timely action towards marriage. What's more, it's an entirely modern term, unheard of by previous generations of Christians who never considered singleness or marriage to be a gift or a calling, and weren't afraid to use agency to find a spouse.
A predecessor to this movement, Albert Hsu's book promised to debunk the "myth of the gift of singleness", but added to the confusion by putting another spin on it. In this write-up of how he did this, I hope to illustrate how we've gotten stuck with this lousy gift and why it needs to go, not back to the gift shop "for an exchange" as Hsu cheerfully suggests, but straight to the Christian lexicon trashcan.
Hsu's "gift of singleness" begins the same way as with other Christian writers on the topic: with a misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:7: "Here's how we can read verse 7. `I wish that all were as I myself am [single]. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind [singleness] and another a different kind [marriage]' (NRSV). Some have one gift and others have another. Some are single and some are married. If you have one gift, you don't have the other. They're mutually exclusive." He credits these insights for this passage from The Message, which reads the latter part of the verse as "God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others.", even though that is NOT what Paul said or meant!
This misinterpretation all started with the Living Bibles of the early 70's that were most likely trying to downplay the "gift of celibacy" or bring modern relevance to the passage by making it about singleness. But even Gordon Fee says no one can be sure if "I myself am" in the first half is referring to singleness or celibacy. One thing that Fee and other scholars have overlooked was the Greek word IDIOS that precedes "gift" ("charisma": Greek for grace gift) in the second half of the verse. Idios is more correctly translated as "particular" or "peculiar", as a matter of fact, it's the root of the English word "idiosyncratic", and the French word "idiot", which means "peculiar one".
Now, why all the fuss about IDIOS? Because: Paul was talking about something idiosyncratic, not something either/or. Your thumbprint is idiosyncratic, there's none other like it. The rh factor of your blood is NOT idiosyncratic: you're either positive or negative. Also, Marital status is not idiosyncratic: you're either married or you're not. The "idios charisma" Paul was referring to was neither singleness nor marriage: he was talking about his own preference and relating that with an aside about the uniqueness of our gifts from God. He accentuates his point about uniqueness using a Greek expression still common today: "hos men houto de hos houto", most closely translated in the KJV and NASB as "one after/in this manner, and another after/in that." It's a figure of speech! "This" and "that" are non-specific: "this" does not mean marriage and "that" does not mean "singleness", or vice versa, as the Living Bible, The Message and Al Hsu have concluded! Nor can we assume that Paul was claiming to have some special gift of celibacy: whatever was his gift that allowed him to proceed on such a perilous mission alone, he probably didn't quite understand himself. Certainly, there's no biblical evidence to suggest that God took away his sexual desires, (but plenty that suggests he struggled with something of a fleshly nature), nor has this happened to anyone else. However Paul may have been gifted, he was gifted in his own particular way.
And so what does this mean? THERE IS NO SUCH THING FOR ANY OF US AS "THE GIFT OF SINGLENESS" OR "THE GIFT OF CELIBACY" for that matter. The Bible almost always talks about marriage and singleness pragmatically in terms of PERSONAL VOLITION, rather than divine calling: a man "finds a wife" in Proverbs 18:22, or "takes a wife" in 1 Corinthians 9:5, "made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven" in Matthew 19:12. And it seems that Hsu is trying to affirm this volitional quality by stating that "The "gift" of singleness is descriptive, not restrictive. It does not prevent singles from getting married if they so desire and circumstances permit."
However well-intentioned Hsu's attempts at this revision of the term, it still carries with it the heavy history of biblical misinterpretation and mid 20th century church leaders, (proliferated particularly by the never married but later disgraced Bill Gothard) who used the term to over-emphasize the need for divine revelation for being "called" to marriage or singleness, creating untold agony and distress for countless numbers of single people, as described by Ellen Varughese in The Freedom to Marry. "Called to singleness" and "gift of singleness" are inextricably linked.
We don't need to call singleness a gift to encourage people to work with its advantages and be content, or use it to honor those who devote themselves to celibate service (and they don't need the flattery of having it called a gift, if indeed their service is sincere). Even if God values single people and married people equally, it is patronizing and dismissive to suggest that singleness and marriage are of gifts equal value to the majority singles who indeed want to marry but can't find partners, as is the case with the many Christian women today who vastly outnumber their male cohorts. Deeming singleness a gift has become a Pollyanna ploy for avoiding issues, like the gender imbalance and other factors behind widespread protracted singleness, such as the bad teachings that go along with calling singleness a gift, as outlined in Maken's book (and my review of it).
Let's all stop using it, and work together to persuade church leaders to do the same. We can begin by appealing to the editors of The Message and other modern translations to go back to translations of 1Corinthians 7:7 that conform more closely with the original Greek.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Thought-Provoking Insights on Christian Singleness
By Brett Tippey
I know it has been said before, but "Finally a book that puts Christian singleness in the right perspective! " I read this book several months ago, and I am still pondering its meaning in my life. I know that God is calling me to be single for a long time, because He has something in store for me that a married person cannot do. Hsu really opened my eyes about what it means to be single, and God really used him to speak to me about His will. Hsu has so many good, Biblical insights on Christian singleness, that I would encourage everyone, single or married to read this book. From pointing out singles in the Bible to sharing about his single friends to relating his own personal stories, Hsu helps his readers to understand that God DOES call some people to be single, and that this call is not something to dread, but to embrace.
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
God's Will is what is best for us
By Brian K. Takita
This book is challenging. Singles at the crossroads illuminates the issue of marriage & Christianity. Many singles feel marginalized from the culture of heavy emphasis on the physical family.
Hsu gives honest insight into the possibility of living a celibate life in serving God. Indeed we are all part of God's kingdom. I really liked how he explained how people who do choose to lead celibate lives do experience the same yearnings & desires as anybody else & how honest & open communication with God about these desires is what God wants of us. This book goes over some of the advantages & disadvantages of both being Celibate and being Married.
Indeed this book is also useful to those who want to be married since it serves as a reminder that we have to follow God's will above all else & that God's Will is for us to love him above all else.
Personally I have always held the desire for marriage very highly. I found myself loving others more than I loved God. This book challenged me to follow God's will, & serve Him as my greatest desire. Instead of asking to meet my future wife, I now ask God for Faith & the desire to follow his will no matter what it is because that is what is best for me.
This book also devotes a couple chapters to giving statistics (they are surprising & relevant). I think this book has substance since it served as a part of a catalyst for much growth in my faith.
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