It Takes A Church

          Naomi Graber, my Bible & Religion bestie from back in the day at Bethel, and also the inspiration for this blog (I used to review movies on her Facebook page!) told me about this show (alternate titles "Whirlwind Relationships Are The Best Kind," "The Christian Bachelorette," and "Women Must Be Married To Access Their Full Social Capital." Apparently one of the episodes is set in Goshen, Indiana, where some of my people, the Mennonites, live and study at the nearby seminary and college. Ostensibly, the show follows a young godly churchgoing woman whose loving church finds her some godly churchgoing men to pick from, because if there’s nothing a young godly woman should ever be, it’s alone (It’s biblical – look it up); and also because it's time for the woman to stop kissing dating goodbye whether she wants to or not. Also, even though it couldn’t possibly get any better (BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE), it’s hosted by Natalie Grant, contemporary Christian music’s finest seductress of the soul (who is in no way related to Amy Grant, contemporary Christian music's OTHER seductress of the soul. It's a small genre, not a lot of players on the court).

1.       Natalie Grant, honestly, I loved your music. “I Will Not Be Moved” was my jam, back in the day.

2.       “This girl has NO IDEA that her dating life is about to be kicked into HIGH GEAR!” Yeah, that’s what every woman wants, to have everyone else choose men for her to choose from. Great story to tell your kids when they ask how Mommy and Daddy met. As an aside, my parents met on the very first day of collage. You better believe I had high expectations for MY first day. Instead, I met my second cousin. 

3.       She’s 27 and single and obviously a Sweet Sister (which is apparently what the Mormons call any girl over like, 25, because they are old maids with shriveled ovaries, destined for a life of solitude and service). 

4.       Oh god the first one is a dental student with a ponytail. “You just look at him, and he’s hot.” Not the adjective I would’ve chosen, but ok. He does have really nice teeth, I guess?

5.       The second one is a guitar teacher that plays on the worship band at the girl’s church. She had no idea that he was single, and I just feel like if your church is so big that you don’t know who’s single and who’s not, your church is too big. He also wrote a song for her. He sings it, and does that annoying thing where he sings the first five words loudly, and then the end of the phrase softly, so idk what he actually is saying. He’s also 23 – as we say in Kansas, a young’un.  

6.       Third one is a youth pastor omg. “I can’t believe that all these men are here, and they want to date me!” Girl, have some self-esteem, gosh.

7.       Another is a seminary student, omg I bet he’s Mennonite!

8.       Another one is a hog farmer, and he just looks like a Mennonite. He brought her a stuffed pig, and that’s kind of cute. I thought she said “he’s tall, he’s got great buttocks,” and I had to rewind it and put on subtitles, because I was sure that couldn’t be what was said, and it wasn’t. It was “athletic” which is also code for “great buttocks.”

9.       The church votes for which bachelors she gets to date. I just feel like, if your church is so big that you don’t know who’s single and who’s not, your church is too big to be deciding which of these guys you do and don’t get to maybe marry.

10.   The church picks Great Buttocks, Ponytail Dentist, and Young’un. I am personally pulling for Great Buttocks, mostly because he looks like he’s a Mennonite.

11.   Pastor Jim states that Sweet Sister feels like a daughter to him, and that he will protect her. Gross. Patriarchal. He also chooses Youth Pastor so that Sweet Sister can have more great options.

12.   The church gets a dance instructor to teach Sweet Sister and the Dudes how to dance, and this church is OBVIOUSLY not Mennonite, because as we all know, Mennonites don’t have sex standing up because it may lead to dancing.

13.   Sweet Sister went to Huntington College, and I know Mennonites that went to Huntington (s/o to Jonathan Brenneman!). Great Buttocks went to Taylor, and I know Mennonites who went to Taylor (s/o to Emily Fox and Joy Wahnefried!). It’s a small world, and those aren’t even Mennonite colleges.

14.   Youth Pastor totally knows how to swing dance, and I appreciate that. “Youth Pastor totally took the lead, and I appreciate and want a guy who’s gonna take the lead and take care of me!” Ugh. Nothing is sexier than not having your own opinions. Someone’s been reading too much about how the husband is the head of the family. Thanks, Apostle Paul, you misogynistic jerkface.  

15.   Sweet Sister found out that Young’un is a basically a baby, and she’s like “um…………..” To be fair, girl, given projected life expectancies for men vs women, you’d both die at approximately the same time, so you may as well go for it.

16.   “Ponytail Dentist is 185 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal right there!” Wow what kind of church even IS this? You don’t say “the s word” unless you’re telling kids how to save it for marriage and how not-Christians have premarital sex and that is like a piece of duct tape that has been passed around and stuck to everyone’s jeans, and that’s how your soul is after you’ve had lots of un-Christian premarital sex (sticky souls are REALLY important to God, apparently). In summary – atheists are godless pieces of used duct tape, and don’t let anyone tell you different.

17.   Great Buttocks, Ponytail Dentist, and Young’un move on to the next round. Shameless “Christian Mingle” plug, because whoever doesn’t win gets a year’s subscription to “ChristianMingle.com,” which definitely did NOT sponsor the movie “Christian Mingle” (see “Christian Mingle” review on this blog).

18.   It’s apparently like, October-April in Goshen Indiana, because there are like 3’ of snow on the ground, and neither Sweet Sister nor Natalie Grant is wearing a coat, because it would ruin their outfits or something sexist like that.

19.   Pastor Jim watches Sweet Sister and Young’un throw a vase on a pottery wheel, and there is absolutely no chemistry whatsoever. 

20.   Great Buttocks tries to teach Sweet Sister pottery and it’s adorable, mostly because I want him to win. Then they pray about how bad they’re doing, and I just really wish they’d thrown in a “clay in the potter’s hand” reference, like “are you guys Christians, or not, because that was literally the perfect setup, and you just let it pass on by."

21.   Ponytail Dentist is just so confident at doing something he’s never done before, and she just LOVES that. Nothing is sexier than faking it for the benefit of another's self-esteem, amirite?

22.   Ponytail Dentist and Great Buttocks move on to the next round, and Young’un presumably goes to AMBS to date women his own age.

23.   Great Buttocks takes Sweet Sister ice skating, and I would legitimately marry any man who takes me ice skating for a first date, even though I’m already married. I freaking love ice skating.

24.   Great Buttocks did a short-term mission trip for one week and OMG SO DID SWEET SISTER INSTANT CONNECTION OMG. Full disclosure – I used to do short-term missions, and while I personally enjoyed getting to travel to another country and learn new things, short-term mission trips are crap, a waste of local resources and time, and really just serve to reinforce the White Savior Complex and Western dominance. Next time, kids, take the money you would’ve spent and just donate it to a local charity in the place that you would’ve done your mission trip – I promise it will be better spent that if you were to go down there and build a house yourself with your no skills at all.

25.   Ponytail Dentist takes Sweet Sister to a freaking pool hall.  A POOL HALL. If you took me to a pool hall for our first date, I would just leave. I’m sorry, but pool halling is second only to like, BOWLING, for bad first dates.

26.   Ponytail Dentist is a rock climber who has been to India, tents in the Serengeti, Istanbul, done medical care in Haiti, and he shows horses. Like, ok, buddy, we get it, you’re a try-hard. He is probably nice, and Sweet Sister seems to really like him, but he just reminds me of tech bros in the Bay, and I just can’t even. He probably has also been to Burning Man.

27.   Sweet Sister has to say, in front of her entire congregation, which dude she’s gonna choose to date/court/marry, and that just sounds like my literal worst nightmare. 

28.   AAAAND she chooses Great Buttocks, which is who I would have chosen, if I were on stage in front of my large church and everyone was picking men for me to go on dates with and then I had to pick one out of the bunch to date/court/marry. No "6 months later," though, so who the heck knows if she even saw the guy ever again, or wrastled pigs at his hog farm, or decided to date/court/marry him. As an aside, to those uninitiated in the ways of Christian living, dating is when you see someone special, but with no expectation of permanence. COURTING, however, is when you see someone special, but with every expectation of permanence ("why give your heart away piece by piece to different men/women, if you could do it all at once, to one man/woman?" the thinking goes). In addition, courting allows the couple to feel morally superior to everyone else, as evidenced by this book  about courting (also written by my boy Josh Harris, who has since walked back all of the profound dating advice he gave when he was 21 and had never dated before).

      

                In summary – not the worst, I guess? Definitely better than "God's Not Dead (1)," or "Christian Mingle," if that's our litmus test for how awful Christian media can get. If you like “The Bachelorette,” but don’t like all of the sleazy-sexy bikini shots, and the contrived drama, and the alcoholism, and the implied sexytimes; but you DO like bad flashbacks from that one time that your church growing up had a youth retreat where the boys and girls divided up and the girls talked about how to stay pure for marriage and how to dress to not tempt your Christian brothers into sinning FOR AN ENTIRE WEEKEND, and the boys talked about idk, masturbation and how girls owed it to you to cover up because you couldn't help yourself FOR AN ENTIRE WEEKEND, and your youth pastor told your friend that if she was holding hands with her boyfriend in public, then she must be sexing him in private; and you also like the idea of people choosing your men for you, then yeah, this show just might be for you!

      TL;DR - the Christian dating scene can get real weird real quick.