I know nothing about internet dating. So I’m not going to blog much about it, if anyone wants to write a guest post about why it’s great, or why it’s dreadful please get in touch. I’m sure it’s something people are interested in and a challenge for Christians to know how to engage with it. Otherwise you’ll just get my ignorant ramblings at some point in the future.

But that’s not what I’m writing about now. This is something that I do not need to know much about to be outraged. Advertising encouraging people to have an affair. It is wrong, it is immoral and it is a deeply disturbing aspect of our society that tolerates and perpetuates such damaging behaviour.

Jon Kuhrt has taken on this shameful type of advertising before, last year a website ran billboard posters encouraging affairs, Jon stepped up to the plate, took them on and won. But now they are back at it again, different name, different website, same horrific attempt to profiteer by ruining marriages. Jon’s written an open letter to the boss, Ross Williams, of the parent company, Global Personals. Read through his letter and I’d encourage you to give them a call and express your thoughts in a kind and considered manner. Also, join the facebook group for the campaign. For good reason the name of the site is being kept out of this, the controversy could just end up sending more traffic to the site.

And that’s almost all I would have to say on the topic.

If it wasn’t for www.justchristiandating.com which I stumbled upon while digging around the Global Personal website, which conveniently seems to be undergoing some redevelopment right now.

So a Christian dating website is part of a company which also runs a site which promotes unfaithfulness. It would seem so. That is, if you want to describe Just Christian Dating as a Christian dating website. Because it can’t be, unless you want to also call the mafia turning up for confession as the epitome of radical discipleship.

There are somethings which we shouldn’t accept. They may not be illegal, but the brazen attempt to make money by pulling people’s lives apart should not go unnoticed. And the thought that by putting ‘Christian’ into a dating site’s address could make it so.

Actually, that’s not so uncommon a problem. It’s not just online dating entrepreneurs who market their products to the church. We do it too. The books and the music, the conferences and the courses. If we call something Christian then surely Christians will buy. Sadly we are too often sucked into this lie.

I’m not convinced about Christian dating websites, but if we are going to use them, please make sure they’re not money spinners tied to an enterprise which Jon Kurht describes as “like a drug dealer who promotes what they are pushing as harmless when really they are trading in something deadly and destructive”.