The answer is pretty straightforward: While our sexual ideals have remained biblical and thus rooted in marriage, our ideas about marriage have changed significantly. For all the heated talk and contested referendums about defending marriage against attempts to legally redefine it, the church has already ceded plenty of intellectual ground in its marriage-mindedness. Christian practical ethics about marriage—not the ones expounded on in books, but the ones we actually exhibit—have become a nebulous hodgepodge of pragmatic norms and romantic imperatives, few of which resemble anything biblical.
Unfortunately, many Christians cannot tell the difference. Much about evangelical marital ethics is at bottom therapeutic: since we are pro-family, we are sure that a happy marriage is a central source of human contentment, and that romantic love is the key gauge of its health. While our marriage covenants are strengthened by romance, the latter has no particular loyalty to the former.
Our personal feelings may lead us out of a marriage as quickly as they lead us into one. As a result, many of us think about marriage much like those outside the church—as a capstone that completes the life of the autonomous self. We claim to be better promise keepers, but our vision of what marriage means is not all that unique. When did this all change?"
If one accepts the premise that the church has a marital problem and the premarital sex problem is simply a side effect/symptom, then the obvious question is what can the church do to recapture (or capture?) the biblical view of marriage?
The first problem with this question is what exactly is a biblical view of marriage? We have some diverse models from the OT (Abraham and Sarah, Samson and Delilah) and scant instruction from the NT (love your wife and respect your husband, and the concept of submission). Even our Christian marriage books seem to be largely in agreement with our secular marriage books. Question: "What is the most essential thing to maintain a good marriage?" Answer: (all together now) "GOOD COMMUNICATION".
Secondly, one can hardly doubt that marriage is held as the model for much of the American churches. The church today is built around marriage and families. As Mark Regnerus cites in the article most American do want to get married and I would add that probably 100% of those singles sitting in the church pews each Sunday want to get married. So given the facts that most people want to get married and churches strongly encourage people to get married, why are people remaining single for longer?
Talk to almost any Christian girl and you will begin to hear a common refrain "Most guys are just so immature". I don't often get the chance to talk to Christian young men about why they're not married - so I called one up and asked the question. The answer I got was surprisingly similar to the answer that girls give, the prevalence of emotional and intellectual immaturity and insecurity issues among the Christian young women of his acquaintance.
It seems to me the church has a huge marital problem and the pink elephant in the room is divorce. By failing to take on the problem of divorce, in any meaningful way, the church has ceded its credibility on the whole topic of marriage in many (young) peoples eyes. If the church was to begin to work on divorce by 1) Not marrying anyone who has been divorced for non-scriptural reasons (real adultery) and 2)revoking membership for any non-scriptural divorce, it might regain some of its integrity in the whole gay marriage debate and encouragement of young people to get married.
What seems bizarre to me is that in the comments section of the article there are actually parents saying they would rather have their children have pre-marital sex than get married early (to a "wrong" person I presume). While I am sympathetic to this view, if this isn't a perfect example of how far we've strayed from the biblical view of marriage and sex I don't know what is.
What can the church do to encourage a biblical view of marriage among the young men and women of Gen Y and beyond?
No comments:
Post a Comment