Expanding on a question asked in another post.

Deep_Strength · 2018-07-13T18:04:35+00:00

I have contemplated the same reality as I live in a very large US city known for its beautiful women and have yet to come across a female who is single (30 - 40 age range) that I find attractive (been in this church for 6 yrs).

My theory is: Individuals (men and women) who have achieved or who are striving to achieve success, as defined by the world, are not naturally attracted to true biblical Christianity. For men the world values wealth and for women beauty. If the world is validating you based on your achievements (or your pursuit of) in those areas why does one need to look elsewhere.

From my experience, Churches often trump up the fact that we should be striving for godliness and character over external appearance (which is true) and in so doing relegate external things like beauty to no importance at all (which is going too far).

This is a problem for singles because then you have a lot of underweight, overweight and obese men and women wanting to get married and thinking that the other sex should 'love them for who they are' when the reality is that men and women want to marry someone who is attractive to them.

If you got all of the single men and women on the Church lifting weights, eating healthy, and otherwise dressing more masculine and feminine respectively, I am absolutely sure that you would see a lot more attraction and marriages between the men and women in the Churches.

But who wants to take the risk to preach that from the pulpit, especially when you could get accused for PC fat shaming. Plus it's uncomfortable to preach on topics like that. It's also why you rarely hear a sex, pornography, or divorce sermon. Pastors want to sweep those topics under the rug, to the detriment of the congregation

palmorwrist · 2018-07-13T18:16:22+00:00

Good observations. I often question whether or not the Church is just another form of a country club where the well-adjusted go to socialize, and how this tendency can be combated.

Regarding women, I think it is pretty well established that all the "good" (i.e. attractive) Christian girls are married off relatively young. I would bet there are attractive women in your congregation - it's just that most/all are taken.

But stepping back from the assertion that there are "no good looking women in the pews" - maybe it's just me (admittedly a horn-dog) but any practically any woman who is not fat is bangable in my mind. All these guys with their incredibly high beauty standards have probably corrupted by mass-media and porn methinks.

Are those average dudes and gals sitting in the pews every Sunday truly saved or are they there because the church is where they fit in?

If they are exposed to God's word week after week, no matter what the motivation, it should produce some effect. As Christ says in the beatitudes (and you allude to in your post) the meek shall inherit the earth. If the church is t refuge for the meek, and it is God's prerogative to draw that type of person, who's to say otherwise?

Red-Curious · 2018-07-13T19:24:00+00:00

This is brilliant! It's almost like something Jesus would have said. Oh yeah ... not to steal your thunder, but he did. In the parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14:15-24) Jesus talks of a rich man who invites all of his other rich friends to a banquet. None of them come because they have their other rich-people things to do. So, he sends his servants out to "bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame."

Even after that there was still room, so he has his servants COMPEL those on the "roads and country lanes" to "come in, so that my house will be full." But "not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet."

So, as you say, it's not surprising that we get the average and the below-average in the faith more than the above-average. Jesus said this is how it would be.

BUT!!! Jesus also compels us to a higher standard once we're in. We are to become the "above average" if we were not already that way when we joined.

This is true not only with how we care for ourselves, through good stewardship of our bodies (the female side, as you indicated), but also in how we earn and manage our finances (the male side you mentioned). Ecc. 2:26 also comes to mind: "To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God."

Are those average dudes and gals sitting in the pews every Sunday truly saved or are they there because the church is where they fit in?

Salvation isn't decided based on how you compare to the average on the SMP. It's based on faith. The context of this conversation doesn't give any information to discuss whether someone is saved or not. That said, I think what you're getting at is a suggestion that some people join church not because they believe in Jesus, but because they need a place to belong. Yes, that's true. But no, we cannot make a sweeping generalization that any relative proportion of average people are there for this reason or not.

Title	Expanding on a question asked in another post.
Author	etaomega
Upvotes	5
Comments	26
Date	July 13, 2018 5:18 PM UTC (8 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/RPChristians
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/RPChristians/comments/8ylv1z/expanding_on_a_question_asked_in_another_post/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/RPChristians/expanding-on-a-question-asked-in-another-post.301846 https://theredarchive.com/post/301846

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