Is Lack of Male Leadership to blame for Singleness in America?

Okay, I lied a couple of posts ago. I said that I was going to post about what I read from John MacArthur, John Piper, and other pastors. I am going to talk about Debbie Maken "Getting Serious about Getting Married." Chapter 4 was about lack of male leadership. As I want to pass the blame to women, like Adam passing the blame to Eve, She has a point. She used education/independence, lack of leadership in the house, and lack of leadership in the church.

She claims that men want to get more and more schooling to get a good job that they tend to put off marriage until the find the perfect job. Also on the independence side of the house, most men now (to include me) want to remain free to do whatever their heart desires. I am big into getting dirty by camping for days without showers to only be wowed by God's creation. She is right and that kind of upsets me. I see it in my life but also in the life of others. As I start to plan my big European Adventure, it appears that I am the only one going. Just think, 25-30 days traveling around Europe constantly. Only sleeping in hotels once every 3 to 4 days. All other times are sleeping on a train and no one to bug you. Sweetness waiting to happen.

It is not just men but also women who are putting off marriage until they are done with schooling and have a good job. The problem is that most of the time, men and women are looking the perfect job and jump around trying to find it. Debbie thinks it is the fact that most men what women to be independent from men. So women must continue to get educated to stay competitive with men.

I did find out the average age for a woman to get married is 27 and man is 29, just a little fun fact.

The next reason, Maken believes that singleness is higher now is because of a lack of leadership in the home. I completely agree. It was my mom that ran the show in my house and she also held a job to help (and not be independent) raise me and that other person they called my sister (I completely disown her, and my family does not read this blog so I can totally say that). In fact, most of my childhood was without my father in the house. He was always busy with a 2nd job or a church committee meeting. I think this blame goes more to the fathers today than the kids today. The fact that the father is not pushing children to marry like in the good ol' days is as much the church as it is the family. I was never pushed to get married but I also so much shyer than my sister. I notice it today with others I can know.

Hopefully this next topic does go in a different direction then the idea of the post. I truly believe that the church is what is causing the rise of singleness. As a whole (both Biblical and non-biblical) churches have gone away with a talking about marriage. I never heard any messages (or ones that I remember) about marriage until I came to England (hence the name England File if you never knew). The reason I have a string passion about this problem is that churches (if you call them churches) know do not preach from the Bible. Maken uses an example of a pastor that encourage marriage and do not but singleness and marriage on the same playing field. He also knew that some might be called to remain singled. The group this pastor was with, he saw that none of the kids were called to remain single. She wrote:

Until the church returns to preaching the superiority of marriage [and the gospel] over the singleness and the duty to marry, and until some of these single (especially the men) start to squirming in their seats and feel the shame that is rightfully theirs to bear if they are refusing to follow God's leading into marriage there will be no substantive improvement in the number of Christian marriages. (pg 75)

I think she is completely right because most of the churches that do not teach biblical give topical sermons. Those churches are not biblical and that is what happens when a churches moves away from expositional preaching and go to weak Bible translations for topical sermons with bad understanding.

I would like to note that she claims that feminists are not all the blame. Debbie Maken makes the point that pointing fingers at feminist for producing easy sex that cause marriage to not happen now only "show our own [Christian] hypocrisy." (pg 66) She makes her point by concluding:

If indeed easy sex has deterred single men from marriage, then we need to concede that today's Christians single men in not celibate but is probably a sexually satisfied single. On that basis, why do we insist that 1 Corinthians 7 gives single men some kind of biblical exception to be single? Why aren't these presumably overly sexed single men being disciplined by the church, or even excommunicated [or in the case of Mormonism, you must work your way back to the church so you can work some more to get saved, no of it for the glory of God] for failure to repent for engaging in a sexual outlet other than marriage? Pointing to feminists and easy sex is a convenient distraction from the real problem concerning the formation of Christian marriages. Blaming feminist theory is as untenable as pretending that Adam's silence and the lack of leadership had nothing to do with the fall. (pg 66)

I think there was lot to learn as a man. I personal have not shown the leadership needed to become married as I try to figure out what God wants me to do in my life. I think that all men, married and single, need to realize that we need to get on the biblical train and start learning to take a leadership role in the family and not be like Ray from "Everyone Loves Raymond."