While many people enjoy Valentine’s Day, it is also a notoriously fraught holiday. It can be high pressure if you’re in a relationship and depressing if you’re not. And, says Pastor Rich Villodas, it can reveal the very unbiblical way some of us perceive singleness.
“Valentine’s Day is always a good day to examine our often deficient theology of singleness,” tweeted Rich Villodas, pastor of New Life Fellowship church in New York City. “Jesus was single and lived the fullest human life imaginable.”
Rich Villodas’ Tweet Resonates
Several people retweeted Pastor Rich Villodas’ statement, expressing their appreciation for the reminder that the Son of God was never married and the affirmation of the pain they had encountered from a poor theology of singleness. Said one, “The unfathomable pressure to couple up, and the pain of being widowed are both deeply exacerbated by a lot of deficient theology.”
“I’ve been reading with an eye and ear to developing a more robust theology of singleness for myself,” said another. “I’ve grown weary of seeing a church that only has good news for folks in comfortable nuclear families (even though I’m part of one). The family of faith must be broader than that!”