Treweek points us to the happy ending to come in eternity, when the entire church will be married to her Redeemer.
Single Ever After: A Biblical Vision for the Significance of Singleness. By Danielle Treweek. The Good Book Company. 2025. Paperback. 174 pages. List Price: $16.99
In a key scene from the classic film All About Eve, forty-year-old actress Margo Channing sits in the back seat of a car, smoking a cigarette and musing about the trajectory of her life. She has made a fine career for herself on Broadway, but now a younger actress threatens to replace her. Margo’s life seems emptied of meaning, for she has failed to marry. “And in the last analysis, nothing’s any good unless you can look up just before dinner or turn around in bed and there he is. Without that, you’re not a woman.” [1]
In the seventy-five years since that film’s release, American society has thoroughly rejected the notion that marriage is the chief purpose of a woman’s life, but much of evangelical Christianity still promotes a vision similar to Margo Channing’s: without marriage and children, you’re not a proper woman, because that is what women were created to do.
Danielle Treweek, director of Single Minded Ministry, is seeking to challenge that idea with her new book, Single Ever After. As a single woman herself, she has witnessed problematic and often conflicting narratives in the church when it comes to the status of single men and women. While her book focuses on singleness, she stresses it is written “for everyone because, while only some of us will remain single—or become single again—in this life, in the eternal life to come, all of God’s people will be Single Ever After” (pg. 12).
While Christians usually have a clear understanding of marriage’s purpose in the present and in eternity, Treweek suggests there is no such vision for the ultimate meaning of singleness, as if singleness were a lack of something good rather than a good thing itself. This places single Christians under pressure to create meaning through personal performance.
“We’re happy to say that singleness can achieve good things here and now. But we don’t usually see singleness as having a meaning or significance beyond that—as having its own eternal end. This can leave those of us who are single feeling that our life situation is only a good thing if we are constantly making sure we do all the right stuff with it” (pg. 18).
Treweek notes based on Christ’s comments in Matthew 22:30 that “in the resurrection age, there will be no marriage of any kind between men and women,” and “The new creation will not be filled with many wives and husbands. Instead there will be one husband (Jesus) and one wife (the church)” (pg. 20). So while married Christians point to the eternal reality of Christ’s union with the church, single Christians point to the reality that humans will not be married to each other eternally or procreate. “We will be single ever after. This eternal truth has something very important to impart to us about life in the present. It teaches us that being unmarried is not the same thing as being alone” (pg. 40).
While Christians often point to God’s statement that it was not good for Adam to be alone (Gen. 2:18) in order to dignify marriage over singleness, Treweek argues that, “Marriage was only part of God’s solution to Adam’s aloneness” (pg. 40). In fact, it is our sibling relationships with others in the church that will endure into eternity, and even the marriage bond leads to other types of bond. “God’s creation of the marriage relationship between Adam and Eve was intended to result in the abundant provision of a multiplicity of relationships. God took someone who was really and truly alone, and then he generated the entire network of human relationships from his very body!” (pg. 39).
For this reason, the church needs the testimony of unmarried men and women as much as married ones. “We need you to live out the profound truth that marriage, romance and sex may be good, but they are not essential to what it means to be human. We need you to remind us of what we’re all eagerly longing for—an eternity of deep, rich, valuable, intimate relationships shared between brothers and sisters in Christ” (pg. 26).
One idea popular in the church is that there is a special “gift of singleness” that God grants some people so they can live a life of special religious devotion. Like Treweek, I have heard this idea circulating over the years, possibly as a confusion of St. Paul’s teaching on spiritual gifts. During my time as a single adult, I felt this “gift” belonged in a white elephant exchange. Treweek writes, “the gift [of singleness] is seen to spiritually empower the unmarried Christian in two extraordinary ways: 1) through a supernatural freedom from sexual desire, temptation or longing and 2) through a supernatural sense of contentment with or happiness in their singleness” (pg. 55).
Treweek notes this creates a division among singles between those who feel called to it and those who do not, with the latter fearing their singleness has no meaning or worth. “No, [singleness] is a good gift for every single because God himself has called it good,” she argues. “It’s good because God himself has a good purpose for it. It’s good because God himself is at work in singleness (as he is in marriage) to remind us that the very best is still yet to come” (pg. 67).
When Christians do not view singles as set apart individuals bravely battling against the demons of temptation for eternal glory, they view singleness as a pitiable state without personal fulfillment. But Treweek sees a different problem.
Contrary to popular Christian opinion today, the tragedy is not singleness itself. No, the real tragedy is that many of our church communities are places in which those who are single experience chronically higher levels of loneliness and relational isolation…simply because they are single (pgs. 42-43).
The challenge for married people in the church is therefore “to take stock of how you think and talk about the singleness of your unmarried friends. Do you see it as either an exceptional superpower or, alternatively, a tragic problem to be solved?” (pg. 72). Whereas for singles, the challenge is to remain open to brother/sister friendships and pursue them proactively. “Mere wishful thinking or dropping little relational breadcrumbs is bound to end in disappointment. Enjoying relationships with others involves active communication and vulnerability” (pg. 49).
Treweek also notes that while the Reformation offered helpful corrections of the church’s teaching on marriage and family, “It was the Protestant Reformers who popularised—dare we say, invented—the notion that an unmarried Christian could only live a godly life of sexual faithfulness so long as God has given them a super-duper special gift to do so” (pg. 122). She singles out Martin Luther’s work The Estate of Marriage for making this claim and laments that “in trying to make more of ‘mundane’ marriage and less of ‘heroic’ celibacy, the Reformers ended up making far too much of sex. They overcorrected. And we have inherited that legacy” (pg. 123).
Treweek is correct that Luther and his compatriots emphasized the nearly impossible nature of vows of celibacy, but those teachings must be understood in light of the historical moment in which they were made. Monks and nuns were departing their former lives, and the Reformers argued that rather than being punished for this, those men and women should have never been expected to take life-long vows of celibacy in the first place. Nevertheless, the emphasis on humanity’s need for sex and the inability to contain sensual desires does bring into question the role of the Spirit in helping us escape temptation.
It is sexual temptation that Treweek addresses in the book’s final chapters, rejecting the popular notion that a person’s identity is defined by their sexual activity, such that unmarried Christians are heroically sacrificing their identity in remaining celibate. “While godly obedience should be honoured, we must recognize that glorifying God and faithfully following Christ is never a sacrifice of our true self. It’s actually us becoming the self that God created us to be, through the Spirit” (pg. 135). She also wisely rejects the idea that marriage is a quick fix for Christians struggling with lust. “And so, getting married to solve lust is like taking a painkiller, not finding a cure. It will never solve the underlying condition because the only remedy for our sinful hearts is the redeeming gospel of Jesus Christ” (pg. 148).
It is difficult to fault Treweek’s arguments, which are firmly grounded in Scripture. I particularly appreciated the emphasis in each chapter on how to “live out” these biblical principles as either unmarried or married Christians. There is one point in her discussion of Christ’s teaching about eunuchs (Matt. 19:12) where she refers readers to an article rather than providing an explanation in the text of her book. This is a bit strange, and I would prefer an additional two pages or so dedicated to that exegetical exercise, given the importance of that passage to her argument. But this does not take away from the overall quality of the book.
Single Ever After is a quick read that will benefit all Christians, regardless of marital status. Treweek points us to the happy ending to come in eternity, when the entire church will be married to her Redeemer. “And so, we have the privilege of living life with confident anticipation rather than uncertain anxiety. We know that, in Christ, all will be well that ends well” (pg. 166). That is good news.[1] All About Eve. Written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Twentieth Century-Fox. 1950.
