…by visiting the Carnivals, which showcase the week’s best posts from bloggers out there working hard for you readers.
Pete Holiday, who must be quite popular because he’s bringing me a lot of traffic, hosts the Carnival of the Vanities. I submitted Shame on the World, and he got a kick out of one of my favorites, Memo to White Conservatives.
Jeremiah, whose blog design I considered stealing, has the Christian Carnival this week. I submitted Faith Talk, a post I want to expand on soon.
I recommend Samantha’s submission, Single Sin. It’s in response to a post at JollyBlogger, which is in response to Albert Mohler’s assertion that remaining unmarried for the wrong reasons is sinful. Mohler is the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. This is an issue near and dear to me because I’m still a single. 
(I’m not really sad. I’d like to be married, so I hope it’s in His plan.)
There’s a lot of good blogging going on out here, folks, but we bloggers understand there isn’t enough time in the day to get to it all, is it?
Update: The sentence in parenthesis means I’m not sad about being single; I’ll serve the Lord in the most useful way. If it means remaining unmarried, I’ll follow Paul’s example. I’m reminded of a still-unpublished essay I was too lazy to shop around about being single. (Marketing your writing to magazines is hard work.) Maybe I’ll post it tomorrow. I think it’s pretty good.
Also, the Watcher’s Council is looking for a new council member:
Due to a family emergency that has torn his blogging schedule asunder, Bill at INDC Journal has decided to step down from his seat on the Watcher’s Council. It’s been great having him on board and I wish him well, but now that he has decided to step down, there is one open seat and I need to find a blog worthy enough to fill it. Anyone that has a blog, please read the up-to-date version of the rules here and contact me if you are interested in applying for membership. I plan on choosing a replacement in time for that person to participate in the September 14th nominations process and that week’s vote.
If I had the time…
Update II: Albert Mohler has a web site and a “weblog” on Crosswalk.com. This is Part I and Part II of what started the discussion. I’ll get back to this issue later.
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No there isn’t enough time. I wish there were though.
I don’t know how you do it Miss Barber.
La Shawn,
I believe Mohler is legalistic in some respects. He also believes that Christians who choose to remain childless, for whatever reason, are being sinful. I do not believe his contention that chosen childlessness or chosen singledom are sinful can be supported by scripture.
“This is an issue near and dear to me because I’m still a single.”
“(I’m not really sad. I’d like to be married, so I hope it’s in His plan.)”
If you’re trolling for a proposal, you’d better be prepared to hand out numbers so the men can start lining up.
Left me clarify that I don’t buy Mohler’s idea. I admit to not knowing much about him. I’ll investigate. Yet another blog idea.
Kevin – It sort of sounds like that, doesn’t it? If there’s a single, Christian (preferably never married, no kids), politically conservative, taller-than-I-am man between the ages of 35 and 45 out there…
I’m just kidding!
There never is enough time for it all. All we can do is learn to read faster and upgrade to a cable modem.
How could one contend that being single by choice is sinful? What if that choice is for the kingdom of God? For Paul chose singlehood for himself for the sake of the Gospel, and even Christ mentions eunichs who have done the same for the sake of God. Does this person address these issues? I guess I’ve got to check it out.
Jerry – Mohler addresses that. He refers to a “gift of celibacy” to distinguish between Paul’s singleness and someone delaying marriage for career, etc. I posted the links from his “blog” in Update II of this post.
Kevin — Yeah, I would wager that the single male population of The Corner is quite taken with Miss Barber.
If I may put words in Dr. Mohler’s mouth, I believe that his main point is that marriage and family is the foundation of any sane, stable society; and no one ought to be ashamed to aspire to it (though some of us aren’t doing a very good job of finding such just yet).
Jeremiah was commanded by the Lord not to marry, but remember that he was called to serve in a wicked/chaotic society. Considering the condition of our own society, could it be that large numbers of us remaining single is sort of a natural consequence?
As for me, I’ll continue to be a rootin’-tootin’ single guy, with the inextinguishable hope for something better, either in this life or in the next.
As a “recent” married guy (2.5 years), my advice to Christian singles is don’t< /strong> waste your singleness.
I wasted 10 years after college in my singleness. It wasn’t until after I was married that I did a short-term mission trip. It wasn’t until after I was married that I went to a local Bible college to take an advance Biblical course.
Here’s what I’ve learned; the things I’ve could have done as a single, I can still do as a married man and father. But, they are that much more difficult to do because of the additional roles I have now. Take advantage of your singleness to serve God, to learn and understand more about him.
I would dare suggest that there is that in the single man that is conducive to laziness (or at least complacency).
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