It seems to me that there should be a fine line between being motivated by trying to convince a someone to like you and trying to not act like a goon (I won’t let on that either of us are capable of being “smooth”). The former should be ruled out, but the latter, I think, can be motivated by love for the other, believing she deserves it. I think, if one were capable of it in the first place, one could be charming in the service of the other.

I like the idea of making dating public.

Awkwardness is something we have to accept if were going to attempt faithfulness in anything, of course. But I still think there are problems with dispensing wholesale with the Victorian cultural form of dating. Namely that it would be extremely difficult to make any sense of what is going on, what certain gestures or lengths of phone calls, etc. even mean without a typology to appeal to. Awkwardness is something we have to accept if were going to attempt faithfulness in anything, of course.

For us to pursue romance unselfishly we need to be so grasped by the meaningfulness of participation in God’s kingdom that we are free from the desire to fulfill ourselves through romance and sex. Of course THAT is no easy matter and requires commitment to all sorts of disciplines and practices before, during, and after romance. Most notably it brings us back to prayer and confession, I think.

I also think that its really important to be very clear about it being ok for relationships not to “work out”. I think in some ways we have to view dating with as little seriousness as possible, in the sense that we need to rob it of the sort of absolute status is claims and the sort of desperation it breeds. Getting to know another person in a romantic setting through long-term social interaction is certainly the creation of the post-Victorian West, and as such it will always be something of a problematic animal for Christians to engage. However, I think we can engage it, and shame the powers in doing so, by refusing to allow ourselves to get swept up in the desperation and lust that we so easily unleash in those settings. But doing so will just take a hell of a lot of work, confession, transparency, and rigorous attention to making sure things don’t get left on autopilot. Because as soon as our way of being in romance goes into autopilot we run into the fucking mountain pretty fast. At least I do.

I feel so much affinity with this critique of modern love. Especially this:

The fact is that in our romantic imaginations we seem to remain disturbingly trapped in the zeitgeist of our age, hoping that by journeying deeper into the abyss of our selfishness we will somehow find the community that we long for with the other.

I’m still lost for a positive account of trying to go about love or dating. I’ll kick your ass if you ever write a guide to dating (actually, I would probably put it in the wall of shame), but seriously, dating without selfishness would be so very bewildering and difficult. Maybe rightly so. So much of how dating works is based on cultural forms, contextualizing ourselves within familiar types from stories we know. But when our shared cultural story is Sex and the City, what do we draw on to try to make some sense of “dating”?

Bonhoeffer’s “spiritual love” need not signify a lack of intimacy, connection, or affection, rather the difference is dispositional. In disordered eros, the other is loved out of the longing to possess and absorb the other to complete the self. In authentic Christian love, the other is loved for the sake of Christ who transfigures the self and the other into persons who willingly give themselves to one another in Christ and for his sake.

Chris, I agree that making that distinction is hard, as I tried to hint at in the post. However, I think it is clear that in a great majority of our experience we are able to make that distinction with relative clarity. A lot of the time I just am trying to possess the other out of my own desire for fulfillment and satiation. Gift love is the goal and fulfillment of the impulses of our longings which come to be expressed as the sort of self-centered love that Bonhoeffer critiques. Certainly this does not exclude eros, but rather reconfigures it in the shape of gift and reception. Ultimately I don’t think Bonhoeffer’s argument should be taken as one against eros as such (like Nygren’s for example), but rather as a critique of its perversion in the world under false guises.

In other words, swearing off the eros of Sex and the City is a far cry from rejecting eros in its genuine agapeic form. Unpacking such issues, would of course take quite a bit more discussion and writing.

But is it so easy to separate between “gift love” and “need love”? Certainly, the kind of “love” Ruslana Korshanova describes is demonical, but what of the love b/w David and Jonathan, whose “hearts” were “knit together,” or that eroticism describe in Canticles, where the lover speaks of “eating” his beloved, and one speaks of belonging to the other: “I am my beloved,” etc?

Further, I think Bonhoeffer’s critique of eros differs from Augustine’s and Bernard’s. Though this admittedly is something of an oversimplification, these latter critiqued eros because of what it did to the soul of the “lover,” whereas Bonhoeffer is concerned more with what it does to the “beloved.” Their concerns were born of desire to be a properly-ordered self. Bonhoeffer’s concern is for the vitality and health of Christian community. In his Four Loves Lewis (rightly) critiques Augustine on this very score.

Also, Bonhoeffer’s concept of Christ as the mediator for all our relationships really helped me when I lost an interim ministry position to a more qualified fellow in a large denomination. I had to learn to view things in a way that centers on Jesus, not my fulfillment. Applying this to sexuality makes perfect sense. Thanks for this, you’re not alone in your experience of seeking romance in a cut-throat, destructive manner but I you’re also not alone in finding counsel in Life Together.