Reframing Singleness

The number of unmarried adults in the United States is rising—yet many Protestant churches remain under-equipped to minister to them well.

In Reframing Singleness: A Positive Vision for the Unmarried Life, Chris H. Smith Jr. reclaims a biblical-theological vision for singles in the church that celebrates the unmarried state as a faithful mode of Christian living.

Smith traces how the Christian understanding of celibacy shifted from an honored vocation toward an overlooked calling, particularly after the Protestant Reformation. Drawing together Scripture, church history, and the biblical story arc of creation and covenant, he constructs a theology of singleness grounded in the church’s identity as the family of God. This framing honors marriage as a creational good while emphasizing the in-breaking of God’s new creation—one in which the believer’s ultimate home is found not in a biological family on earth but in the family of God.