In the context of rapidly changing and diversifying attitudes to sex, marriage, and family, theologically rich, historically aware, and pastorally sophisticated ethical studies such as Danielle Treweek’s The Meaning Singleness, are of great importance. A very substantial proportion of any contemporary Christian congregation will be single for at least a sizeable period of their lives. It is a major pastoral concern that many might feel that pastoral advice on singleness “was either not relevant, unhelpful, or virtually non-existent” (p. 38).

Developed from Treweek’s doctoral thesis, The Meaning of Singleness, as the book’s subtitle makes clear, is not a general theological treatise on the ethics of singleness. Rather, it is an interdisciplinary work that draws on historical theology and biblical exegesis to show how eschatology ought to inform Christian understanding. As such, it demonstrates how fraught the topic of singleness has been throughout church history. Consider even the question of terminology:

The contemporary term singleness does not actually exist within the pages of Scriptures, nor in the historical Christian tradition prior to around the time of the Reformation…. Rather, historic Christian discussions about the unmarried life tended to explicate its … significance with reference to virginity, continence, chastity, celibacy, abstinence, widowhood, divorce, betrothal, and even occasionally eunuchdom. (p. 3)

Although dense and necessarily technical, the prose is lucid and direct as it articulates the central arguments and their pastoral relevance.

The first two sections of the book are devoted to a critical analysis of various attitudes to singleness over the last five hundred years. Part 1 describes different social constructions of singleness since the early modern period—“Singleness in Society” (ch. 1) and “Singleness in the Church” (ch. 2). Part 2 surveys contemporary Western Reformed evangelical attitudes to singleness. In the central section of the book, “The Retrieval of Singleness,” Treweek engages in a process of theological retrieval: first surveying attitudes to virginity in the early and mediaeval church (ch. 5); then examining the exegesis two primary texts for pre-Reformation church attitudes to singleness—Matthew 22:23–33 (and parallels) and 1 Corinthians 7:25–31 (ch. 6); and lastly interacting with four theologians—Augustine of Hippo, Ælfric of Eynsham, Pope John Paul II, and Stanley Hauerwas (ch. 7). The final section of the book aims to “weave together the various threads of retrieval … in order to consider how they might constitute a gestalt-shifting theology of the meaning of singleness for the contemporary church” (p. 220).

The value of this work is not simply its narrow contribution to a theological ethic of singleness. The author frames her work as a deconstruction (in the technical sense of the word) of evangelical attitudes to individualism, church, mission, sanctification, family, and society, which aims to decenter the modern nuclear family in favor of gospel, church, and eschatology. The historical surveys in part 1 show the variations in how marriage, gender roles, households, and work have been configured, even in Christianized societies. The Reformers’ stress on the value of marriage in restraining sexual temptation and providing companionship was an over-correction to the problems of clerical celibacy and vows of chastity. This has led to distortions in contemporary evangelical ethical discourse, heightened by a determination to uphold the genuine good that stable families bring to society and the church. Part 4 casts a vision for “teleosocial” church community (Treweek’s own term); the valuing of spiritual parenthood and friendship; the appreciation of our sexed selves that is more “expansive” than merely sexual and romantic orientation; and the celebration of “cruciform discipleship.”

The Meaning of Singleness is a project of theological retrieval, which seeks to provide a “responsible interpretation, evaluation, and utilization of the offerings of the Christian past … for our own time” (p. 96, emphasis original). What part 3 makes clear, however, is just how difficult that work is. It is disheartening to read at length of the enduring appeal of eccentric sexual ethics—whether the early and mediaeval church’s theology of sexual intercourse and procreation as products of the Fall; the Reformers’ overly strong emphasis on the prophylactic necessity of marriage for sexual continence; or the treatment of singleness as aberrant (if not disobedient) by many twentieth- and twenty-first-century evangelicals. Theological retrieval needs to extract enduring exegetical and theological insights from the tendrils of very different social and ideological contexts. The pre-Reformation understanding and practice of celibacy rests on substantial extrapolations of Jesus’s teaching on the unmarried resurrection state. These extrapolations go well beyond and often undermine the explicit teaching of Scripture in their valorization and institutionalization of the celibate Christian life. As a result, any retrieval for evangelical theology today must come with many major adjustments and qualifications.

Christian sexual ethics often has a “myopic focus on creation-based theological ethics,” with minimal attention paid to eschatology (p. 90). Singleness is credited with varying degrees of instrumental value, particularly for the purpose of gospel ministry. Even then, the instrumental value of singleness is often further limited to those who have a tightly defined gift of singleness. By contrast, The Meaning of Singleness argues that there is an inherent value to singleness as an embodiment in this life of the unmarried state for which all those in Christ are destined (pp. 80–82, 84, 126–7); the unmarried state is not sacramental but has “sacramental value” (pp. 187–8, 229–32). Treweek shows that Christian virginity was historically valued precisely because it was abnormal—it embodied the theological reality that the church is not defined by the patterns of this age. She argues that unlike the merely typological significance of marriage, “the unmarried form of life is not a foreshadow of eternity but an actual—albeit partial—foretaste of it” (p. 232, emphasis original).

Treweek’s proposal, however, encounters several difficulties in establishing itself on a sure footing. Exegetically, the most explicit instructional text on the topic of singleness stresses the instrumental rather than essential value of singleness (1 Cor 7), and the most explicit texts confirming that there will be no marriage in the resurrection concern a theological apologetic that does not speak directly to Christian ethics (Matt 22:23–33 and parallels). Historically, meaningful singleness was largely limited to intentional or vowed celibacy, rather than the unmarried state as such. Treweek’s retrieval, then, requires significant reconstruction. Theologically, the evidence for an intrinsic, theological meaning of the unmarried state in particular could be questioned. Treweek recognizes that much of what she claims for Christian singleness is true of all disciples (pp. 176, 212, 232). In light of this, rather than insisting on a distinct meaning for the unmarried state as such, it seems better to merely say, “single Christians as those who potentially exemplify a heightened instantiation of some aspects of the life to come” (p. 229).

Treweek is convinced that “Evangelicals need a church-wide, theologically faithful, biblically driven, pastorally oriented ‘gestalt shift’ on this topic” (p. 219). To this end, she has performed a great service in correcting distortions prevalent in evangelical ethics today and, for that reason, her case is deserving of serious consideration. The very nature of her project of theological retrieval leaves the reader eager to discover the author’s views beyond its scope—such as her exegesis of 1 Corinthians 7 in its entirety, or of Matthew 19:10–12, which she notes did not feature significantly in the historical discourse (p. 130).

The Meaning of Singleness is a valuable contribution to historical theology, biblical exegesis, and pastoral ethics, and one that leaves room for further work in this area, which I trust will include more from the author herself.

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