With rates of long-term singleness on the rise across Western societies, evangelicals are increasingly reflecting on the challenges this poses for the church. In The Meaning of Singleness: Retrieving an Eschatological Vision for the Contemporary Church, Danielle Treweek reframes the discussion around the Bible’s picture of the creation to come. Author and theologian Barry Danylak spoke with Treweek—founding director of the Single Minded ministry and an Anglican deacon in Sydney—about cultivating a robustly theological understanding of singleness.

What are some the challenges you see with defining singleness?

Singleness is a modern concept that carries lots of baggage. It can mean different things in different contexts. We don’t open 1 Corinthians 7, for instance, and see Paul talking about singleness specifically, but rather a host of related concepts like virginity and betrothal. And elsewhere in Scripture we see categories like widowhood and examples like the eunuchs in Matthew (19:12). So we need to be flexible in how we talk about singleness, recognizing some of the assumptions we’re bringing to that concept.

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