This is Bryant. The owner of this site has retired and probably won't be posting on this site anymore. I've been trying to get him to open the site up so that anyone can post on it, but in his post-single life, I guess he just hasn't gotten around to it. I've decided to take matters into my own hands (mostly because I wanted to post something on it today).
So, there is a new Blogger user with user name "relationsith" and password "apprentice". Anyone can log in as that user and post whatever they think belongs on this site. You are also welcome to remain anonymous. (I'm not anonymous just because I've already talked about this to people and so they'll know that it's me anyway.)
So today in elders' quorum we had a lesson that's rather common in singles' wards: "Dating and Treating women with respect" was the title. When the teacher wrote that on the board I think I let out of a moan, and I realized that it was just out of habit. As sick as I have been of that topic and of being hounded and given guilt trips about it, I thought that maybe I wouldn't mind it as bad now that I'm dating someone. I was wrong. I hated these lessons when I was single and I hate them now.
I have a lot of problems with the actual content of these lessons. I might write about that later, but for starters, I just want to point out what's wrong with the presence of these lessons.
Dating is not a gospel topic. There are related topics that could have place in a church lesson, but only if one of those things are actually tied into the gospel of Jesus Christ. Too often in these talks, though, it's not tied in at all. The fact that dating is not part of the gospel is readily seen in the way that any of these lessons are presented:
Today's lesson basically consisted of group brainstorm of what men need to be doing so that our approach to dating is correct. It was suggested by more than one person that we should treat all people with respect and that all we need to do in order to "treat women with respect" is to actually be respectful. Everyone agreed, but only to gloss over the point with the next strategy that they added to the list.
Charity was never mentioned at all, neither was loving others, not even in connection to being respectful. The scriptures were never opened. God was only mentioned once, and only in reference to treating women as "daughters of God". Even the priesthood was also only mentioned once. The context of this was that as return missionaries and priesthood holders we shouldn't swear. (I do appreciate this usage, mostly because it wasn't in the context of convincing us that dating is a priesthood responsibility. However, I think the fact that it wasn't in this context only shows how out of place the topic of dating is in a priesthood meeting.)
I realize that we're all single and that dating is a part of our lives and maybe one that we struggle with. I think it's appropriate that lessons about the gospel keep in mind our current status in life and be made applicable to it. I don't think that is an excuse to ignore the gospel all together, and I think that is exactly what we do when we try to make dating into a church lesson.
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2 comments:
I agree with you. Having a lesson solely about how to date or how to date more and expecting it to actually influence people to date more is like expecting to increase home teaching by teaching an entire lesson about how to make an effective home teaching visit. The problem is that it doesn't get to the root. If you want better hometeachers, you teach about charity and Christlike love. If you want people to date, you teach them about the importance of and blessings that flow from eternal marriage and about charity. True doctrine has more of an effect on people than the ideas of men (or women).
Rancor,
I agree with you in principle, but I don't think that principle leaves room for dating in church topics.
I agree that if the men are being disrespectful to the women they should be taught about charity, or that if they feel marriage isn't important for them then they should be taught about eternal marriage. These are doctrinal issues which should be discussed in church.
Dating isn't a doctrinal issue, and valuing marriage or women does not make a man want to increase the number of dates he goes on in a week or month. Bale's written a post on this already, but if a man doesn't go out on a lot of dates it's probably not because he wants to be alone nor because he disrespects women. There isn't a doctrinal solution to loneliness, so we should just stop approaching it from that angle.
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