The Bad Theology of Christian Internet Dating – Or What I Thought About when I Heard a Commercial for Christian Mingle.com and Claims of Divine Providence

Internet dating sites are big business. And if there is a variant offering a pure, wholesome, and morally grounded experience, you can believe there is an entrepreneuring Christian out there who will exploit the opportunity.

Find the one God intended for you. The tag line is catchy and resembles a divine ideology concerning the providence of God and his care for you. In this way, Christian Mingle.com ensures not only that signing up with their service is a biblically based venture, but also that they make a lot of money from it.

But is that tall, dark, and handsome stranger an answer to your prayers, or an answer to their pocketbooks? The question might seem unremarkable given the barrage of media that comes at us, the claims of false advertising, and the competing claims of other contenders in the Internet dating business who all tantalize us with result-driven dating solutions.

I know only one person who tried an Internet dating site, and the result was less than heavenly. But this doesn’t stop the thousands who are doing it. As a theologian, however, the question I have is whether there are problems with Christian mingles.com’s theology. Let’s explore some of the implications of their claims and measure it against a theological critique.

There are some definite problems with this theological stance of Christian mingle, from one of ignorance to downright deception. Let’s begin with the claim that God has a right partner for you. On the surface this sounds great because it draws in people of all persuasions. The psychology of setting up such a site means that not only are your diehard, cross-wearing Christians immediately attracted like moths to the flame, but wayward, nominal, and even those who are teetering on the faith can feel reinvigorated because, despite the name of the forum, it treats no one with any distinction. This open-invitation approach might be good for business (because hey, we all love God, right?) and it certain might spur people forward who have a less-than-moral take on their own faith walk, but in treating all people as one under Christ, there will inevitably be those with varying shades of Christ-likeness who will feel offended, maybe even duped, when Mr. Right tries to get to second-base on the first date! While I’m sure this is a contentious problem for all dating sites, it seems to be even more diabolic when a dater thinks that Christian mingle has her best interest in mind, only to have a date go horribly wrong. Not very “Christian” of them. But hey, are they really their brother’s keeper?

This isn’t even the real issue. From a theological standpoint, Christian mingle.com aims to capitalize on an ideological claim that should give any Christian pause. But using providence as the key to one’s interpretative matrix creates all sorts of funky scenarios in which the providence of God conflicts with other character or faith traits we are supposed to cultivate. For example, if God is a providential entity who foreknows are thoughts, feelings, and life partners, then that also implies that those who came to Christian mingle only to fail miserably or not meet the right person were destined to do so. Conversely, it may imply that if you go out to a secular site and have better luck, this too was in God’s plan. It also may imply that those who come to Christian mingle actually do not trust in God because they are trying to speed the process along themselves, hence not holding onto the truth of God’s divine providence and care for their lives. In fact, this interpretation is closer to the Bible if one recalls the story of Abraham and Sarah, who didn’t trust God so that Ishmael became the bane of Israel’s existence. Christian mingle actually undermines its business model without even knowing it due to a misleading marketing advertisement.

It also creates the problematic claim that everyone who visits the site is destined to find their life partner. This claim isn’t unique to Christianmingle.com, but it does create forced emphasis when it seems that God should be there intervening on your behalf. The problem with this approach is that it creates an all-or-nothing approach that American Protestant Evangelical circles have attached their theological robes to for more than half a century now, i.e., that the nuclear family is a biblical mandate that is completely consistent with the scriptural witness. Of course, there are multiple kinds of marriage throughout the scripture, and I’m sure Christianmingle.com would want to downplay coming to the site to look for one’s concubine if his wife is infertile. But let’s move on.
 
The brilliance is that most lay religious people are theologically inept and so questions like this will not even arise for them. That means that either Christian mingle.com is knowingly deceptive and are willfully reading one side of the scriptures with much more emphasis than accounting for other emphases or they are blissfully ignorant (the blind leading the blind). The next time you hear a commercial that tells you they have God’s plan for your life, be a little suspicious. And if that is not enough, pick up your Bible and consider all the providential commandments God gives to the murder of enemies, the destruction of nation or Paul’s wish that all remained celibate just as he was, and then put those up against all the other statements in the Bible you actually favor to see where you land on the theological carousel!