Part One     Part Two     Part Three     Part Four

Ghosting is an extreme, unscriptural form of separation, which has been defined as “the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.”  It has become an increasingly more common occurrence among professing Christians in various institutions.  I know that the most regular usage of the term relates to the realm of dating in the world, but in its technical meaning it applies to any personal relationship.  It’s happening in Christian homes today all over the country with their adult children.  Statistics and my own observation show me that.  An article entitled, “Ghosting Needs to Die,” reads:

[W]ith increasing frequency, adult children are ghosting their parents. Dr. Joshua Coleman, author of When Parents Hurt, calls it “a silent epidemic.” Sixty percent of parents surveyed on the Estranged Stories site said their children had never “concretely shared” their reason for severing contact. In “Hidden Voices: Family Estrangement in Adulthood,” researchers at the University of Cambridge reported that more than 70 percent of adult children held out no hope for a relationship in the future. They also noted that the adult children were ten times more likely than their parents to initiate the break.

What are the situations for or in which someone could ghost?  I’ve read a lot about ghosting and the situations for and in which the world says it occurs.  When people ghost, they might either have a good reason or not.  As I’ve written in other posts, ghosting is an extreme form of separation.  Separation itself isn’t bad in the Bible.  It very often is good to separate.  It is not always good to separate and sometimes, even when it is good to separate, it can be done in a wrong way.

Is there ever a situation where someone should separate “suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication”?  Scripture doesn’t give one example of this.  The Bible teaches against the components of the behavior in no uncertain terms.  Ghosting doesn’t originate from scripture, so where does it come from?  From all that I’ve read, even secular psychologists call it a form of cruel narcissism.  I couldn’t find anyone who said it was good.  I read one place that said that it would be permissible in instances where the ghosted person is a “toxic” or “narcissistic” person.

Even ghosting implies an already established relationship.  I’m not going to address whether it’s okay for a girl to ghost a boyfriend that she finds out is a mafia member.  I’m assuming this is a person who will disobey scripture and will not be guided by the Word of God anyway.  The right approach would start with preaching the gospel to this person.

Would an actual Christian ghost?  Only a disobedient one, and I’m saying a very disobedient one.  I wouldn’t keep calling this a Christian, a true believer, without some soon coming repentance of this hideous practice.  It really is a person who is rebellious against God’s design.  It’s treating the world like it isn’t God’s.  This is someone making up his own rules about relationship against God.

In a comment to an earlier post, someone mounted a sort of argument for ghosting of some kind.  I could even sympathize with the situations he brought up.  There are still no grounds for a Christian to ghost anyone.  The Bible contains a wealth of material to deal with perceived situations to ghost.

From my reading on the toxic parent, a concept arising from secular psychology, in most cases a normal Christian parent would fall under toxic parent.  He’s just got to want his way of life to be kept by his children, and that’s toxic, even and perhaps especially if it is scriptural.  The word toxic turns the behavior of the parent into something criminal, so a child would be justified in protecting himself from criminal behavior.   Ghosting is the way out. This is the underlying idea today against most counseling against sinful behavior — that counsel is abusive.

The biblical alternative to ghosting are the scriptural steps to reconciliation.  This assumes two parties that want to obey scripture.  A biblical alternative doesn’t mean anything to someone who doesn’t recognize the Bible as the final authority for faith and practice.  If two parties are at loggerheads in reconciliation, they are submitted to mediation, ultimately the church.  All of these steps are in the Bible multiple times.

Not following biblical instruction on relationship, according to the Bible is hateful or unloving.  In Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus compares it to committing murder.  Murder connotes a strike at the image of God.  God created relationship, wants the love of neighbor as one’s self, and so here is a person that is murdering the relationship.

Part of an agreement or will to reconcile would be a will to change based upon scriptural terms.  Someone must know what or how to change.  Ghosting doesn’t afford that.  The one ghosted doesn’t even know what the problem is, so he can’t change until he finds out what could reconcile.

In my observation, ghosting applies to someone who does not care or want to be ruled by what the Bible teaches on relationship.  He wants to do what he wants to do almost without judgment.  He doesn’t want to face scrutiny on his decision making.  He won’t risk the rejection of his lust with even one attempt at justifying it.  Ghosting is the invention of a self-willed, lust dominated person.  A continuation of ghosting is the practice of a non-Christian.  He may say he knows God, but living in this chosen state of perpetual disobedience, he is a liar.

Jesus said, he who has the ears to hear, let him hear.  The rejection of ghosting has to start with consideration of how despicable the practice.  Someone who is saved will understand this sin sent Jesus to the cross, if he believes Jesus died for his sins.  Understanding that salvation is being presented before God as pure and spotless, he will want to obey in practice what he has already obeyed in position, or what the Apostle Paul described in Philippians 3:12, “apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.”