Dating in college is complicated. Dating at a Christian college is made even more so by pressure from the church. For students who follow Jonathan Pokluda, that pressure doubled with the debut of his new dating app, Qualified Date (QD).
Pokluda “hard launched” QD on February 26, 2025. In the caption of an Instagram post promoting the product, he wrote, “On average, people spend $250 on dating apps. But the apps are incentivized to keep you single.”
He explains, “Professional matchmaking can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $60,000. What if you could create a professional matchmaking platform with a dating app price point for Christians?”
To join Qualified Date, subscribers only need to pay a $25 application fee, until June 1. After that, the price goes up to $100. Oh, and an additional $99 per match.
So, what makes someone qualified to date? According to QD’s website, not everyone is “qualified.” Therefore, not everyone receives a match. For example, if the team “sense[es] someone is on QualifiedDate with nefarious intentions, [they] won’t find a match for them.”
Examples of what those nefarious intentions might be or how the team deciphers such intentions are not included. So it is possible to make the $100 deposit and never meet anyone.
Qualified Date also requires candidates to provide a pastoral reference. Once they are matched, their match will be given that reference so they can contact them. This “pastoral and/or spiritual mentor references” is used “instead of a ‘traditional’ background check.”
When you use Qualified Date, “you are not in the driver’s seat,” rather you are trusting a team of Christians (and a supposedly well-developed algorithm) to find your potential spouse. According to its developers, a successful outcome is “One match and marriage.” The implications of this for young Christians are dangerous.
Pokluda is the pastor of one of the largest churches in Waco, Texas, home to Baylor University. Baylor is one of the largest Christian universities in the country.
Harris Creek is a typical “college church.” Many students spend their four years there and young people make up a majority of the congregation, making college students Pokluda’s primary audience.
Pokluda has built his image and Instagram following of over 220,000 by posting about dating, marriage, and sex. He answers questions from his young followers on Fridays. Conversations range from giving advice on how to choose an engagement ring to how often married couples should be sexually intimate.
Pokluda has also published “Outdated,” intended to address “why you should date, who you should date, and how you should date.”
Students who admire Pokluda’s bold confidence and charisma and spend their college years in his congregation often take his advice without question. He is, after all, seen by many to be a dating, marriage and sex expert.
Pokluda’s brand and the launch of Qualified Date are just one example of a more significant issue within evangelicalism: Shaming casual dating and overemphasizing the importance of marriage. As someone who has attended Baylor Univeristy for the past four years, I have seen the harmful effects that this kind of messaging can have, especially for young women.
Students feel shame in dating and pressure to know whether the person is their future spouse. They are paranoid, looking for red flags and signs in every small comment.
They feel that the only requirement for a lifelong partner is to be a Christian, disregarding all other essential factors such as physical attraction and communication styles. They have been taught that they are vain and superficial when, in reality, they are important aspects of a healthy relationship.
Pokluda’s messaging replaces the joy that can be found in dating with extreme pressure and anxiety, forcing students to believe that they can only be “good Christians” if marriage is the ultimate goal of every romantic interaction.
We need a radical cultural shift in the evangelical world that allows young people to try and try again when it comes to their love lives. Dating is not a sin, but if we continue to teach young Christians it is, there will be lasting effects on their ability to form healthy relationships–both romantic and platonic.
Students should not feel like every romantic relationship is a failure if it does not lead to marriage. Instead, they need to be taught how to learn more about themselves and the world, and about building healthy relationships through every relational experience.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article stated the name of the dating app was “Qualified to Date” instead of “Qualified Date.” This has been updated to reflect the correct name of the app.
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Grace Pixton is a senior at Baylor University studying Religion, Professional Writing and Rhetoric, and History. Her writing has been featured at Redeeming Babel, The Center for Public Justice, and The Standard. Read more at https://gracepixton.substack.com/
