--Jonalyn Fyncher [1]
This post is dedicated to my opposite gender BFF Gabi. Thank you, Gabi, for both consciously and unknowingly helping me to realize many of these and other truths during a time in my life when I began to question everything I had ever believed or been taught. I deeply cherish our friendship and I pray that it only continues to deepen and teach us both over time!
Almost everyone these days seems to think that emotional closeness between two people of opposite genders inevitably and naturally leads to romantic desire and then that eventually becomes sexual desire and activity. If one or both of the friends are married, the suspicion and moral judgment heightens immediately. But my misguided and pathetic American culture holds incorrect ideas about relationships between the two genders, and so does a good portion of the Christian church in America.
My best friend, whom I dedicated this article to above, is a female. And there's nothing wrong with that on the Christian worldview, as I will prove.
I have noticed since the time this friendship formed that the church often doesn't address the issue at all except to bombard those in such friendships with the advice to use severe caution or to sever the relationship once either friend marries. I have encountered very few who accurately declare that the church should be at least the one place where deep, intimate friendship between the two genders is not sexualized or threatening, though fortunately some Christian bloggers like Dan Brennan and Jonalyn Fincher have contributed greatly to promoting awareness of the topic and endorsing and defending friendships between men and women--even (GASP!) married ones. What's that? Oh, according to evangelicals I just unlocked and opened Pandora's Box? I'm sorry, my bullshit detector is activating. My false assumption detector also.
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| Nowhere does the Bible prohibit or discourage relational intimacy or close friendships between members of the two genders who are not married or dating. |
Though many neglect this fact, there is no verse in the Bible that condemns opposite gender friendships or speaks negatively of them in any way, regardless of their closeness or the marital status of either friend. But judging from the reactions some Christians offer, one would think the 11th of the Ten Commandments had been violated every time someone enters or continues a friendship of this nature. The Bible doesn't support segregation of the sexes anymore than it condones segregation of different ethnicities. It infuriates me that churches attempt so hard to separate men and women at (sometimes) every available opportunity. Oh, we can't have a regular Bible study with both males and females participating, right? Then they might start to realize that they enjoy the presence of the opposite gender or see that the two aren't ultimately that different after all! Well so what? The common objections to true fellowship between both genders in the church usually appeal to either one of two false positions. The first is that men and women are dangerous to each other because they simply will tempt the other gender or cause them to sexually sin. The second is that men and women possess such different inherent biologically-ingrained traits that to deeply minister to both simultaneously is ineffective and imprudent. Both concepts are false, by the way.
It is important to note that if opposite-gender friendships are not sinful (and there is no "line" where such friendship becomes "too intimate" or "too close" [2]), then there can be nothing sinful about engaging in such friendships while married. In my post on the idiocy of evangelical modesty teachings, I wrote that "If an unmarried man or woman can enjoy the beauty of the opposite gender without sinning, then it logically follows that a married person can do the same [2]." In another post, I proved that "It is simply untrue and deceptive to claim the Bible teaches that only someone's spouse has the right to view their nude body [3]." The exact same logic beneath each of the two quotes also applies to cross-gender friendships. The Bible never teaches that married people should or need to keep any aspect of their lives besides their sexual activities exclusive. These facts stand immutable and blatant, no matter what legalistic preachers or theologians might attempt to argue.
Now I wish to explain why I hope my future wife has deep cross-gender friendships of her own and why the cries of "emotional adultery" by evangelical legalists do nothing but enrage me. Yes, trust and transparency are very important. Look, I'm an extremely transparent person, so I never conceal anything from other people, and I would expect my future wife to act similarly towards me. I will not marry someone unless I trust her before she even becomes my wife, so I would not anticipate anything too abnormal or unexpected from her. In short, I will not enter a marital relationship with someone I fear might commit what the Bible calls adultery. I want my spouse to know that society is WRONG when it teaches that all relationships and activities are sexual or have sexual overtones or undertones; the church alone promotes or implies such nonsense enough on its own anyway, and she needs to understand this. I want my wife to enjoy the beauty of non-sexualized intimacy with the opposite gender! I will not demand or request that, to demonstrate her love for me, she alleviate or abstain from other forms of non-threatening love. After all, pretending like one person can fulfill all of an individual's relational and social needs with the opposite gender is unnatural, illogical, and doomed for failure. Intimate cross-gender friendships represent another innocent and beautiful thing that the church has opposed and suppressed, and I will not participate in the absurd and baseless opposition of them at all. Anyway, I'm not responsible for the actions of my wife or anyone else, nor will I act like it. I wouldn't marry someone who sexualized everything to begin with and I won't wait until I get married or after that moment to tell her these and many other things. And I'm intelligent enough to know that "emotional adultery" is not synonymous with emotional attachment or intimate closeness or anything except the emotional desire to commit the physical act of adultery. Married people have an exclusive sexual relationship as the Bible explicitly states and protects, but nothing else about their relationships is Biblically exclusive or needs to be lived as such, and to live like it can produce damaging results. Christians, amend your views accordingly.
Christian websites often warn people about how dangerous the opposite gender is, yet their stupidity provides opportunities for a small minority to say things like the following:
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| Comment on an article found at http://archives.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationships/no-married-people-shouldnt-text-opposite-sex |
Apart from the comment about being more than 30 years old, the highlighted sentences above describe me perfectly. I'm not sacrificing, abandoning, or restricting a beautiful, fulfilling, and deep friendship that came before any relationship with a significant other in order to satisfy the fallacies or jealous impulses of some illogical legalist. As with many other issues, I will address this quickly and firmly if I begin dating someone. I will not develop an intense emotional attachment to a significant other before I bring this (and numerous other things) up and will promptly explain that I am not changing certain habits of mine (like cherishing opposite gender friendships, practicing rationalism, or using profanity, for instance) for the sake of the subjective preferences of another person. Since I would never postpone such discussions very long, I would have little trouble ending the relationship before it progressed because I purposefully did not allow it to become more intimate before addressing these issues. If a girlfriend doesn't trust me even though I am by nature a very transparent person, then why the hell would I ever consider marrying such a person? I wouldn't marry someone like that!
Which marriage or relationship is healthier--one where both partners understand the needless burdens of legalism and jealousy based on evidence-less feelings or one where one or both partners suspect the actions and motives of the other? I prefer to inhabit the first kind of marriage. If someone romantically interested in me does not share that mindset, then I won't engage in a romantic relationship with that person. Since the Bible condemns those who proclaim that activities it does not declare sinful are indeed sinful (Deuteronomy 4:2)--and since no one can harbor anti-cross-gender friendship ideas without resorting to multiple logical fallacies--no opponent of my attitude towards this matter can ever legitimately argue that I have an erroneous mindset. They can act according to wholly subjective, arbitrary preferences, but they cannot raise any actual moral, logical, or Biblical objections to such a practice.
A handful of the logical fallacies committed by those who oppose opposite gender friendships include the following: appeal to emotion (outrage at these friendships on the grounds of unprovable feelings); the fallacy of composition (saying that because an individual or group couldn't properly handle close cross-gender friendships that therefore no one can); appeal to tradition (support of stupid legalistic ideas in the church); non sequitur (assuming that cross-gender relationships between non-spouses, non-significant others, and non-siblings must be sexual or romantic); and the anecdotal fallacy (claiming that because you could not have cross-gender friendships both intimate and non-romantic/sexual then therefore such relationships are impossible). Logic does not stand on the side of those who would oppose the contents of this post. I have enough experience to realize that many people do not honor logic as the supreme source of knowledge, so it does not surprise me that fallacies have crept into positions on opposite gender friendships, as obvious fallacies have infiltrated the minds of most people I have met.
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| Men and women, even separately married ones, can certainly be intimate lifelong friends without having sex or without the interference of romantic feelings. Society and the church need to awaken to this fact. |
I am deeply disappointed with how Christians handle this issue, if they mention it at all. About 18 months ago, I realized that I had failed to challenge this destructive cultural idea when it had appeared before in my life, though that changed dramatically soon after. Oh, I had encountered this bizarre belief before, but I hadn't yet challenged those who asserted it. After all, I never cared about anyone's social norms or preferences because they possess no significance or authority or objective truth. I've already blogged about why profanity, video games, and nudity aren't objectively evil, and I knew I wanted to obliterate the cultural and "Christian" assumptions against intimate friendships between men and women. I want to be known for many particular and distinct things, and having wonderful, deep cross-gender friendships is one of them--friendships that refute the mistaken belief that male-female relationships must be sexual or romantic and the notion that cross-gender friendships threaten marriages by their very nature. Besides, I wouldn't consider marrying anyone who believed such relationships are sinful or intrinsically evil or damaging, just like I would never marry anyone who doesn't care about apologetics and philosophy or someone who is a complementarian. Just as I would never repeatedly attend a church that wanted me to surrender my intellectualism or love of reason, I would never marry someone who wants me to abandon my close opposite gender friends or to treat my best friend differently than I do now. I truly want my own spouse to have close, refreshing, inseparable friendships with the opposite gender; I will welcome these friends as blessings. I want her to help me prove society and the evangelical church wrong; I want her and I to expose that there is no rational proof or moral flaw or divine decree one can cite against this.
In conclusion, I will quote the words of Alise Wright, words which apply to me perfectly (besides the fact that I am a man and my best friend is a woman and that neither of us is married):
"My best friend is a man. We are both married, though not to one another. We have a deep love of one another. We do not deny our maleness and femaleness when we are together, but we do not allow it to be the lone descriptor of our friendship. We are not 'just' or 'only' friends - we are intimate friends whose souls are weaved together [4]."
[1]. http://www.sacredunionssacredpassions.com
[2]. For related examples of similar truths in other blog posts which can serve as an analogy as to why there is no line where friendship between men and women becomes "too intimate" or "too close", see below:
A. "And people can't object to violence and profanity as universal reasons why someone shouldn't play a game because there is no objective line that marks when something has become too violent or too riddled with profanity. Some people will watch a movie or play a game with mild, infrequent profanity or with a few bloodless killings. Doing so does not at all mean they will begin practicing these things. But their neighbor might be fine with slightly more profanity and deaths involving more brutality. Then someone else may watch movies with strong profanity and more intense violence but think that entertainment with constant profanity and extreme torture is wrong. Where can we draw the line? While the Bible prohibits the actions of murder and assault and kidnapping and robbery, we cannot claim there is some way to know if visual depictions of such things go "too far". God has revealed no special knowledge on this matter."
--http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-artistic-legitimacy-of-gaming.html
B. "Suppose a woman who is swimming wears a tankini--some people will label her modest and others will inevitably object. If she wears multiple layers, some people can still object. Whether she wears a bikini or not someone will accuse her of immodesty . . . But this is bullcrap reasoning. For instance, how many inches of the legs must be covered? Ask anyone who believes in modesty why an inch or millimeter further isn't the standard. Not only will no one concur about where the line is, but they will have no explanation as to why their choice is correct but a less 'modest' line isn't. In philosophy, that's called 'begging the question'."
--https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-folly-of-modesty-part-1.html
[3]. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/bible-on-nudity-part-1.html
[4]. https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/alise-wright-cross-sex-friendships
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