n7nz.orgI Kissed Joshua Harris' Dating Critique Goodbye

Mail: Earl Gosnell 1950 Franklin Bv., Box 15 Eugene, OR 97403 Contact: earl45 bibles.N7NZ.org Sylvan Nymph She inhabits a roadless area. Please don’t track the mouse across her territory. Critique: Joshua Harris, I Kissed Dating Goodbye Multnomah Books, Sisters, Oregon, 1997 © 1997 by Joshua Harris Reviewed by Earl Gosnell Christian Dating vs. Courtship Debate Includes: Examination of Christian dating issues. Is a Christian "dating relationship" in the Bible? What are some good Christian dating tips? Answers to Christian dating questions. Christian dating ideas, dating advice, principles & perspective. What about Christians dating non-christians ? is a Christian dating a nonchristian allowed? Abraham out of a sincere desire to do God’s bidding—to birth an heir—, and from a realistic assessment of what was available for him to work with—the deadness of Sarah’s womb—, kissed Sarah-in-bed goodbye to embrace a more workable method: Hagar in bed. Similarly, Joshua Harris sincerely wants to work into a good marriage as God plans, and he realistically assesses the immaturity of high school dating, so he kisses it goodbye in order to embrace an amalgum of fellowship-meeting interactions and counsel & advice of his parents and elders. Both Abraham’s and Joshua’s approaches represent wrong though understandable alternate plans. Hagar was merely Sarah’s servant girl, not the one meant to produce the heir. Group social interactions and parents’ counsel are in service to the dating couple’s learning and deciding interactions, not meant to replace them. Joshua Harris represents a segment of Christians who have taken upon themselves the critique of dating practice, fulfilling the maxim: Damnant quod non intelligunt —they condemn what they do not understand. In I Kissed Dating Goodbye Joshua tries to justify his position with scripture, but doesn’t quote what speaks most directly to the subject, not even First Corinthians 7 [but in speaking engagements he quotes it] —with a single exception (on page 78) of 1 Cor. 7:32 from The Message , a paraphrase so convoluted it leaves one wondering what the apostle actually said. Furthermore, the subject itself is complex enough to throw the uninformed. Where to begin? There’s an important concept given succinctly in William Simon / John H. Gagnon, Psychosexual Development from John H. Gagnon & William Simon, The Sexual Scene (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1973) p. 31. : We see sexual behavior therefore as scripted behavior, not the masked expression of primordial drive. The individual can learn sexual behavior as he or she learns other behavior—through scripts that in this case give the self, other persons, and situations erotic abilities or content. Desire, privacy, opportunity, and propinquity with an attractive member of the opposite sex are not, in themselves, enough; in ordinary circumstances, nothing sexual will occur unless one or both actors organize these elements into an appropriate script. ... A belief in the sociocultural dominance of sexual behavior finds support in cross-cultural research as well as in data restricted to the United States. Psychosexual development is universal—but it takes many forms and tempos. People in different cultures construct their scripts differently; and in our own society, different segments of the population act out different psychosexual dramas. It is because ’in our own society, different segments of the population act out different psychosexual dramas’ that Joshua Harris will be following one script and the "world" another. Which script other Christians follow has led to a dating vs. courtship debate . In my own book on Biblical C ourtship Basics I’ve developed a script from several books of the Bible in the order they appear in the canon . Josh uses biblical references but in an order that suits his subject, so I shall review his book in its own particular order. Four M enaces To Society H ippies and Rock ’n’ Roll in the Bible New Covenant Ma r riage User Name is the [Cap.] Philistine city to which David fled to escape Saul. Password is the [Cap.] Name of the bondwoman in Abraham’s family. Movie Review: S weet November Movie Review b y E.G.: Catch and Release + Movie Review: Evening Nostradamus, 9/11, and the "Culture War" The power of words: gay, homophobia Commentary on My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke. Ju d icial Nominations, the Constitution, and the Filibuster Classic Software I bumped into a friend outside a store at the shopping mall and told him of a chair I’d purchased at a different store. He wondered how much I paid, so I took a step forward and whispered it to him. I said it seemed impolite to shout out the bargains of another store. He said, "It doesn’t matter," and I told him small things do matter. We are told, "You can’t judge a book by its cover"—it doesn’t matter. But small things do matter and I want to look at the cover. I have a copy of Multnomah Books paperback, 1997. On the front cover is a picture of a squatting man, face covered, looking down, sleeves uncovered; while on the back we see Josh himself face uncovered, looking up, sleeves covered. As a representation of the book, I couldn’t express it better pictorially. Basically, the book is two-faced. Josh is blinded to any dating in the Bible, he looks down his nose on it, and he tries to correct it—sleeves rolled up. On the other side he looks in awe at marriage, he respects it, and he leaves God’s institution alone, doesn’t try to modify it. The only problem is they are connected, the front and back covers are of a piece, and dating is what prepares one for marriage and helps in the selection process. Next, the title. Bidding dating goodbye in favor of an earlier way of doing things is a bit of an oxymoron as our word good-bye is but a contraction of an earlier preferred "God be with ye." Former editor-in-chief of Random House Dictionaries, Stuart Flexner, tells us, "Slang is as old as English itself ... American kids have been speaking a language of their own since they annoyed their Pilgrim parents at Plymouth Rock. ... It offended Pilgrim parents that their Pilgrim children took their traditional farewell—God be with you—and turned it into good-bye." Moving past the title page , we see that Joshua has used several modern Bible translations as well as the standard King James Version. The modern versions date from 1984 ( NIV ) to 1996 ( NLT ). Personally, I don’t see why he couldn’t have used just the K JV ; it’s clear enough where he quotes the Bible, and we then wouldn’t have to worry about "a new attitude" being derived from a new Bible. I like to feel that any new truth I see is not from some new revelation but merely from new insight into the old. We come to the Foreword a "preparation for what you are about to read" which tells us, "your point of view [is] to be taken on a ride!" [exclamation mark his] I’ll say it’s "taken on a ride," the kind of ride gangsters are famous for. In the Introduction he compares his book to, of all things, dating, cluing us that he expects the reader to be already familiar with dating: otherwise why would he make the comparison? Then he wants us to "leave behind the world’s lifestyle of dating," which I have no objection to, "the world’s lifestyle." It’s the throwing out the baby with the bath water I have a problem with. Then he gets into What I’m Not Going to Say where he acknowledges there are bound to be strong disagreements—"Get a life, buddy!"—and that he "understands your hesitation." Really, now? If the disagreement is so strong then we can figure not every Christian will go along with him; some will just not be convinced and will continue to date. So what happens then? As Christians we are obligated to follow Romans 14-15:7 allowing different Christians to live out their lives according to their best understanding of God’s will, even if some don’t understand it as well as others. But we are also to allow Christians to marry in order to avoid...