A Beleaguered Institution⤒🔗

Probably no institution has suffered from the onslaught of secularism as has the marriage institution. Divorce rates have skyrocketed in western countries, and an increasing number of people prefer to live a single life. Take for example John Taylor’s description of marriage in his recent book called Falling: The Story of One Marriage. ¹ After twelve years of living with his wife, and after going through the birth and growth of one daughter, his marriage became “a mechanism so encrusted with small disappointments and petty grudges that its parts no longer closed.” He can hardly account for the reason why he married: “It seemed a good idea at the time.” But over the years “something went wrong,” and while living together, they were actually miles apart. Taylor quotes the German writer Hermann Keyserling who called marriage a “state of tragic tension” between self-interest and duty, freedom and responsibility. A good marriage is “just a matter of luck.” Why be so big on faithfulness? Says Taylor: “Surrounded by disposable goods, we were urged every day to switch brands, trade up, discard, gratify every appetite – our times encouraged faithlessness.” After all, if everything else is disposable, why not your husband or your wife?

Other Alternatives←⤒🔗

Dissatisfaction with the monogamous relationship has caused a proliferation of new and imaginative alternatives to sprout from people’s minds. In the legal world, the term “spouse” has even been applied to what is called a “same-sex union” – as if that is even possible. Then there are the promoters of the so-called new celibacy. For example, Elizabeth Abbot, the dean of women at Trinity College on the campus of the University of Toronto, says that because sex has become such a depersonalized, athletic activity in our post-modern culture, more and more people are choosing to live without it. She opted for the same alternative after having taken the journey through marriage and childbearing. Why choose celibacy after marriage? She says:

This is because for me, as for most women, celibacy has major tangible benefits, namely respite from the time consuming burdens of housewifery to which even liberated professionals succumb. I am particularly grateful to be relieved of that aspect of previous relationships. No longer do I need to plan, shop for, cook, serve and clean up after a week’s meals, or iron the shirts I once foolishly boasted I could do better than the dry cleaner, or answer that infernal question, “Honey, where are my socks?” ²

In her own polite – or less than polite – way Elizabeth has told men, and especially the man in her life, where to get off. She’s done with the “burdens of housewifery.” The price she pays is no sex at all, but for her – in her situation, she admits – the deal is well worth it.

Or as another new alternative, consider the route chosen by Celine Davies (not her real name), a Toronto actress and producer. She used the avenue of the “Voice personals” to find a special partner. She says: “I decided to seek a lover after 10 years of celibacy in a 20-year marriage.” ³ For her, celibacy was decidedly not an alternative. “Frankly,” she says, “my hormones eventually got the better of me.” She tells her story of carefully choosing a Mr. Right from the barrage of options open to her. It was an elaborate process, but as far as she’s concerned it worked. “I am happy. My husband is happy. My lover is delirious. But ... there is a real danger. Our affection for each other continues to deepen. And it has become a struggle to keep our emotions in check.”

Emotions in check? And that in the context of what is (or, let me say, should be) full marital intimacy? It’s almost too absurd to believe. For here a relationship that is designed to bring one’s emotions to their fullest expression is being exploited with the implicit proviso that the emotions be curtailed, so that a part of them can still be reserved for someone else. Oh, the bizarre meanderings of modern-day people!

The Root of the Problem←⤒🔗

One note strikes me in this selection of examples that I have listed above – a package which could easily be multiplied by hundreds of similar pieces in our day and age. People have lost sight of the purpose of marriage and its place in the God given created order. Marriage is no longer seen as an institution designed to serve God and his purposes in the world. The result? The pursuit of self-interest takes over, and takes precedence over the responsibilities to the other persons (spouse and children) that marriage itself requires. Such a pursuit of self-interest in marriage is the exact formula required to ensure its failure and eventual destruction. For it is by definition not a relationship conditioned by self-interest. It may initially be prodded by personal interests and the call of the created order itself, the call to reproduction that comes with our created structure. But it remains an institution of service in which personal interests must be complemented and overcome by service to your partner, and above and before this, your service of the one true God!

Marriage ultimately remains a duty and calling. The call of nature itself is filled out and entirely qualified by the call of God. And when He calls, his call is always a call away from the pursuit of self-interest to a life of service. Marriage, too, is an institution designed to serve God, church and country, and whoever sees it as an arrangement to satisfy his own pursuits can never escape the world of “tragic tension.” The tension is born out of apostasy! Only when the human heart is directed to the service of the Creator, only then can a marriage achieve its real goal and find its true end. That is why the apostle enjoins marriage only in the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:39). Marriage can only find its deepest meaning in its submission to the lord-ship of Jesus Christ, (cf. Ephesians 5:21ff).

We also do not need to spiritualize marriage, as if it can only function as an institution for the sake of the church, and the building of the church. To be sure, that is a big part of a Christian marriage. But each and every marriage, also the Christian marriage, represents a calling from God to serve Him and his purposes. God calls man and woman to live in this special bond of companionship and fellowship, and still desires the expansion and growth of humankind! The one human race needs to come to its completion in order that from that whole, a new humankind can be shaped to the furtherance of God’s glory.

A Continued Task!←⤒🔗

Therefore the church still has an important calling and task with regard to the marriage institution today. In the face of widespread secularization, we need to witness concerning the true purpose of marriage. It is an institution not just for the church, but for society as a whole. It’s an institution representing the deepest relationship of human love that can be expressed. As such it also is instrumental in serving the stability and harmony of society as a whole. Therefore the church must call the authorities to enact and promote laws that protect this institution in the face of increasing ridicule and hostility.

Marriage is under fire. How do we meet the challenge? First, foster a marriage which is still on fire – fire for the Lord, nurtured by the flame He kindles. And second, let your marriage too become part of the living voice, the testimony of the church against a wicked and a perverse generation. Then, also through this institution, God will complete his purposes and lead his church to glory!