What exactly IS dating?

This is one of the most misunderstood questions and I absolutely must bring it up here. It is very important to be specific about what exactly constitutes a "date". While I was reading about dating, courtship, premarital appropriatness, one author would write that it is inadvisable to date because dating leads to premature intimacy which very often leads to heartbreak. Another author would write that dating is healthy and should be engaged in order to produce friendships.

The one thing I never saw any of these authors actually stop and bother to do was define what "dating" is. I know this sounds like a trivial exercise but it is very important that all parties agree on definitions before we go throwing them around in a discussion or debate. This is important because views on what exactly goes on, or should go on, during a date vary wildly, particularly in modern America.

There are two fundamental differences between courting and dating: direction and accountability.

In dating, both parties probably realize that the relationship is indeed romantic, but if you mention the prospect of marriage, usually the response you get is a chuckle and then, "Well, we don't know. We're just dating," or something along those lines. If dating has no purpose other than short term entertainment, then logically, there would be nothing wrong with a married man or woman dating someone other than their spouse. But I don't think anyone would condone that. In courtship, the understood direction is towards marriage. That, however, does not mean that marriage will be the outcome. It merely means that is the intention.

In dating, there is barely any accountability for the couple's actions. If temptations arise, there is no person or group of persons to help both guy and girl to stop before they make a mistake. [See 'A Short History of Dating']. While Billy Graham was "dating" his wife, he made a deliberate point to avoid being alone with his wife-to-be until the relationship was well underway. This prevents two things, temptation and the spread of rumors. In courtship, both the man and the woman allow themselves to be held accountable by Christian friends, their pastor(s), and their parents.

When I hear Christian teachers explaining that there is nothing wrong with dating, and then fail to continue and define exactly what that entails, I think it does an injustice to the students of those teachers. I urge anyone reading this to use the word "dating" carefully since I think we can both agree that there is a large difference between what secular America and Christianity expects of us when a man and a woman go out on a "date".