{"id":3209,"date":"2012-06-13T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T14:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biblearchive.com\/blog\/?p=3209"},"modified":"2012-06-12T21:27:09","modified_gmt":"2012-06-13T02:27:09","slug":"christians-marriage-and-the-current-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblearchive.com\/blog\/christians-marriage-and-the-current-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Christians, Marriage, and The Current Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of the debate when it comes to marriage today revolves around political issues (should this or that type of marriage be restricted by the state) or around Biblical justification (is this or that type of marriage allowed by Scripture). That, to my mind, is an immediate failure even if an understandable one.<\/p>\n

In the last hundred years or so there\u2019s been a dissection and distribution of a broken idea of marriage. That would take some time to unpack, but I\u2019ll mention some strands to my thinking.<\/p>\n

Take sex for example.<\/p>\n

Biblical marriage has always contained an erotic or sexual component evidenced in such passages like the Song of Solomon. But in the last hundred years, with the rise the sexual revolution, eroticism and sexual expression was brought into sharp focus.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, that was a good thing. After all, this sort of thing was always part of the model but it wasn\u2019t properly expressed. On the other hand, the focus on this expression was in exclusion from marriage. In other words, it was an aspect of loving self-expression\u2014in contradistinction from marriage.<\/p>\n

Suddenly we have a splintered aspect of marriage (sex) as unessential to marriage but fundamental to love. Marriage winds up needing Love (which includes sex) and Something Else. After the sixties and seventies free love, it was immediately obvious that that Something Else couldn\u2019t be Sex\u2014it had to be commitment.<\/p>\n

The splintering of marriage, thus, continues.<\/p>\n

Even that began to erode as marriage went from something that necessarily included commitment but necessitated happiness. If one wasn\u2019t happy then one could, quite easily, move away from the commitment. After all, love makes one happy and without happiness there is therefore no love.<\/p>\n

Multiply that fragmentation when you take other aspects of marriage and make them stand on their own like support, help, or bearing children.<\/p>\n

Arguing in defense of this fragmented marriage, most of the debate winds up being way off base. Trying to find Biblical justification (or denial) for any of these expressions of marriage\u2014including heterosexual marriage which is grounded on that broken picture I mentioned above\u2014winds up being a fruitless enterprise that may feature a proof-text or two but in the end will collapse in on the new definition.<\/p>\n

After all, why can\u2019t someone who loves their full sister marry her? Or a chipmunk? Or both? With the new fragmented paradigm, the question is rather \u201cwhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n

Historically, Christians have argued differently but unfortunately it takes more work (more than I\u2019m going to do in this post) grounded in deep theology and robust thinking. We must: one, look to Christ; and two, must continually return to the model which God has established.<\/p>\n

Of course, proponents of modern marriage will say that this is question begging but that is the case only if there were no model to appeal to. But, by looking first to Christ we\u2019d note:<\/p>\n