A friend was telling me about the class of junior high girls she worked with at her church. “The most important things in the average junior high girl’s life are clothes and having a boyfriend.” she said. “Just the other day one of the girls called me. She was prac­tically in tears saying, ‘I don’t have a boyfriend! I need a boyfriend!’ I tried to calm her down and convince her it wasn’t important but she wouldn’t listen.”

“How old is she?” I asked.

“Fourteen.”

When it comes to relationships in America, teenagers are in a frenzy. Like crazed sharks, teens are in a state of confusion, grasping at anything and everything that promises fulfillment or happiness. This can be seen clearly in the institution called dating. “Dating is ‘me’ centered,” says Debbie Lechner, an 18-year-old home schooler from Pennsylvania. In the dating system everybody has somebody - a boyfriend, a girlfriend. And if you don’t, something is wrong with you.

“There is pressure in high school for you to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. It’s just there,” says Matt Dotson, a graduate of a public school. “Anyone who is looked at as ‘cool’ is going to have a boyfriend or girlfriend.”

The dilemma serious Christian teens face is that most of the world, including a majority of the Christian community, has already determined that dating is a “nutritious part of this complete teenage experience”. Home schooler Rebekah Garfield says, “Most of my friends date. It used to be real diffi­cult because they were always wanting to fix me up with some­body or pushing me to go out with somebody.”

But the Christian who sees the dating road littered with broken hearts and dotted with the pot holes and pit falls of temptation must ask, “Is the dating road a detour from God’s travel plans for my life?” and “Is there a better, safer road to marriage ?“

A New Route

Recently Christian parents, along with their teens, have real­ized the need to remap the route to fruitful, God-ordained marriages. The result has been a push, particularly among home schoolers, to return to the more biblical principles of courtship.

Simply defined, courtship is a reformed version of dating under the supervision of parents between a man and woman who are ready to marry in the near future. In consumer terms, contemporary dating is equivalent to window shopping, and courtship is shopping cash in hand under the direction of experienced buyers. The term used is not important. What’s important is that courtship bypasses the pitfalls of contempo­rary dating and provides a much safer, smoother ride to the union of man and wife.

Dating Problems

Courtship Solutions

The first major problem of dating is that it has very little to do with marriage. “The purpose of dating is to have a good time,” says Bethany Albers, a senior at a small Christian school in Oregon. This means that for most people the dating road doesn’t have a destination. Bethany explains, “The problem with not having a direction is that you’re just kind of floating around. You don’t have any definite guidelines, for instance, of where you’re going to stop physically or how committed you’re going to be even just emotionally.”

Dating has always been a way for young people to experi­ence the exciting, romantic side of a relationship without commitment or responsibility. A boyfriend/girlfriend relation­ship provides feelings of intimacy and creates emotional “highs”, (“Oh, when he says ‘I love you.’ tingles run up my spine!”) but it has nothing to hold it together. Because most teens who date are not in a position to marry, the relationship has nowhere to go. The result is that the relationship “peaks out” as dealing with physical temptation brought on by emo­tional intimacy becomes the focus of the relationship. Most couples break up at this point and move on to new relation­ships seeking the excitement of “falling in love”. This kind of dating pattern is nothing more than a training ground for divorce. The person who falls into this cycle has given most of his heart away to others by the time he meets his spouse.

Courtship remedies this problem because it has a definite planned destination: life long marriage. A person is ready to begin the process of courtship when he or she is ready to marry in the very near future. While you might date someone you have no long term interest in, you only court a person who has

shown promise of possessing character qualities you and your parents have established as being important.

The decision of when a young person is ready for marriage is one that should be reached with the help of parents and based on certain criteria. Mike Farris, in his book The Homeschooling Father, says young men should be prepared for marriage in the three practical areas of: career and finances, home maintenance, and fatherhood. For girls the areas of practical preparation are: teaching, home-making, and moth­erhood. Young men and women should not enter into courtship until they are prepared in each of these areas. These criteria obviously exclude a great number of teens.

Another advantage of courtship’s clearly stated intent is that it avoids the “broken heart syndrome” associated with dating. Bethany Albers says this is worth avoiding, “When the one guy I dated seriously broke up with me, it was definitely the toughest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Matt Dotson explains the outcome of the “going-out/breaking-up” cycle, “When you give someone your heart, it’s different the next time around. You’re leery, and in the back of your mind you’re thinking, ‘I don’t want to do this because I don’t want to get hurt again.”

Because the goal in a courtship relationship is not to achieve emotional and physical intimacy, the couple can terminate a relationship without leaving a piece of their heart behind. The courtship rela­tionship is not long term. You don’t have a “steady courtship” for all of high school and two years of college. Courtship need only be as long as it takes to get to know a person and deter­mine if he or she has certain character­istics. If the person lacks the qualities you’re looking for, there is no reason to continue courtship.

The second major pitfall of dating is that it takes place outside of the home. The whole concept of a date or a dating relationship is two people being alone, iso­lated from the rest of the world. Whether the two find their isolation in the anonymity of a public place or on the telephone, their goal is privacy. The result is that the couple becomes isolated from family, friends, and even God as their lives begin to revolve around the relationship. Rebekah Garfield observes, “There is almost always a breakdown in your relationship with God even if that’s not your intention. Your focus becomes pleasing that person and doing stuff with them.”

This isolation often leads to sexual temptation. “You’re alone too much,” says Dotson. “You’re automatically going to go down hill. It opens the door physically.” God’s word tells us clearly in 2 Timothy 2:22 to “Flee the evil desires of youth”, not get as close as possible. Dating separates two people from the protection of those who love them the most and sets them up to fail.

Because courtship brings the process back into the home, it protects the couple from much of the temptation of physical involvement.

For the person ready for marriage and looking for a partner, dating’s third major problem can be dangerous; dating creates an artificial environment for two people to get to know each other. Rebekah laughs when she thinks of the dating relationships around her. “My friends’ dating relationships are real superficial a lot of times. They’re just putting on a show to impress the other person.”

In a dating relationship the guy and girl are not only on their best behavior, but they are also removed from those who really know them, their families. In a dating relationship it’s easy to make a good impression, that is in fact, a false impres­sion.

Courtship takes place under the guidance of both families and in the setting of home life. This keeps the couple from being wrapped up in themselves and helps them to see their relationship in the context of real life.

Courtship = No Friends?

The mistaken idea many have is that the teenager who rejects the dating system has to avoid friendship with members of the opposite sex. This is not the case. “My family goes by the courtship idea and just recently I’ve really committed myself to that,” says Rebekah Garfield. But Rebekah still has friend­ships with guys. “I have lots and lots of guy friends,” she says. “I have some really great relationships with guys just on the friendship level.”

In these friendships it is vital that the teenager and his or her parents are working as a team. Honest communication and submission to parental authority and judgment keep rela­tionships protected. “If a guy comes along and wants to date me, I direct him to my father,” says Rebekah. “If you don’t have a relationship with your parents, forget about keeping a courtship commitment.”

Once parents and teens start working together they can develop ways to have protected relationships. “I feel very strongly that the whole involvement of family relationships and hospitality has to take place,” says Linda Werner a home-schooling mother of two teens. “Parents have to reach out to other families that have kids and make an effort to get out and do things as groups in a family context.”

Utilizing Youth

Finally, courtship allows the teenager to wisely utilize the energy and relative freedom the teenage years provide. Instead of wasting energy on short-term dating relationships, many teenagers are realizing courtship allows them to focus on preparation for life, and being ready for marriage. “For me courtship means I can be free until I’m ready to get married,” says Rebekah. “I don’t have to concentrate on looking for the right person, because I know God is going to bring the right person along.”

“I don’t consider courtship old-fashioned,” says Rebekah. “I have many friends that are doing it, and I’ve seen the suc­cess that a lot of them who are now married have had. Most people that are critical of courtship just want to date, and they’re not looking for alternatives. They’re going have a crit­ical perspective. Their focus isn’t in the right place. They want to satisfy themselves.”

Ultimately, courtship is a change of attitude toward rela­tionships. The courtship attitude not only alters the way you look for a spouse; it changes the way you treat members of the opposite sex. Serious Christian teens must realize that the boyfriend/girlfriend exclusiveness of the dating system is based on a self-seeking, pleasure-seeking attitude toward relation­ships. It is an attitude that is unwilling to wait for the emo­tional and physical gratification of marriage. On the other hand, the attitude of courtship is one of patience and waiting for the Lord’s perfect plan. It is not some evil concoction invented by parents to keep something good from their chil­dren. Instead, courtship is a smarter, more biblical way to choose a life partner and relate to members of the opposite sex. Not centered on self, it seeks to bless others, not use them. The dating road is not the only road. God has given young people a better route that not only leads to the right destination, but also helps make the teenage years the best they can be.

THE HISTORY OF DATING

Dating was born around the turn of the century and by the mid 1920’s it had firmly taken root. Before dating came along “call­ing” was the established practice. A guy would go to a girl’s home to talk with her, meet her parents, and possibly have some refreshments. Calling placed its emphasis on parental involvement and gave the girl the upper hand in the relation­ship. She was able to either accept or refuse a caller and, because all contact took place in her home control the environ­ment. Dating changed every­thing

The automobile, along with an increase in urban middle class America, gave rise to getting out of the home and going on “dates”. In the new system of dating the guy had the upper hand. He was taking the girl into the outside world and covering the expense of transportation dining and entertainment Money became the central issue of dating The more money a man had the better date he could provide and logically the better (prettier higher social standing etc) girl he could take out

World War II which took over 16 million American men from the home-land, greatly affected dating in America. Before the War it was desirable to be dating as many different people as possible At dances girls and boys dreaded being stuck with a single partner A popular girl expected to have a stag line of boys waiting to dance with her But when the dust had set­tled after the War, all young people wanted was constancy. Dating now moved into the going steady era

The war also brought a rise in young marriages The result was that teens at ever earlier ages began entering the dating system Beth Bailey in her book From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in 20th Century America explains If girls were to marry at eighteen and boys at twenty the preparation for marriage - the shopping around if you will - had to begin earlier than before.”

This early dating pattern flourished with the support of par­ents who by encouraging their children (organizing dances for twelve-year-olds in strapless formals etc) hoped to gain some control in the mate selection Unfortunately these parents had little foresight into where early dating would lead What parents once encouraged in the 1950’s is today out of control, as pre­marital sex is not only acceptable but expected.

Guidelines for keeping friendships out of the ROMANTIC ZONE!

1. Communicate from start that relationship must be friendship only and make friend a friend of the family.

2. Avoid spending time alone or lots of time on phone.

3. Avoid certain topics like your long-term plans for the future. Sharing your hopes and dreams creates a sense of intimacy, and the future suddenly becomes “our future”.

4. Avoid counseling positions that breed dependency. If a guy/girl comes to you with problems, direct them to an authority for counsel.

5. Girls, watch the way you dress. It greatly affects whether guys view, you as a friend or an object to obtain. Be modest!

6. It the other person begins to communicate romantic, more-than-friends feelings, direct them to your parents.