Sex and the spirit: SOS for Single Christian Sisters

Ebony, Jan, 2005 by Kimberly Davis

WE all know the fairy tale. Single Christian Sister meets Single Christian Brother. The two fall in love and get married in a luxurious wedding in the church where the bride grew up or, better yet, the church where they met. They live happily ever after and all that.

But that's not the reality millions of Sisters are living. The truth is that many African-American women are on a heart search for their soul mate or a soul search for their heart mate and are coming up empty. These eligible women have either endured broken relationships or promises or just haven't had the dating opportunities that would lead to marriage. And many of them are frustrated in their search, some would say even desperate, for a husband. This situation has created a churchwide crisis and a national movement based on best-selling authors, local and regional conferences and traveling male and female evangelists who provide SOS for single Christian Sisters, Black and White.

The New York Times and other media have produced a number of major stories on the widening movement. Bishop T.D. Jakes has addressed the issues raised by the movement in several national conferences that have attracted hundreds of thousands of interested women. Juanita Bynum, the best-selling author (No More Sheets: The Truth About Sex) and founder of the Juanita Bynum Ministries, is, according to her own designation, the "prophetess" of a healing and deliverance ministry that addresses the problems of the flesh and the spirit.

Like other voices, she advises seekers to confront the fact that they are sexual beings and to integrate their sexuality into a higher whole, involving the whole person and the core messages of Christianity. The major question she and other leaders face is: Is abstinence the only answer? Prophetess Bynum and others say yes, but some present strategies to delay the issue and to turn the whole relationship to the greater glory of God.

Another leading voice of the movement is Michelle McKinney Hammond, an author, singer and speaker on relationships, who has sold more than 1 million copies of her books and is one of the most prolific writers in the genre. Hammond travels to conferences and churches across the country and overseas, offering advice, dispensing relationship wisdom and strategies for single women--and men--based on biblical principles.

Hammond says that God "assigned and called" her to this work, to help women, particularly, "live up to their full potential--victoriously, joyously and purposefully."

What she has learned over the years and in her work is that many women put their lives on hold to search for a man as if that's the answer to their every happiness. "It's important for every woman to know what her gifts are, to live purposefully and to live life as if she will never get married," says Hammond, whose latest book, The Diva Principle (Divine Inspiration for Victorious Attitude), has inspired plans for a "Diva Principle" conference in several cities later this year. "Let the marriage be a pleasant surprise and addition to your life. It should not make your life."

Hammond, who attends Park Community Church in Chicago, says that she has met many women who are so focused on finding the right man that they have put God in the background, which sets them up for heartache. Completion, Hammond says, is not found in relationships with men, but in relationship with God. "The hole in your heart is not a person-sized hole, it is a God- and a purpose-sized hole," says Hammond, whose last relationship ended more than a year ago. "God is not going to allow any man to be your everything, because then there would be no need for Him."

Courtney Barnes is one of the millions of Christian Sisters seeking a soul mate. The 33-year-old Chicagoan is attractive, involved in her church and works as a student services counselor at a university. She's never been married or engaged, and doesn't date very often. Although she says she's not desperate, she does want to get married.

Because she's a committed Christian, Williams says that she's finding it difficult to find the right Christian man. She believes that God wouldn't put such a strong desire on her heart for marriage if it weren't going to happen. But there are problems.

The dating pool for Christian African-American women is relatively small and once you've left the deep end with all the available men to find men with whom you're "equally yoked" [share the same faith] and who don't mind the celibacy thing, it gets even smaller. It's the same for many women looking to follow "God's rules" and wait for marriage to become intimate. "It's a big problem, because everywhere you look you're strongly encouraged to have sex before you get married to make sure you're 'compatible,'" says Williams, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs. "It's almost a completely foreign idea to people to wait to have sex until you're married."

So what's the remedy? What some would call a universal heart cry for marriage-minded men has turned into a multimillion-dollar industry--with books, classes, Internet and gospel radio dating services, speed dating for Christians, and conferences--all designed to help women (and increasingly, men) find a solution.