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Arts & Entertainment

There's now a Tinder-style app for Christians; I tried it

I have a confession to make now, before God and all of you: As a teen, one of my primary motivations for going to church (which wasn't necessarily a weekly engagement for my family at the time) was meeting girls. So the concept of a Christian dating service isn't weird to me, even if a statement like "It's Tinder but for Christians!" sounds pretty weird.

So when I first heard Collide referred to as "Tinder for Christians," my response was, "Oh," followed by "Wait, what?" I've been off the dating market for awhile now (sorry, ladies), so I was only vaguely aware of what Tinder even was. Still, I wanted to know what makes Collide different.

So I signed up for it.

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I cleared the idea with my wife first, of course. Even if it was in the name of goofy journalism, I wouldn't have wanted to explain to her the presence of a dating app on my phone. She sort of shrugged and said, "Sure, whatever," and off I went.

The app asked to connect to my Facebook account, but promised it wouldn't post anything on my behalf. I figured it would pull in my name and photo, but I wondered if it would make note of my relationship status being "Married." It's a Christian app, after all, and adultery isn't exactly something we Jesus followers tend to promote. The app either didn't notice or didn't care, though.

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I was asked whether I was male or female, then it prompted me to choose my favorite Bible verse. I put in Isaiah 41:10, because that verse stuck with me after hearing it in an old Adventures in Odyssey episode as a kid.

Then Collide presented me with a screen where I could select whether I was interested in men or women, and nothing stopped me from selecting both.

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I found this interesting. Contrary to popular belief, not all Christians are vehemently opposed to same-sex or bisexual attraction, but such views usually seem to be reserved for smaller, more progressive corners of the faith. I didn't expect to find such options in what appeared to be a "mainstream" Christian app. It didn't seem to be a bug, either. When messing around with various settings I found that I would get different matches if I listed myself as a man interested in men than I would if I said I was a female interested in men.

Next up, the app asked for my denomination. I could just choose "Christian" if I wanted, but I could specific Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, etc. The stuff you'd expect.

With all that done, Collide gave me the first potential match in my area -- a profile that was either broken, or a woman with no photo who has no favorite Bible verse.

The options are exactly the same as Tinder. Swipe left (or tap the X) to pass on the person, swipe right (or tap the check mark) to acknowledge your interest. If both you and the other party are interested in each other, then the app will let you chat with each other.

I swiped my way through three accounts before running into this screen:

To be fair, the app launched late last week, so it's probably not right to expect a huge user base so soon. Still, I was left with a feeling of "That's it?" when getting to the end, and I'm not even looking for love in my life. (Curious, I changed my sex to female, searched for men and found a similarly small selection of users.)

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But even if there were more people to scroll through, the experience felt a bit hollow. Everything seemed to work as intended, but there is nothing revolutionary here. This is Tinder to a T. The only things that are new are the Bible verses and the denomination selection. And if you want to search specifically for people in your denomination? You have to pay for that as a premium feature.

In fact, one thing Tinder has that Collide doesn't is more space for profile information. There's nowhere to announce -- even briefly -- my likes or dislikes, my hobbies or my pet peeves. Until you match with somebody and unlock the ability to chat with them you have to judge everyone purely on their looks, their denomination and their favorite Bible verse. And come on, how many of us Christians actually have a favorite Bible verse that isn't John 3:16 or whatever verse "Jesus wept" is?

Back when I was going to church with the hope of finding love, I was doing so specifically because I wanted to find a like-minded individual to spend my time (if not my life) with. When your faith is important to you, dating someone who doesn't share your views or values can be a waste of time. So again, I get why an app like Collide exists. If I were still single, I might even stick with it to see if it got any better. But as it stands right now, awkwardly flirting with that cute girl or guy in your church small group might still be the way to go.