While I’m in the process of reading through 5 Paths to the Love of Your Life (ed. Alex Chediak. Th1nk Books, 2005), I thought it might be helpful for me to share the summary from the end of each section.

The five paths are explained by some of the top representatives of each viewpoint, and they each provide a solid description of what their paths entails theologically and practically.

From the editor’s introduction, it is that their is no one right way of doing relationships, but hopefully we all can appreciate the strengths of each methodology. And by the Spirit’s empowering discernment, may we find our own niche and personal dating style from all the biblical principles described.

Chapter/Path 1 (Lauren F. Winner):

The Countercultural Path

Definition

Countercultural dating maintains that the real issue is not to determine a correct dating method but instead to live entire lives — including dating relationships — in obedience and devotion to Christ. Countercultural dating is chaste, it is communal, and it is oriented towards marriage.

Distinctives

• When considering how and when to date, the most important thing to remember is that Christians are called to love first God and then their neighbor. All dating (and every relationship, in fact) should be centered around that command
• Christians are called to avoid conforming to the world. Sensitizing themselves to contemporary trends will help them avoid turning the focus of dating from Christ and to themselves.
• While dating should be oriented toward marriage, breaking up or even dating for the sake of dating isn’t necessarily improper. All things considered (especially age), dating implies marriage but doesn’t necessarily end in marriage.
• A person’s Christian community can and should play a significant role in deciding whom to date and eventually marry.
• Although chastity is an unavoidable call in Christian relationships, it is more than line drawing; instead, it should turn a person from self-centeredness to Christ-centeredness. Kissing can be an appropriate way of expressing sexuality without being sexually immoral.

Key Verses

• Mark 10:29-31
• John 7:7; Romans 12:2; 1 Peter 2:11; 1 John 2:15 (countercultural)
• Hebrews 13:4

Lauren, however, is quick to point out that one must read Scripture not as a collection of key verse that can be isolated from one another but as a large, beautiful coherent story that reveals truth as much through the whole as through the component parts.

Key Benefits

• Dating can be a godly way to not only meet the love of your life but also learn to love as Christ loves — which includes being hurt, a common symptom of love.
• Dating builds character and can help you make smart decisions about your future mate as you learn to balance romantic love and practical love.
• It’s fun! Dating, no matter your age, is an enjoyable way to spend time with another person.
• When you date and even are infatuated, you are able to distinguish a unique love that can be selfless; it can give you a glimpse of what it would be like to love your neighbor all the time.

Potential Problems

• There’s a thin line between having fun and getting to know each other and diving too deeply into premature physical or emotional intimacy. Walking that line can be a difficult exercise.
• Depending on your age, stage in life, or call by God, dating may not be appropriate for you.
• In the flurry of falling in love, you could loose the ability to make good decisions or lose sight of your goals. Whether it be through family, church, or godly friends, be sure you allow your community to play a role in your relationships to keep you accountable and available to Christ’s body.

Personal Reflections

If I you have only known me for two months, you probably do not know that I am quite the sensitive, passionate, emo kind of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. Thankfully (and fortunately) things have been very far from “dramatic” here for me here at Southern, which is quite the complete opposite of what I experienced back in my undergrad at Ryerson University in Toronto. I am glad I am done and done with that stage of life, even though it is hard to remember and impossible to forget

I have always been interested in understanding people and figuring out why they do what they do. I have a B.A. in Geographic Analysis, but in my undergrad I actually took a lot of elective courses from my school’s Psychology department — almost enough to have a minor in Psychology. Other than the introductory Perspectives in Psychology, I also took Abnormal Psychology, Psychology of Sports, Environmental Psychology, Understanding Society (Sociology) and my favorite, Psychology of Human Sexuality.

Even these days, I still pay extra-attention to people’s body language and eye contact, continually trying to decipher if their body language matches their speech, and if not, what they’re body language is really saying. I hope this character trait would be of some sort of benefit to ministry. I think it’s just the way I am wired, that I can be a very expressive person and subsequently, am very interested in what lies beneath human behavior. And if you really knew me, then you’d know that I am most intrigued by the behavior between significant others.

I love watching UFC, the Argos when they’re good, and the Leafs before they started sucking badly. However, I also have almost every novel by Nicholas Sparks (a novelist from North Carolina who is a professing Catholic). He is the author of the novels behind those really badly filmed tear-jerky chick-flick movies “A Walk To Remember” and “The Notebook“. I read both those books in their first edition paperbacks long, long, long before any movie studio even remotely considered making any Nicholas Sparks books into movies. (The work done on the movie version of “A Walk To Remember” left out a huge part of the Christian facet that was present in the novel; the movie version of “The Notebook” was better but still over-sexed to Hollywood standards and was not even close to being as powerful of a story as the book, imho. Fortunately, the movie version of “Message In A Bottle” came pretty close to the substance of the novel and didn’t tone down the maturity of the story or characters.)

I currently am only missing “Dear John” from my collection, which is about a relationship that surrounds the events of 9/11; I’m holding off from reading that one cause the added 9/11 emphasis makes it an extra-heavy leisurely read.

However, Nicholas Spark’s latest release arrived in the mail the other day, and it looks to be a new tale about love found and lost, and the choices we hope we’ll never have to make. I hope to start reading this one soon for leisure, once I finish True Believer:

The Choice

by Nicholas Sparks

Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life— boating, swimming, and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies—he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style.

That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door. Despite his attempts to be neighborly, the appealing redhead seems to have a chip on her shoulder about him . . . and the presence of her longtime boyfriend doesn’t help.

Despite himself, Travis can’t stop trying to ingratiate himself with his new neighbor, and his persistent efforts lead them both to the doorstep of a journey that neither could have foreseen. Spanning the eventful years of young love, marriage and family, THE CHOICE ultimately confronts us with the most heartwrenching question of all: how far would you go to keep the hope of love alive?

If you have never read a Nicholas Sparks book, I highly recommend it! You’ll certainly feel refreshed afterwards, I can almost guarantee it

This is the conclusion of my review / summary of Alex Chediak’s book, “With One Voice”. (Part 1 is here) Note: this is quite an extended post since it’s a transcription of my own notes of the book)

Leading and Submitting

The fourth chapter of With One Voice further describes masculinity and femininity for Christians as the primary roles of leading for the man and submitting for the woman. As with any modern Christian book on dating, I thought this was a necessary chapter (albeit a repeat from all that I have read about the topic) because many Christians and most unbelievers have a marred view of leadership and submission due the noetic effects of sin. When you bring this up in church or in any non-church setting, telling woman that they should “submit” to their husbands is a taboo topic — and even where it is not taboo, it is still frowned upon or eye-brow raising. Nevertheless, leadership and submission is not contradictory no matter how much our society dislikes it; it is biblical and that is exactly what Chediak contends.

The author concedes that “mature masculinity is neither chauvinistic nor passive“, and thus these two perversions of biblical manhood are explained for their inconsistencies and practical implications. Passivity is defined as “where a guy simply gives a woman what she wants when she wants it, and fails to take initiative or assert himself so as not to be an imposition” (74); it is the bigger problem of the two in Western culture, and consequently much harder to detect. Male chauvinism is defined as “he [who] forces his will upon others by sheer, unbridled strength” (76) and as such is easier to detect than passivity. It is an outright visible problem where many woman submit to such abuse because “they want to be loved, but have no positive standard as to how a man should treat them” (77).

Mature femininity, on the other hand, is neither obsequious nor domineering. It is not about the wife telling her husband whatever he wants to hear and doing whatever he asks her to do; it does not mean that she cannot strongly disagree with her husband on occasion nor does it “deny or exclude intelligence, rationality, and an ability to make a convincing argument” (79). “What a godly wife aims for… is an attitude that, while affirming his leadership, seeks to sharpen it.” Furthermore, the domineering women desire to rule over her husband and men around her only grieve themselves for emasculating the men in their lives. Biblical womanhood, hence, must not usurp the role ordained for her in Scripture.

In the course of this chapter, Chediak also tries to answer some practical questions. What does this mean for an unmarried man and woman in a courtship situation? How about a casual friendship with a fellow Christian at church, or perhaps with a coworker. Whatever the situation, men ought biblically to be responsibly and tenderly leading women, while women ought biblically be joyfully affirming the leadership of godly men. Such development of mature masculinity and femininity must be nurtured and encouraged within the family, church and workplace. And while it is true that an unmarried woman owe not submission to a man she is not married to, it would do her most benefit to encourage the guys around her to become worthier of receiving submission. For men, the opposite should be done: it would most benefit him to encourage the ladies around him to become worthier of leadership by demonstrating the sacrificial leadership that he will display as a husband.

I’ve been jotting down a good number of notes for this book review / summary, so it looks like this will be a two-part series.

I recently read With One Voice: Singleness, Dating & Marriage to the Glory of God by Alex Chediak (with Marni Chediak), seeking a biblical perspective on singleness and dating that does not follow directly with theological dating frameworks of Joshua Harris or Cloud/Townsend. I first came across Chediak’s book last year when I found my way onto his website and found reviews and a good summary of it. I suppose I have been planning on reading it soon, but the plethora of books on Christian dating eclipsed this less popular work by a less popular writer.

As I have previously mentioned, Alex Chediak was an apprentice at The Bethlehem Institute under Pastors John Piper and Tom Steller. The Bethlehem Institute is the seminary-level training program of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN. Alex is currently an Associate Professor of Engineering at California Baptist University, so it seems that he is pursuing his ministry and calling in a non-vocational role while earning a living as a professor of a non-theological subject.

What drew me to buy this book was first because of Chediak’s credentials as an apprentice under Piper, and further, the book’s endorsements made it very reputable (the endorsement at the top of the front cover is from none other than Al Mohler!). With all this in mind, I was hoping that this would bring a new perspective to the topic of singleness and courtship from a biblical (and likely a Reformed Baptist) perspective.

When the book arrived, I was somewhat disappointed at its large font size which basically averages to about 6 words per line in its overt Verdana-like font type. Add to that, the title page font and the number and titles at the beginning of each chapter are in a weird looking thin, faded font that made it look really out of place. In short, the design of the body of this book did not match its simple and attractive cover, and this short 150-page book should really be even shorter consider its use of a large, modern font. I certainly was hoping for a longer explanation of Chediak’s insights into relationships between Christians, but I felt somewhat shafted for what I paid for it.

In my leisure time, I am currently reading “With One Voice: singleness, dating and marriage to the glory of God” by Alex Chediak. In the last section of this short book, one of the FAQs concerns the issue of Christians dating non-Christians that I have been discussing earlier. (Chediak is currently an Associate Professor of Engineering at California Baptist University, and was an apprentice at The Bethlehem Institute under Pastor John Piper from 2005-2007)

The following is a direct quote of Chediak’s answer in full, from pages 141-142:

What about dating/marrying non-Christians? After all, don’t some people have happy family environments even though one of their parents may not have been a Christian? And likewise, don’t some have negative experiences in Christian relationships?