{"id":4159,"date":"2006-12-06T13:31:57","date_gmt":"2006-12-06T13:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/jesus-is-my-boyfriend.html"},"modified":"2006-12-06T13:31:57","modified_gmt":"2006-12-06T13:31:57","slug":"jesus-is-my-boyfriend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/jesus-is-my-boyfriend.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus is my boyfriend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those of you who follow the evangelical music scene know that the title of this post is a catchphrase used to describe a particular thematic element in some praise and worship music, in which the language used to address Christ is, well, somewhere between a Blue Mountain card and the Billboard top 100. <\/p>\n

Agnieszka Tennant looks at some minitrends on the same theme outside of music.<\/a><\/p>\n

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But does all this closeness mean that Jesus is the personal boyfriend of Christian women? That God is my fianc\u00e9? That the First and the Last is my husband? That he and I are dating?<\/p>\n

So it appears to some.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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In a popular book, I learn of women who set up date nights with Jesus. Christie enjoys her Friday nights by going to Barnes & Noble "to drink coffee with the Lord and to read whatever book from the Christian living section he guides me to" or by cooking a wonderful meal and setting the table for two, then "talking to God as if he is actually sitting there at my table with me, because I know that he is."<\/p>\n

The author of this book calls women to "prayer, praise, and pampering" retreats: "Although God certainly loves us even with unshaven legs, no makeup, and a bed-head hairdo, he also deserves to occasionally have his princess sit at his feet while she is looking and feeling her best." She casts these retreats as exciting dates. "You are running away with your Lover, not confining yourself to a convent."<\/p>\n

In another book, the author assures her readers that "you are the one that overwhelms his heart with just ‘one glance of your eyes,’" quoting from the Song of Solomon. "His gaze is fixed on you," she writes. "He is captivated by your beauty."<\/p>\n

These teachings have spread into churches. My friend’s mother took part in a "tea with the Lord," during which she and the other women wore their wedding gowns\u2014those, at least, who managed to squeeze into them\u2014and fancied themselves as brides of Christ. An influential Kansas City church <\/a>teaches thousands of people the so-called Bridal Paradigm, which encourages a quasi-romantic relationship with Christ. And who among us hasn’t detected an eerie resemblance between a contemporary Christian song and a pop diva’s breathy rendition of a sensual love ballad?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tennant takes the long view, bringing the tradition of Bride of Christ imagery in spirituality into the picture, but she’s not too wild about that either. Perhaps someone can help tease out the difference between this and spiritual-erotic expressions in mystical writings, the experiences of some mystics, as well as the "bridal" implications and symbolism of consecrated life…if there is one. (there is, but brain won’t compute at the moment…)<\/p>\n

From Maureen, in the comments, who, as usual, is sharp as a tack:<\/p>\n

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The problem here is that Jesus can’t possibly be your boyfriend. If you’re going for that kind of imagery, He’s pretty much got to be your Husband. God’s not into temporary love. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Maureen’s blog. Well, one of them. On which she discources perceptively about the USCCB’s new lectionary podcast.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of you who follow the evangelical music scene know that the title of this post is a catchphrase used to describe a particular thematic element in some praise and worship music, in which the language used to address Christ is, well, somewhere between a Blue Mountain card and the Billboard top 100. Agnieszka Tennant…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus is my boyfriend - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/jesus-is-my-boyfriend.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus is my boyfriend - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Those of you who follow the evangelical music scene know that the title of this post is a catchphrase used to describe a particular thematic element in some praise and worship music, in which the language used to address Christ is, well, somewhere between a Blue Mountain card and the Billboard top 100. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}