Christians in the church often look down on those who are unmarried. This is problematic because singleness is Biblical. This also creates division within the church. Celibacy and singleness also has been a part of church history since the beginning of the Church. Singles also means anyone who is single and may not be considering vocations such as the priesthood. The varying degrees of singleness, likewise, should be recognized as good. All Christian denominations must recognize that singleness is Biblical and create a more welcoming environment for singles in churches and in the Christian community. Here are three ways that the church can help single Christians in the church by recognizing that singleness is Biblical and make singles feel welcome by the Christian community.
Singleness Is Biblical
The Bible never condemns those who are single. It actually encourages those who do not desire to marry or who are widowed to seek a relationship with God first because spouses distract from pursuing holiness. That is because spouses can become the focus instead of God. In contrast, singles are able to grow and mature in their relationship with God by reading the Bible, praying, and living a holy life each day. The unmarried single person is concerned with the heavenly things of God while the married are focused on earthly things such as pleasing a spouse. Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:8 writes “to the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am.” A few verses later Paul continues in 1 Corinthians 7:32-33 that the “unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife.”The Church needs to realize that the Bible positively connects being single to having a relationship with God, while society equates being single as being a problem. The church and the christian community should recognize and make use of this uniquely Christian view of singleness that goes against what the world says about singleness. The church needs to create opportunities for singles in the congregation to flourish instead of having groups with the purpose of pairing off those who are unmarried.
Unite The Church
By implicitly, and sometime explicitly, emphasizing that the married life is superior to the single life the Church is creating division in the Body of Christ. This hurts Christian singles as the Church and fellow Christians send single Christians the message that they are not mature in their faith until they are married. This stigmatizes singles in the congregation instead of embracing the strengths that the single life brings to the Church. All congregations and denominations need to embrace singleness and accept those who are single. The Church should be united in the faith and as the Body of Christ but this division between married and single is divisive and hurts the Church.
Church History of Celibacy And Singleness
There is a history of long history of singleness and celibacy in Church history. The modern Church has forgotten this history and has gone in the opposite direct by telling Christians that they must marry. Not every Christian is called to marry. Those who are married, if they are widowed, will become unmarried again. It is also time for the Church to recognize a historical change in the population and to evangelize to the unmarried. If the Church does not have a theology of singleness and does not even understand the Church’ history of celibacy and singleness, then it will never be able to reach out to the singles of today.
There is nothing wrong with being single, whether by circumstance or choice. The church should support all of the different types of singles that are make up the church from those who may be looking to date, who are content being single, who are single parents, and who are widows. Being single and singleness is much broader and singles should not need to take a religious vow or be celibate for the church to recognize that being is a great thing and equal, yet different, from marriage.
Summary
The unmarried and single population now outnumbers those who are married. It is time for the modern Church to change its message about singlehood and singleness. By doing this, the Church will be able to evangelize to the single population without falling for the stereotypes that society has constructed about those who are unmarried. Most importantly, the Church will not be watering down theology to do this but will actually be continuing church history and following what the Bible teaches about the single life. It is time for Christian denominations to focus on their single audience in other ways besides pushing marriage on those who are unmarried.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
This holiday season we come together and realize just how fast the year has gone. Not only is it the end of the year, but this holiday season things are much more fast paced with meetings, family visits, vacations, trips, quarterly end reviews, and quotas. All tie into what is necessary and urgent. We can feel stressed and out of control. In order to get back control over our lives, we need to meditate. Meditation can calm a stressful mind and will help you center yourself before you go back out onto the battlefield of life. Here are the five benefits of meditation that you can integrate into your schedule that singles can implement today.
Meditation Helps You Get Organized
Ever heard the term scatterbrained? Too often we are so busy micromanaging things in our lives that we forget about rest and recovery. Life is simple, and far too simple for most people. To make things work better in your life, give meditation a try to organize your thoughts and get going on what is most important. An organized mind makes better decisions.
Meditation Reduces Stress
Our lives are far more fast-paced than our parents, and it is up to us to keep up with the current times or we will surely get swept under. To reduce stress in your life and be sharper and more effective in our super-sonic speed lives, meditate to reduce stress to be best prepared to handle all obstacles that arise in a calm and controlled mind. Reduce your stress today.
Meditation Improves Your Immune System
Counter-intuitive, but true. Meditating has multiple health benefits which includes improving your immune system. Tied into the stress factor, when we are stressed our immune system isn’t at it’s strongest, and times like these are when we can get an illness. To make matters better, meditating will improve your immune system by lowering rushing thoughts and pressures. You will feel more calm and collected, and healthier.
Meditation Improves Relationships
When you are more centered, you are able to be present for most, if not all, situations. Our minds constantly wander from past to future, but are rarely in the present. When we are with friends, family, and loved ones, we often are elsewhere in our minds thinking about rushing deadlines and things out of our control.
Meditation Improves Self-Knowledge
You can learn a lot about yourself when you sit with yourself and take the time to actually be with yourself. Meditation is a form of self-love, and can help you reach a better understanding of yourself as you listen to the flying thoughts in your mind. Take a pen and paper and write down everything that comes to you. There are no right or wrong answers, just pure consciousness. All the answers you need are within you, so if there is an issue in your life, meditate about it. You know what to do, so trust yourself and improve the relationship you have with yourself.
Summary
Now you’re aware of how you can calm down your mind and get organized. Meditation brings us to the present, and is a daily habit we need to embody, like showering, which improves our lives. Get better today, one step at a time. Practice meditation multiple times a day and keep a journal to note the benefits you get from your practice. It may be difficult at first, but keep going. Get better today, and become the best version of yourself that you can be. Get bigger, better, faster, and stronger!
Cheers,
Danielle
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City explains the Christian concept of being single and how the Bible offers a theology of singleness. Pastor Keller describes how this is a unique worldview. Christianity is set apart in that it was the “very first religion or worldview that held up single adulthood as a viable way of life” (Hauerwas, S. 1991).
Theology Of Singleness
Western civilization idolizes individualism and self-realization and views marriage as something to get after reaching a certain point in life. Marriage becomes a means of self-fulfillment and an idol. Eastern civilization idolizes the family and makes everything revolve around it. Family becomes an idol. Christianity uniquely views singleness because there is no obligation to get married. Marriage is understood as a temporary earthly institution until the second coming with the new heaven and new earth. For singles who choose to get married, marriage is a sacrament meant to be an act of service. Christianity drastically changes both how marriage and singleness should be viewed by its followers. It also emphasizes that marriage will never give you everything you seek in life, which a person can find in Christ. This view is different from the world’s, of which Christians are called to be set apart from the world while remaining in the world.
Singles are not freaks until they get married. On the contrary, singles have a vital role in society, the church, and the family of God. Christianity’s understanding of singleness is unique because it acknowledges that being single is excellent. Singles can focus on God without being distracted by an earthly husband or wife. During the early church, widowed people would have to get married again to be cared for, but this view of singleness allowed widows to find a home in the church. Christianity says that it is okay to be single. Being single is a viable option. After all, Jesus and Paul were both single. Jesus, the perfect human being, was single and unmarried.
Paul is straightforward in 1 Corinthians 7 that a spouse can become an idol, and marriage can be made into something selfish. This upends marriage because relationships are supposed to be about service instead of self-fulfillment. In contrast, being single allows you to develop friendships and serve others. Singleness is a great gift. It frees single Christians from wanting to please their husband or wife instead of seeking to please the Lord. Christian singles should seek to grow closer to God and pursue God instead of finding a spouse to fulfill them on earth. Singles should not be pressured to get into relationships or to get married because Christianity offers an alternative worldview and a theology of singleness that makes it alright to be single in a world of couples.
Christian singles must be aware of the theology of singleness that the Bible teaches and that Paul articulates in 1 Corinthians about being single. Christians should seek to become closer to God. The single life offers that opportunity since a spouse and marriage can become idols and means of self-fulfillment instead of God. Single Christians must recognize this as they decide if they want to get married by realizing that Christianity teaches it is good to be single.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
The church has a problem. The first and most important problem confronting the church is that Millennials are not going to church. The second problem is that singles now are the majority of the population. Although singles are now the majority, the church continues to treat single congregates as inferior to married churchgoers.
The church must separate itself from secular society. However, the church and Christians have failed at this on many social issues by simply defaulting to what society and civil law says is right. The same is true for the church when it comes to singles. Society pushes singles to date and then cohabitate, if the couple doesn’t marry. This has created the dating industrial complex. The church is guilty of joining society’s bandwagon by making singles feel uncomfortable for not being in a relationship or being married in the church. This can be seen by the church’s emphasis on the importance of marriage— to the point that it is an idol—and having church singles groups that are essentially places for Christian singles to find someone to date. There are two ramifications for the church not having a theology of singleness and devaluing singles. First, by defaulting to relationships and marriage as the only option, the church and Christians have accepted secular beliefs about relationships and marriage that goes against what the Bible teaches. This would not be the case if the church taught a theology of singleness and Christians were aware of it when it came to modern society’s beliefs about relationships and marriage. Second, singles are leaving the church because the values of the single life are not acknowledged and singles are unwelcome by the church. If the church wants to reach out to Millennials and the single population, the church must recognize that singleness is good and have a theology of singleness.
The church treats singles by either dismissing them or suspiciously looking at singleness as unnatural. By dismissing singles, the church is banishing singles from the church. This means that the church is also disregarding what the Bible says about singleness. For Protestants who follow the tenet of Sola Scriptura, this is a problem. For the Catholic and Orthodox churches, this can include Tradition with what the Bible says about singleness being good. If the church does dismiss singleness, then it will continue to views singles with suspicion. This is a result of Christians elevating marriage where it has become the church’s Golden Calf. The church looks upon singles suspiciously because they do not meet what it means to be a true Christian because they are not married. This is an instance where the church and Christians have been influence by secular society and completely ignored the Bible. The consequence of this for the church is that it has forgotten singles in its pews, disregarded what the Bible says about singleness, and is a part of the secular world instead of being set apart from it. The church should have a theology of singleness and make Christian singles feel welcome again at church.
The church historically acknowledged that singleness was a righteous and holy state. This was based upon both Scripture and history. Christ says in Matthew 19:12 that there are three reasons why people are single, “For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.” There are those who have been single from birth. There are those who have been made single to serve man and are unable to have children. There are those who have chosen to devote their singleness to God. The third version is found in church’s that have holy orders and religious vocations. There are many Bible passages that address singleness, but here are three:
1 Corinthians 7:7-8
“7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. 8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am.”
1 Corinthians 7:26-35
“26 I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is. 27 Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be free. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife. 28 But if you do marry, you have not sinned, and if a betrothed woman marries, she has not sinned. Yet those who marry will have worldly troubles, and I would spare you that. 29 This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, 30 and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, 31 and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.
32 I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. 33 But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, 34 and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. 35 I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”
The main points that Paul is addressing to the unmarried in this section are threefold (26-35):
- Those who marry will have worldly troubles (26-28).
- The existence of the universe does not depend upon marriage (29-31).
- Singleness provides an opportunity for undivided service and attention to the Lord (32-35).
1 Corinthians 7:38
“38 So then he who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better.”
By making marriage an idol and demanding that all singles marry, the church has forgotten Paul’s message in the Scriptures about singleness that can be summarized as:
“I wish that all were [single] as I myself am… I want you to be free from anxieties… [and be] anxious about the things of the Lord… [to] secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”
This is a quick survey of what the Bible says about singleness. The church should have a theology of singleness and welcome singles in the congregation. The church has a long history of having a positive view of singleness, but singleness is now negatively viewed and portrayed by the church as an oddity of life. It is not an oddity. It is Biblical and a way to devote oneself to God without the distraction of an earthly husband or wife. Who are you going to serve when it comes to singles, society or God? Christians must remember that “they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (John 17:18).
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
Dating and sexual relationships are society’s idols that singles are told they must worship. Marriage is often made into the Golden Calf by Christians. Marriage is a great thing. It is a sacrament after all. The problem arises when Christian start to believe that everyone must get married and if they don’t, they are not fulfilling God’s plan for their life. Being single may be a vocation, but it has not been properly studied in theology. At a minimum, the single life should be recognized as a legitimate state of life. The single life needs to be respected within the Church and singles should push their pastors to study singleness.
There are many different types of singles. For this reason, the Church needs to study to find if there may be different degrees of singleness since not all singles want to take the sacrament of holy orders. Christ and the disciples were single. Many of the prophets were too. It would seem that there would be theological and historical reasons that could form a theological foundation for the single life. That foundation, along with the Golden Rule, could be first steps to move the emphasis off of the need to get married to respecting single at church. The Church, or parish, is “a certain community of the Christian faithful stably constituted in a particular church, whose pastoral care is entrusted to a pastor (parochus) as its proper pastor (pastor) under the authority of the diocesan bishop (c. 515.1).” The parish, or church, is a living microcosm community of the totality of Church that provides access to community. In some cases, this community can become a second family for those who make use of all that their local church offers them.
Church members need to welcome singles with open arms. Being single is not a disease. It is not a sin. A church’s congregation should not give singles the cold shoulder, as many singles experience in the church. This is especially true if they are older and unmarried. The community within the Church needs to embrace singles and expand church groups for singles to not only be social events to find people to date within the church. By believing that singles need to get married and pushing marriage as a necessity on singles in the church, the congregation is making those who are unmarried feel lonely in their own church. The opposite of this should be true! Singles should be loved. Singles should want to attend services to see friends. Singles should want to be involved with their church’s community.
All denominations can do a better job to make singles feel welcome. The first step is for people to recognize that there is nothing wrong with being unmarried. Second, recognize that the single life offers its own advantages that are lost once someone is married. Third, Catholic and Protestant churches should explore and establish a theology about what it means to be single. This theology would help singles as they decide whether they want to remain single, commit their life to remain single and become a priest, or to wait until they are ready to date and ultimately get married. Christians are called to do unto others as they would like done to them. Do Christians treat you differently because you are single? Remind them of the Golden Rule.
Christians need to better follow the Golden Rule when it comes to their treatment of those who are single and unmarried. Christians should love those who are single. Christians should invite those who are single to events and to their homes for community. Christians need to better develop what it means to be single and how the single life fits into Biblical history and theology.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
The Secure Single Crew wants to wish all singles, and our followers, a Happy Easter and Eggs Benedict Day. Celebrate one, or both, holidays by having brunch. Singles can find a brunch place and eat alone or invite some friends to have a relaxing Sunday to catch up. After all, eating alone is on the rise.
Whether or not you celebrate Easter, holidays are usually a time to reconnect and to get together with friends and family. Being social is important for singles as Millennials have been found to be lonely and to have less friends on average compared to past generations. Relax today alone or with friends and find a brunch spot that you have been wanting to try to celebrate Eggs Benedict Day and Easter. Have a great Sunday and we look forward to providing more content that will help singles and the unmarried to flourish in life!
Best Regards,
James Bollen and the Secure Single Crew
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
For someone to decide to commit one’s life to living as a single person comes across as bizarre and absurd in a society that loves and adores couples. As I wrote in my post concerning Valentine’s Day about the different types of love, eros originally was understood in the classical world was an act of an individual to devote oneself to a higher cause. Today the individual is often hailed as the center of all of life. The opposite of this that can also be seen often is that society as a whole, a collective, is the ends of an individual. Both of these, while having aspects of truth, neglect the call of an individual to commit themselves to something beyond oneself. Individuals may choose the vocation of singleness in order to devote oneself to that higher calling, an ideal, as eros was traditionally understood to mean in the classical world.
I was at an event in Denver, Colorado called Pint with a Priest that is held at Platt Park Brewing Company in Denver, Colorado by Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in January. At the event someone asked the priest if there is a vocation to living a single life. The priest’s short answer was that an individual must decide commit oneself to live a life that one chooses, but in so doing must also seek for ways to contribute to the common good. This answer demonstrates that there is nothing wrong with being single or living the single life. Some people may choose to get married. Some people may choose to remain single. It ultimately is a personal decision about how an individual decides how is the best way for one to life one’s life.
Whether married or single, an individual chooses one of the main two options should still contribute to the common good of society. For married couples, the family is the foundation of society as Aristotle writes in Politics:
First, then, there must be of necessity be a conjunction of persons who cannot exist on the one hand, male and female, for the sake of reproduction… on the other, the naturally ruling and ruled, on account of preservation…. [this leads to how] the household first arose… [because] the household is the partnership for the needs of daily life… [and this] partnership arising from the union of several villages that is complete is the city” (II 2-8, p 35-35).
Family is prior to the city, or society, and the political institution of government. It provides future citizens and individuals who will contribute to the economy and society. If one or both individuals of the couple work as well, they also contribute economically to society through their work. By having children and working is how couples normally contribute to the common good. However, single people who do not have children — with the exception of single parents– should find an ideal to devote themselves to if they commit their lives to the vocation of singleness.
Aristotle is concerned with how a polity comes about in the Politics and for this reason focuses on bringing and upbringing of children since the family comes before the city and nation according to the classical view. For this reason, Aristotle does not expand on the other two classical understanding of the purpose of marriage. Aristotle was concerned with the question of human flourishing, or eudaemonia, and its connection to virtue. This was why he wrote about marriage and its connection to the creation of society. Following Aristotle’s explanation above about how the state comes about, there are two other parts to the classical understanding of marriage. These are love and spousal unity. The classical view understood marriage with these two parts of marriage -love and unity- along with the generation and upbringing of children was a natural cause of the love between the couple. It was understood according to certain classical philosophers, particularly Aristotle, that society was made of multiple families and that the family unit was the foundation of society. (Secure Single plans to write future articles presenting different views on marriage since the classical view is only one view among many).
In the classical world, this meant devoting one’s life to the higher ideals of philosophy. An individual would practice and seek to attain Truth by studying philosophy or becoming a priest at a temple to one of the classical gods. Forms of this are still found today where an individual decides to commit ones life to the Church by becoming a priest, a religious order, or by becoming a monk in various religions found in both the East and West. However, someone who decides singleness as a life choice does not need to become a monk or a priest to live a life of singleness.
In the modern world, an individual can decide to devote oneself to a cause or a community that one is passionate about to better the world and society as a whole. (Secure Single plans to write future articles presenting different views on how best to live the single life since there are more than one view). Some examples could be for a single person to volunteer one’s time to help the poor, to volunteer one’s time to a variety of causes from civil rights movements to helping communities get clean water, or to devote one’s life to business or politics as ways for an individual to give back to society and the common good. An individual’s particular worldview will inform the ways that one will decide to contribute to one’s particular society and to the common good in the society in which one lives. Once an individual has found the cause or community that one is passionate about, one needs to seek to spend a majority of one’s time to that cause. In this day and age, that can be physically going to a place or helping out by getting the word out about an issue in the variety of mediums available today that the Internet provides that are accessible to most people around the world. Time and commitment to a cause or community is the key, along with passion for the subject matter to living a life of singleness.
The reason why a single person may decide wants to give oneself to more than just one’s daily routine is if an individual believes there is a greater and common good that one should contribute to as a person. This would entail that this particular individual holds to the classical view of arête that there is a proper function of a thing. Arete simply means that there is a proper function for how to use a thing, for instance the purpose of scissors are to cut, and similarly this would means that humans have a proper function as well as human nature. The classical ideal of vocations recognized marriage, priesthood, or giving oneself to religious life and for singles who choose to follows this classical understanding the single life of singleness naturally follows from the classical conception of arête.
The classical world and classical philosophy was very concerned with how one ought to live. The modern world and modern philosophy was not concerned with that question but with simply how to live life. Remember, eros for Plato did not mean romantic love, but rather, it was the goal to seek and to understand through reason all that True, Beautiful and Good and than to live life after attaining the knowledge of the higher forms. This is because this Eros is more than just romantic love, eros is devoting oneself to a higher ideal. It is according to this classical view that a single person should use one’s skills to help a community, cause, or issue that one is passionate about in life. Singles who choose a life of singleness should commit oneself to the classical understanding of eros by devoting themselves to a cause above oneself.
Views expressed in this article are the author’s opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of Secure Single. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not investment or financial advice. James Bollen is the author of Thriving Solo: How to Flourish and Live Your Perfect Life (Without A Soulmate). Now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon. Subscribe to Secure Single’s Substack for free!
The English language is an imprecise language compared to other languages, especially classical languages such as Greek. Love in the English language could mean a range of things from loving one’s wife or husband to loving chocolate. English does not clarify what type of love a person means when one says “love.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy expounds on this problem by explaining that because love is “broadly defined and hence imprecise, which generates first order problems of definition and meaning, which are resolved to some extent by the reference to the Greek terms, eros, philia, and agape.” Society celebrates Valentine’s Day as a day devoted to romantic love while dismissing philia and agape love in favor of erotic love.
Erotic love is the type of love commonly associated with love by modern society and the type of love that Valentine’s Day celebrates today. Erotic love, or eros, IEP explains “refer[s] to that part of love constituting a passionate, intense desire for something; it is often referred to as a sexual desire, hence the modern notion of “erotic” (Greek erotikos)”. However, the modern notion of erotic love is not what Plato had in mind in Phaedrus. When Plato talks about erotikos in Phaedrus he describes a love that is universally known by humanity and transcends a particular beauty of an individual. Practically, this means that an individual’s particular beauty points to the higher form of Beauty that is in the world of Forms or Ideas following Plato’s Theory of Forms. However, Aristotle’s conception of romantic love recognizes that there is a “special love two people find in each other’s virtues-one soul and two bodies” (Ibid). It is Aristotle’s version of romantic love between two people that is understood today by modern society and the kind that is being celebrated this Valentine’s Day. For most singles in the state of singlehood, romantic and erotic love is the type of love that one does not normally experience in life until a single person transitions from singlehood to a romantic relationship.
The type of love most singles experience is what the Greeks called philia. The classic Greek philosopher Aristotle elaborates upon philia in Rhetoric noting that “things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done” (Rhetoric, II. 4). The love of philia is associated with appreciating ones’ friends, family, loyalties, and different communities that one is involved with in life. This means that there are different types and different levels of philia from having best friends, to family, and to professional work relationships. For single people, phila will be the most common love that singles will experience during single life. This Valentine’s Day, celebrate philia love with your fellow single friends by doing something different than what the modern holiday celebrates this Sunday.
Agape is the final type of love that the classical world separated from eros and philia. While philia distinguishes between different levels of friendships between people and eros is romantic –and devoted love to ideals—love between lovers or partners, agape “refers to the paternal love of God for man and of man for God” (IEP). Agape love is a universal love that applies to all of humanity. This is the Golden Rule to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and to love your enemies. This incorporates personal self-love with loving others. Everyone is capable and able to experience agape love by either a relationship with a spiritual entity or by showing love to all of humanity. Single people and married people can share and grow in agape love between friends and with people that they have never met as well as by showing respect between those who are single and those who are married. Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Remember that Valentine’s Day only celebrates one type of love in a very narrow sense: eros. Single people should be able to celebrate the holiday too by celebrating philia love with their friends and family. Valentine’s Day should also be used to celebrate universal humanity and to apply the Golden Rule of to love others, and your enemies, as you love yourself on the holiday. These three distinct loves are often forgotten because the English language is imprecise. Reconsider the love that society celebrates on Valentine’s Day and celebrate philia or agape love instead this Sunday.