I liked this post. I can’t say I have anything really great to say, but I think you’re on to something. It has often bothered me how a process that is so obsessed with benefiting oneself,
fits into a Christian context.

All I want to say is I don’t think there is anything wrong in realizing that someone you’re dating is not someone that you should marry. But I think that consumerism lies more in how we treat and look at that person, then in that process itself. At the root of consumerism, in my opinion, is a preoccupation with self. In my experience, we are much more prone to be selfishness in a dating relationship than a friendship (where the sole objective is not getting that person to date you.

Therefore, I’m pretty convinced that if you formed authentic relationships with the people some of these problems are solved. (I suppose this is hard, especially if you like someone, to put your mind in check to not start forming a friendship as a means to an end.) But, I think if you had a genuine friendship with someone, you are much more prone to see their worth as a person, and not view them as product to benefit you. Then, if you start dating someone who is already very important to you, as a person and as a friend, that will influence how you treat that person.

If you already ‘love’ this person for who they are, and have a genuine relationship with them, then I think it is much easier to be unselfish in the relationship. Even if you end up breaking up, I think you’re are much less likely to make that decision based on superficial reasons, as if you were buying a car. Besides, I think the process we go through in judging people’s personalities and appearances is a different problem in itself, where we are not looking at people the way God sees them, and this permeates our lives in every way.

Anyways, not sure if that makes sense, or addressed anything, but its what came to mind.

There’s a reason we choose our mates instead of just getting stuck with someone through pre-arranged marriages. I mean, yes, when you get married you DO have to decide that you’re going to love and stay with the person for the rest of your life, even if you change as people. But you do that after you date them and realize that you CAN promise to love them and stay with them for the rest of your life. You have to be in a relationship with someone, a relationship that isn’t permanent and allows you to leave if things go wrong, before you can promise to marry them. You DO have to discover whether you fit or not. And honestly, you generally can’t do that in a relationship that is strictly friendship. Yes, you will change down the road. But that doesn’t change the fact that some people are a better fit than others, and that others just shouldn’t be together. How can you discover that without dating?

Lauren, what is the reason we choose our mates now as opposed to the good ol’ fashion way? It certainly doesn’t show to be a better way in the divorce rates? All I’m saying through this post though is not to throw out dating, but there is def value in understanding it better and not just as another consumerist approach. We need to beware of these cultural ideals seeping into our ways of life as Dan pointed out. I guess though, to go on your comment, if you need to be with them to learn that you can love them, what makes us able to love someone and not love someone else?

“The hard question to ask now is whether there is any area of our society that has not somehow been afflicted by consumerism”

And the answer to that of course is the church.

This answer was brought to you in part by God himself.

Jesus – just do it!

And regarding your comment on the divorce rate… you can’t use that as an argument for an old fashioned way of choosing a mate. During the “old fashioned way of choosing a mate” divorce was nearly impossible to get and you were basically shunned from society for getting divorced. So people stayed in horrible marriages because getting a divorce just wasn’t in the realm of possibility. You don’t know what the divorce rate would have been back then if divorce had been a viable response to a bad relationship.

Who knows, maybe the divorce rate would have been HIGHER back then if divorce was as accepted and easy to get as it is now.

Alas, I wish it were so. While I believe that church has been established by Jesus, as a body of human beings, it is open to the afflictions of our age, just as it was to the afflictions of other ages. The church erred in Paul’s time and it can do so in ours.

When people look to change to another church, they seem to go with a shopping list mentality. I cannot help but see this phenomenon around me.

This is not say that everyone does this, or that a true encounter with God has been rendered impossible, it’s just that I cannot deny seeing consumerism creeping into church. I wish it were not so.

Good point about the divorce rate.

So we don’t entirely disgagree. I believe the most important love is love as a choice. But I also think that you should be with someone who you can be “in love” with. And you can’t be “in love” with just anybody.