In this conversation, Ruth talks with Ros Clarke about how she uses art and craft to consider matters of sexuality, celibacy and singleness. She explores how art has been a way of bringing a message of biblical truth about sexuality to the church.
Articles that focus on issues affecting single people
This August I will be having a ceremony to dedicate myself to a life of singleness. A ceremony like this is not a common thing. I’ve heard of one or two people who have done something similar, most notably Kate Wharton, who was on the leadership team of New Wine for some years.
As a woman with same-sex attraction, I have a history of running away from God and suppressing the conviction of adhering to biblical holiness that He graciously placed on my heart. In my country, same-sex attractions are neither generally spoken about, nor properly addressed in churches,. Therefore, it’s quite easy to not only to compromise belief, but to avoid accountability for ungodly living and keep under the radar.
When looking at this question, “is the Bible positive about singleness?”, it’s easy for us to jump straight to the Apostle Paul’s verdict, “I wish that all men were [unmarried] as I am”– 1 Cor 7:7. But how do we reconcile this with the consistent emphasis on marriage and filling the land throughout the Old Testament? This seems to be one of God’s priorities from the start, beginning with God’s command to Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” – Gen 1:28.
“I want to talk about sex and relationships” said Dr Helen Roseveare as we interviewed her at the Keswick Convention as part of the 19-24s stream back in 2011. She continued. “Being single is a gift from God and we can use it to serve Him. We don’t need to go chasing a life of romance and sex”. I found that deeply challenging in a world that was telling me otherwise. I’ll come back to Dr Roseveare.
Independent evangelical churches very rarely appoint single men as elders. Personally, I don’t know any other single elders. The reasons for this are cultural, historical and a mis-reading of Bible teaching. The key texts used in the argument against single elders are 1 Timothy 3:2 where the elder is to be the husband of ‘but one wife’ and Titus 1:6 which again talks about the elder being a husband of ‘but one wife’ and ‘whose children believe’.