A Community of Men and Women

"Because the image of God denotes sociability, we therefore must be in community in order to develop fully as persons, and though this does not necessitate marriage, that community must include the opposite sex."
-Dr. Amy F. David Abdallah, The Book of Womanhood

The way men and women act within Christianity can be interesting at times, and I'm sure questionable to outsiders who may not be in the "Christian bubble." I have to admit, I am often flummoxed by the "rules" that men and women supposedly have to abide by in Christianity. The question I'll be addressing here is this - what are relationships between Christian men and women supposed to look like?

I feel like it's important to give a little background on my perspective. I did not grow up in what I would call a "Christian home." My family didn't go to church, and the Christian influences in my life were friends and their families who would sometimes invite me to church on Wednesday evenings and the occasional Sunday. I didn't start going to church or to a Bible study until my freshman year of college. This is where I became very involved in Baptist Collegiate Ministries (BCM) and later Impact Campus Ministries, and also attended a local Southern Baptist Church while I was away at school. Because of my background, I wasn't instilled with the "rules" that men and women should interact as little as possible, and especially not without a chaperone present. One of my female friends from college said that I shouldn't be seen alone with a boy because that would "give people the wrong idea." As someone new to the Christian world, this was all very confusing for me. I remembered thinking, aren't men and women just people?

I am the only daughter in my family, so growing up, many of my interactions were with boys. And this was never a problem for me or my family. I would spend time with my older brother and his friends, and anyone who knows me knows that my younger brother was and always will be my best friend. Tyler and I were inseparable growing up. I loved spending time with boys, especially these boys who loved and respected me and included me in everything they did. My closest friends in high school and college were boys, as well. I once drove three hours in college to a Halloween party at Anderson University, packed in a small car with four of my closest male friends from school. Don't get me wrong, I had just as many female friends, but my life was better (and still is) for having close male friendships.

But it seems like Christians try to distance themselves from the opposite sex, and I'm still not sure why.

When Justin and I were still in college, we had broken up for a bit (that's a long story), but we both went to a Christian leadership conference with other members of BCM in North Carolina. While we were there, Justin asked if I wanted to go play mini-golf with him, so we left to go walk to the course. Our leader stopped us and said he would go with us, pointing out that it was "inappropriate" for us to be going anywhere alone together. I was 21 and Justin was 22 at the time - we were adults! Like I said earlier, all of this made me question Christianity as a new follower. Was being a Christian about growing closer to Jesus, or adhering to a bunch of rules set in place by other Christians? What was so wrong with boys?

Justin and I have been talking about this topic a lot lately. Recently, he told me he went to high-five a woman at a music festival and she refused because she was engaged to be married. I don't understand this, but I'm not surprised by it because this is how I was conditioned to think during my first years as a Christian. And what is the deal with "side hugs"? I see "Christian side hugs" happening all the time, but I have a hard time believing that, if I saw Jesus here today, he would give me a side hug. The "rules" seem to be that men and women should stay as far away from each other as possible, unless they are married, and then it's appropriate to be around the spouse, but not other members of the opposite sex. I've been married for four years now, but I still love and cherish my friendships with other males. And my husband has many important female relationships in his life, as well. If one of my old college buddies called me up and wanted to have lunch, my husband would tell me to have a great time. There would be no trust issues there, no shaming me into letting go of all my relationships with other males. People are people.

A couple weeks ago, I went with my husband and our youth group to the Life 2016 conference in Kansas City, MO (for more on this, see my blog post My Week at LIFE 2016). While I was there, I attended a seminar by Dr. Amy Davis Abdallah, author of The Book of Womanhood. I was blown away by her talk and her discussion of women and Christianity (and I think she echoed quite a few things I talked about in this blog post: Women and the Church). I ended up purchasing her book and I've been reading through it since we got back. I've been so enthralled by The Book of Womanhood and what it says about women being made in the image of God and how we are called to be in community with others. Reading the quote from her book that I've provided at the beginning of this post really struck a chord with me; we are made to be in community with one another, and that involves both sexes! If this is true, then why do so many of my Christian friends tell me otherwise?

Davis Abdallah writes in her book, "Both female and male, the two sexes, are in God's image. God created sex, the act, and sex, the distinction between male and female" (26). She goes on to quote psychologist Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen when she states, "'If God is a social tri-unity whose image is in all persons, then it comes as no surprise to read in Genesis 2 that it is "not good" for the man to be alone. So God creates the woman. Once they are together, God's clear intention for male and female is equality and interdependence in the context of differing sexuality" (27). However, as Davis Abdallah points out later, this "does not necessitate marriage," but that community and fellowship "must contain the opposite sex" (28, emphasis added).

So, if this is true, why do Christians have such an aversion to the opposite sex? I don't have the answers, but I'm definitely interested in opening up conversation about this topic.