I Kissed Dating Hello, and You Should, Too

My poor parents. They knew nothing about purity culture, courtship, or even much about the Bible. I had become a born-again Christian my first year of college, and my suitor (now husband) Michael, who my parents had never met, called them one day. “I want to ask permission to court your daughter,” he said. 

 “What does that mean?” Mom asked, as she genuinely didn’t understand. After some clarification, my parents conferred for a moment, then answered:

“She’s been dating whoever she wanted, and pretty much doing whatever she wanted, since she was 15. Now she’s 21. Have at it.” 

Mom and Dad didn’t realize the seriousness of courtship, though. When Mike called back half a year later to ask for my hand in marriage, they freaked out. 

“You’re getting engaged?”  

“Yes!”

“But we don’t even know you!” they howled in objection. 

Eventually Mike persuaded them to accept the surprise engagement. To their credit they generously threw a fabulous wedding and reception in their backyard.

The Courtship Model 

Any Christian who journeyed through young adulthood in the 90s and early 2000s knows about the “courtship model” of finding a life partner. (If you know you know.) Courtship became a thing when certain Christian leaders attempted to bring ancient partnering practices back into modern life. They canceled dating, presenting what they believed to be a more righteous alternative. Their idea stuck. Among other tributaries of the wider movement, the True Love Waits abstinence movement took off like holy fire, ultimately garnering over two million followers worldwide. (1)  

In 1997, 24-year-old Joshua Harris’s blockbuster book I Kissed Dating Goodbye sold over a million copies and, along with missionary and purity advocate Elizabeth Elliot’s books, became part of the standard text of the courtship movement. Many Christian young people made the dating-to-courtship switch. This change erected more guardrails against premarital sex than since the days of chastity belts.

But as with so many exciting trends, the movement—or much of it—crested, arced, and crashed into self-immolation. Joshua Harris deconstructed his teachings and is now a divorced non-Christian. Scores of books, blogs, and social media accounts have been dedicated to processing the pain suffered and losses sustained. I believe the deconstruction of courtship and purity culture have gone too far, but I don’t deny the damage. I have written extensively on this subject, soon to be published in an upcoming book, Try This at Home: Dating. 

For our purposes in this blog, however, I want to bypass the dissection of courtship and present an alternative model. I believe this model retains the positives of the courtship model while correcting for the negatives. 

The model re-includes dating, which, unburdened from the practice of premarital sex, is a noble tradition. 

I hold my views lightly because while good models may assist us in living godly lives, no model is bug-free. And models must be adapted to circumstances and individuals. So, with humility that the courtship movement lacked, I present:

The Covenant Seeking Model (CSM). 

I believe it’s better than the alternatives. Let me count the ways. 

I believe CSM improves on hookup culture.

Probably the single best guarantee of never finding the right partner is to hook up. In addition to scores of other fatal flaws, hookup’s casual sex can make people, especially men, fall out of love rather than in love. (2) Remember Amnon who raped Tamar? After the event, “the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her” (2 Samuel 3:15). This ancient story, though an extreme version of it, displays this sexual-conquest-leading-to-rejection phenomenon vividly. It surprises no one reading this blog that treating one another as breeding animals kills our more refined impulses. 

I believe CSM improves on modern dating 

Although dating is more restrained than hookup culture, it courts danger, too. Given that 30 to 40 percent of dating couples have sex within the first month (3), and given that half of romantic relationships fail, with some sources giving failure rates of more than 85 percent, (4 & 5) the dating model produces scores of broken hearts.  

In premarital sex, both partners literally leave some of themselves behind. God has, “established the laws of heaven and earth” (Jeremiah 33:25) including the laws governing our being. The bonding hormones of sex lie to the body, saying, “This is a forever relationship” when too often it is transient. There is some evidence that microchimerism, the transfer of DNA from one body to another found in childbirth, also happens with intercourse. (6)

Christians sometimes adopt a modification of the dating model, having “veggie sex,” in the form of manual and oral sex, instead of intercourse. As far as the body is concerned, these forms of sex are still sex. They still stir up those bonding chemicals in the same ways. To be skin to skin with another human, hormones rushing through the veins, is no small thing. When such a relationship severs, biology groans with loss. The modern dating model, even the Christian “veggie” version, bears the responsibility for much post-relationship distress. 

I believe CSM improves on modern courtship.

To its credit, the courtship model attempted to prevent the harm of premature bonding, extramarital sex, and break-ups. But human nature tends to overcorrect. In its most extreme forms, courtship: 

• Singled out females as morality gatekeepers,

• Elevated virginity as innately holy,

• Creepily overfocused on female modesty, 

• Turned biblical headship of fathers into ownership of daughters, 

• Deprived young people of appropriate social interaction,

• Presented waiting for sex as a guarantee of good married sex,

• Naively assumed courtship would guarantee a good marriage,

• Neglected teaching on basic relationship skills such as conflict management,

• Undervalued singleness, 

• Presented extrabiblical rules and restraints as the path to love, and 

• Prematurely matched people who really didn’t know one another. 

I love my husband of 47 years, but some of our struggles have reflected the weaknesses of the courtship model. Ironically, it placed so many restraints on our interactions that it left no room for courtship which is, after all, the process of courting the affections of another, which, last I checked, required interaction unhampered by excessive rules and checkpoints. 

Introducing the Covenant-Seeking Model

Where do faithful partner-seekers go from here? I humbly present an alternative model. I am indebted to Thomas Umstattd, Jr. who in his viral blog post, “Is Courtship Fundamentally Flawed?” (7) helped me develop this third option. Umstattd details his transition from being a vigorous proponent of modern courtship to adopting the model his grandparents followed. 

He begins with a story in which his grandmother asks him, “How can you tell who you want to marry if you aren’t going out on dates?” She then explains how dating happened during her teen and young adult years—it could be done even by teens with one rule: Don’t date the same person twice; that would be going steady, and teens were too young for that. In other words, dating was a non-committal opportunity to get to know members of the opposite sex. The modern dating model burdens every relationship with sex, but the courtship model prematurely burdens every relationship with marriage! Both models impose heavy burdens too soon and too fast. 

What I’m calling the Covenant-Seeking Model allows for a phase of getting to know potential partners which I call friendship dating. Once a pair is “exclusive,” they transition into committed dating, then if all checks out, moves on to engagement and marriage. This model allows people to become acquainted with a wide variety of potential partners before settling on one. 

It’s called covenant-seeking because its goal is finding a life partner with whom to form a covenant. The posture is one of service, where instead of mere self-gratification, we seek to form a partnership that will bless our partner and the world. In the covenant-seeking process, single people first meet a variety of individuals, hopefully forming positive affiliations with all of them. It follows in the footsteps of the Savior, who “grew in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). 

Self-giving doesn’t exclude the pursuit of happiness. To find a life partner who makes us happy is an act of good stewardship, and ultimately, service. Why do we stay fed and rested? Because when we feel good, we can be our best selves. Similarly, if our primary relationship provides a baseline of contentment, we will have more energy to serve and bless others.  

But the gospel-based approach also considers the good of the partner. It asks, “Will the partner benefit temporally, morally, and spiritually from a connection with me?” God calls us to live in a constant, sensitive awareness of the needs of others. Relationships thrive best when in a state of mutual self-giving. To find a partner who will serve us even as we serve him/her is to find a very good thing! 

The gospel-based approach also considers the union’s benefit to the world. Will both families be blessed through it? What about the family of God, the faith community? Will the union change the world for the better? Biblical holism leads us to consider the ripple effect of all our relationships.  

Friendship Dating, Committed Dating, and Engagement 

While the application of these principles will look different for each person, I suggest that many following this model will enjoy three phases of covenant-seeking: friendship dating, committed dating, and engagement. 

Friendship dating is taking time to get to know a member of the opposite sex in a one-on-one context (as opposed to just hanging out with a group). These dates can be micro, medium, and maxi dates. A micro date can be a walk around the block at a conference, a medium date might be grabbing a sandwich at a food truck, and a maxi date might be the full sit-down dinner at a fancy restaurant. Micro and medium dates work best for the friendship phase. 

Don’t be overly worried about being “friend-zoned,” as friendships can and do transition into romances. Putting friendship first won’t kill romantic aspirations any more than warming up to play a sport prevents athletic performance. My friend Becky turned down her college classmate Nathan’s romantic offer, but he countered with, “Okay, let’s just be friends.” One thing led to another, and now they’ve been married 27 years. 

And if romance never occurs, at least you’ve built a friendship. Of course, this means awkward DTR (“define the relationship”) conversations, but we’re all grownups, right? Sometimes one person will want to progress to an exclusive dating relationship and the other won’t. Love is a dangerous game. But at least if we must walk away, we walk away friends rather than spurned lovers, keeping our dignity through disappointment. 

Committed dating is courtship in the truest sense. The partners form an exclusive relationship in which they come to know each other even more deeply. During this phase the partners ask two fundamental questions about marriage: Are we both ready? and, Are we compatible? 

Readiness entails basic spiritual, emotional, and relational maturity. In the upcoming book we have an assessment utilizing the spiritual fruit of Galatians 5, but just a simple read-through will reveal the characteristics—love, joy, peace, longsuffering to name a few—that make marriages, and all relationships, work. 

Compatibility involves making sure the partners have basic alignment of faith, values, habits, and mission. (The upcoming book has a compatibility assessment, too!) Traditionally, dating couples don’t seek counseling, but I have come to encourage them to explore readiness and compatibility before engagement. Abide Network in conjunction with Try This at Home: Dating will soon be offering a Pre-engagement course and coaching bundle! 

Engagement comes next, with all its joy and promise of a new marriage. If the light is green, couples should proceed to this step and then the wedding itself. Halleluia! 

Marriage has received a bad rap in popular culture. Media portrays it as a romance-killing compromise for the sake of security, and secular ideology spurns traditional marriage as too restrictive. As if this weren’t enough, Christians must struggle with some of the Bible’s cautions about hasty unions, then Adventists add the layer of Ellen White’s cautions and the nearness of the end times. But guess what? Even with these cautions in place, marriage is still a blessed, God-designed covenant that, led by the Spirit, will increase the happiness and flourishing of humans. 

So let’s get crackin’. Or datin’. A great place to start is attending the Try This at Home: Dating retreat in Dayton (Maybe we’ll rename it Datin’) Ohio this July 24-26. Sign up now for a chance to meet that special someone. Reach out to us on social media for a special discount code.

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1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/abstinence-pledge-evangelicals.html

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyq2Wo4eUDg 

3. https://ifstudies.org/blog/slow-but-sure-does-the-timing-of-sex-during-dating-matter#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20as%20noted%20in,higher%20for%20currently%20cohabiting%20couples

4. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/18/how-the-likelihood-of-breaking-up-changes-as-time-goes-by/

5.https://www.prweb.com/releases/over_85_of_dating_ends_up_in_breakups_upcoming_new_book_on_relationships_sheds_light/prweb11278931.htm

6. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/abstinence-pledge-evangelicals.html

7. https://www.thomasumstattd.com/2014/08/courtship-fundamentally-flawed/