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Saturday, May 19, 2012

The #1 Threat to Marriage Sanctity

It’s that season again: The hard-core social conservative wing of the Republican party needs to incite its base to action, and there’s no better rallying platform than shared enmity. This political season’s threat of choice is Gay Marriage, a phenomenon which will, we are told, cheapen and demean traditional marriage.

It’s a clever straw man, really. Aside from opposition to abortion, the shared resistance to gay marriage might be the only political plank capable of uniting Mormons, Evangelical Christians, and Roman Catholics. In any other context, these groups demonize one another, declaring eternal hellfire for the other two (or lower levels of heaven in the case of Latter Day Saints). Rallied around a common enemy, however, these three antithetical institutions lock arms as brothers and declare themselves joint heirs of a Christian nation, defending their common morals.

After the rallies, they go back to declaring each other damned. There are limits, you know.

***

FLASHBACK: The morning after gay marriage was legalized in New York State. My parents are at breakfast. He reads the paper. They speak in Spanish. I translate below.

     HIM: Hey, gay marriage got passed yesterday!
     HER: Ah. Is there more milk?
     HIM: There’s a letter saying it cheapens our marriage.
     HER: Really?
     HIM: It’s what the letter says. Does ours feel cheaper this morning?
     HER: It must. It’s right there in the paper.
     HIM: Yeah, they wouldn’t just make that up.
     HER: Of course not, never. So, the milk?
     HIM: Hey, the Bills are getting a new helmet design!

***

I hereby declare: Christian marriage is in danger of being cheapened. In fact, it is in the very process of being cheapened. Not, however, by gay marriage, as those caught up in the politics and machinations of this world would have you think.

The primary and only significant threat to Christian marriage today is Christian divorce.

I had thought to make this blog post about addressing the question of Christian remarriage after divorce, itself a rather controversial issue. But as I researched the topic, I felt myself growing more and more heartsick. Site after site and commentary after commentary, it dawned on me that the only reason there is so much Internet discussion about whether or not Christians can remarry after a divorce is because there is so much Christian divorce. The followers of the very Lord who declared “I hate divorce” (Malachi 2:16) seem to spend an inordinate amount of time arguing what situations make it permissible.

Fact: Marriage is so important to the Almighty, He chose it as the principal metaphor for His own relationship with His people.

Fact: Divorce, with or without remarriage, is rampant through the Body of Christ.

***

On the off chance you think I am overstating the case, let me present this scenario: I walk you up to a group of ten adults. You poll them, and you discover three of those ten have been divorced. Using that information alone, you have no sure way of determining whether I have walked you up to a group of ten born again Christians, or a group of ten non-Christians. Divorce is equally embraced by both groups.

This information comes from a 2008 study by The Barna Group, an evangelical research company based in Ventura, CA. Specifically, they found divorce rates to be:

     All born again Christians:          32%
     All non-born again Christians    33%
     Atheists or Agnostics:                30%

Since the margin of error for the study was +/- 3%, any rating within 6 points of an atheist is pretty much indistinguishable from that atheist. So let’s take heart that we aren’t statistically worse than atheists. No, not worse. We’re exactly the same.

Yay for us.

***

Those who argue the jots and tittles of how, when, and why a Christian can be allowed to divorce are missing the point. The real threat to the sanctity of Christian marriage is the Christian couple.

Those who maneuver and dissect scriptures to reveal exactly how a Christian might be able to remarry after a divorce are also missing the point. The real threat to the sanctity of Christian marriage is the Christian couple.

Those who throw themselves into screaming political battles over the legalization of gay marriage are missing the point. The real threat to the sanctity of Christian marriage is the Christian couple.

***

I spend a good amount of time in my Social Network of choice, Second Life. In my years there, I have met dozens of Christians who are divorced and remarried, and when I get to know them well enough, I take the risk of asking how they reconcile their divorce with the sanctity of Christian marriage. To date, their response has been uniform: Their spouses cheated on them, and therefore they were free to divorce based on Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:32: “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.”

I’m going to comment on that. I’ll step past the obvious irony that those quoting the verse to me were using a passage where Jesus was speaking out against excessive divorce and setting it the task of justifying why they did get divorced. Instead, I’ll focus on a subtler assumption that seems to dwell behind their words. That assumption is this: That divorcing due to unfaithfulness is practically required by Jesus in that passage, and if not required, at least shown to be the better path to take.

If that assumption is really there, then I’m compelled to respond to it this way: Stop using a single scripture to justify your flight from marriage, and embrace the whole of Scripture, which has a far different message.

Were you wronged by an adulterous spouse? So was Yahweh, who took Israel as His betrothed, and was cheated on again and again.

Were you furious at that spouse, unable to contain your hurt and your fury over the betrayal? So was Yahweh, Whose bride Israel became like a harlot when seeking other beds, other gods.

Did you cast away that spouse, severing the covenant forever by means of a justifiable divorce? Now you're on your own, for Yahweh did not. Instead, He found a way – built a way at great expense to Himself – to make that covenant eternal.

***

You say your wife has violated the sanctity of the marriage covenant by having an affair? Then instead of using that as your justification for fleeing, man up and show her by your example the path to righteousness again. Says Paul: “How do you know, husband, that you might not save your wife?” (1 Cor. 7:16)

You say your husband has lost his faith and that you shouldn't be unequally yoked? Then instead of using that as your rationale for escape, become a woman whose worth really is beyond rubies and be the presence of Christ in that relationship. Says Peter: “If any husbands do not believe the Word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.” (1 Pet. 3:2)

Christian married couples, your decisions to rationalize flight from your marriage commitment might be technically permissible. There may be exceptions in Scripture that allow you to break ranks and run away. But when you do that, you cheapen the sanctity of marriage. You, Christian divorcer, are the real threat to traditional Christian marriage.

Those who are married need to find every blessing and every prayer available to avoid divorce. Those who have already divorced, be it for a month, a week, or decades, need to find every bit of strength the Holy Spirit gives them to bring those marriages back to covenant status and righteousness, rather than hiding behind the Get Out Of Jail Free cards they claim from Scriptural loopholes.

And those Evangelicals waving signs against gay marriage and expending unbelievable amounts of time and energy in worldly politics need to ask themselves why they are so worked up about how marriage looks in the non-Christian world … given how sad it looks in their own congregations. They need to put down the signs, go back to their flocks, and begin reconciliation from within.

Once the plank is out of the eye of the Body of Christ, there will be plenty of time to pick specks out of other eyeballs.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx