I was fooling around on the web, and noticed the ad you see on the left. I was so baffled by it I got a screenshot of it. I honestly don’t mean to offend anyone here, but criminy, I have to wonder about this thing. Not about Christians singles wanting to meet like-minded folks; that’s natural and I have no issues with that.
My question is, what does “Certified Christian” mean? That part of the ad is obviously meant to look like some sort of stamp. Does the woman in the picture have that tattooed on her body someplace? Does the dog?
Seriously (OK, not seriously, but still) what can that possibly mean? They call the churches of everyone who signs up to make sure they attend at least twice a month?
I went to their website, and there’s no mention of this in the FAQ or the signup process (which I did not engage in). I went to their terms and Conditions page, and the word Christian is there dozens of times, but every single time it’s part of the website name, and never comes up in the context of “We make sure everyone is certified Christian”.
Maybe they mean their own website is certified Christian. But who does that certifying? Is there National Board of Christian Websites, and they stamp you (or send a JPG of a stamp) when you qualify?
Just to be thorough, I checked the online Bible. The only time the word certificate is mentioned is in reference to divorce (seven times!), which I find a shade ironic given the nature of the wesbite as a dating service. Certified shows up in John 3:33 and has nothing to do with this context – “He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit.” – unless you want to interpret that as being about lying in your dating video. Certify is apparently not mentioned at all, which makes me suspicious of the dating service’s motives.
I guess in the end it’s simply a bizarre thing to have on a singles advertisement. If I were single (and I’m not, Scarlett, stop calling me!) I don’t think I’d want to go to a service that certifies anything. I’ve been on teh intertoobs a little while now, and I know the hot young thing I’m talking to in the chat room has a greater than 50/50 chance of being a man my age or older, so I’d know to take steps to certify their honesty.
And if it did turn out to be a woman, and she had a stamp saying Certified Woman anywhere on her, I’m pretty sure I’d still run away.
ObConfession: After I finished the draft of this post, I did a web search on “certified christian”, and found a site that asks the same question as I did. However, I’d prefer not to link to it, since it’s a mite less polite than mine.
