Al Mohler and Touchstone, am I a second-class adult?

In the past on this blog, I’ve told of my encounters with churches that treat singles as second-class adults. In my last two church searches, it was a priority to find churches that do not do that.

Obviously, I don’t think it wise to encourage churches to treat singles as lesser members. So imagine my reaction when I was reading the latest Touchstone and saw this from Albert Mohler:

The church should insist that the biblical formula is: Adulthood means marriage, and marriage means children.

Well. I guess Jesus wasn’t a full adult then. Nor was Paul. And let’s keep ignoring that weird un-American chapter in I Corinthians that talks about remaining single to focus on devotion to the things of the Lord. No, no. “Adulthood means marriage.”

I guess all those offending churches through the years were right – I’m a second-class adult.

Now to be fair, Dr. Mohler was primarily writing about married couples who refuse to have children. And although I don’t share his conviction that willfully childless couples are all mean and selfish and Unbiblical™?, he makes some good points about sorry attitudes towards children. And I would hope what he meant was generally adulthood means marriage. I would probably agree.

But that’s not what he wrote. Through recklessness (I hope), he wrote that the church should “insist” that “adulthood means marriage.”

No, it doesn’t. That is not “biblical.” It’s just the opposite. It ignores scripture itself. And it’s a smear (though inadvertent I’m sure) on Jesus and all His saints through the ages who have served God without getting married. Putting a “biblical” mantle on such prejudice is flat wrong and offensive.

And it’s a prejudice against singles too many churches exhibit already. They don’t need any encouragement from Albert Mohler or Touchstone.