Conference on Singleness

George Chris
Keith Andrew

Saturday's conference at Highgate Road Chapel on singleness was a worthwhile effort. Some 90 people gathered (60 women and 30 men) - mostly singles I guess but not exclusively by any means. It was good for singles to meet and for all of us to look at the subject and simply to meet other Christians. Most present were fairly local but some had travelled a little distance (Southport, Wolverhampton,  Portsmouth, etc). We are grateful to the organisers for putting this on.

George Platt from Highgate Road started us off with a biblical theology of singleness.

There probably isn't a biblical theology of singleness but there may be one of marriage and so one is able to extrapolate. George, a good Baptist, appeared to want to emphasise discontinuity between the Testaments more than most of us. It is difficult to be positive about singleness (which we should be) without sounding slightly negative towards marriage.

Chris Bennett spoke on the gift of singleness taking the view that not all people who are single have this gift. Chris is very persuasive (from Matthew 19 if not from 1 Corinthians 7) but the view is fraught with difficulties. One wonders what married people who lack the gift of being married are to do, for example. We would prefer the view that sees singleness itself (like marriage) as a gift from God.

We men had a good session with Peter Law and Neil Richardson (while the women had a session with Vicki Gardner and Christine Sherwood). I liked Peter's frankness about his singleness. This session could have been longer. There was no real time for discussion. Keith Berry was also very helpful from Philippines as was Andrew King on singles in the church.

We finished with a question panel. Again, all very helpful.

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