I have been encouraged by the serious way in which many Christians I know have responded to the whole same-sex marriage thing.
Timid Christians have bravely handed out leaflets and sometimes received abuse; the church has been united in prayer; no one is in any doubt about the importance of lifelong heterosexual marriage as a creation ordinance and as a crucial construct of a stable society.
Fellowship group
But in recent times a sad irony has struck me. I was participating in a prayer time in our fellowship group. Someone warmly led in prayer for the nation, asking God to prevent the redefinition of marriage. A loud ‘Amen’ to that.
Another person prayed no less warmly that God would heal the wounds of those Christians deeply damaged by divorce. During the sharing time, two divorced couples had been mentioned, related to church members. In both cases the couples were evangelicals. We felt the pain of those affected and there were audible sympathetic sighs. Such things offend God, dishonour his name and cause a wide circle of grief.
Sunday service
On a Sunday, recently, someone was standing at the front of the service seeking to inspire us to write letters to our MP defending marriage and promoting it for solid social as well as biblical reasons. As I mentally surveyed the congregation, it occurred to me that a substantial number were not married themselves. Whole rows of single people were listening. How many of them were wishing that, since marriage is such a good idea, they could experience it? (Nationally, among women aged 18-49, around 75% were married in 1979, but by 2011 it was less than 50%.) Furthermore, were the married couples present active in protecting their own marriages?
So, while evangelicals are keen to defend marriage as a concept and a construct (which is brilliant and important), how keenly do we defend and promote our own marriages or promote the idea of getting married as a suitable aim for single people?
Growing marriages
Now, as I raise that latter point, I hear the cries of single women, and their pastors, up and down the land saying how much the chance would be a fine thing. But this also I observe: that single Christians, male and female, are not very good at courtship.
Shocked by the sexual promiscuity of many of their unbelieving friends, neighbours and colleagues, they are careful to distance themselves from any kind of wanton behaviour. So far, so Joshua Harris. But they are also scared, inept and wasteful of opportunities, hiding in groups. Those who do marry these days are frequently finding their mate on the internet — effectively seeking an arranged marriage. (And yet if one of the elders tried to do any such arranging, they would be affronted.) How I long to see good, normal, heterosexual interest among the students and young working people in our churches. Face-to-face interaction, not facebook-to-Facebook! Whatever happened to chemistry, to the shy smile, and coy blushes?
Student days
University days used to be thought of as the mating season. It is a great time to make friendships which last a lifetime. And how many of your middle-aged married acquaintances will acknowledge that it was in those student days, in the Christian Union, that their eyes met across a crowded prayer meeting. Hallelujah for that! Those young couples, graduated, wed and in many, many glorious cases went out and became pillars of their churches, where they still serve. But now, although there are a few weddings per annum, a very large proportion of the present generation of students graduate unspoken for. The young women, trained to bear a facade of smiling confidence and independence, dream their dreams in vain, while the young men, overwhelmed by that facade, cling to their adolescence for a further decade and run away home to play their computer games. I am overstating this, but please don’t kiss dating totally goodbye! Where will be the Christian homes of the future — potentially such bastions of truth, havens for the weary and crucial seedbeds for nurturing of the next generation for God — come from?
We must pray that our young people will marry, yes, marry wisely and well, but marry. Otherwise whatever parliament does, heterosexual marriage may vanish from the earth. Apart from at a wedding, when did you last hear a sermon on ‘He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favour from the Lord’ (Proverbs 18.22)? Our young people need teaching that marriage is a really good, godly ambition.
Politically correct?
One of the reasons that marriage is not preached on in public services is, I fear, that preachers are afraid of upsetting the single people. In our quiet way are we becoming as unhelpfully politically correct as the world? Government ministers will not promote marriage, despite all the statistics which point to its benefits to all parties, because you must not offend the single parents. Are we making the same mistake? We let the world teach our people lies about marriage and family life, as if the Bible has nothing to say. In fact, as we know, it was God’s idea in the first place. And he has a whole lot to say about it.
Showing marriages
It is also sad to reflect among all the current heat about the importance of marriage as God intended, that in practice we have all been rather complacent about divorce in the last few decades. We have not liked it; it has shocked and saddened us. But we have not been consistently vigorous in preventing it. Instead we have wrung our hands and shaken our heads and accepted that ‘these things happen’. Again, none of us want to upset divorced Christians. But most of them would acknowledge regrets and would by no means want their own unhappy experience to disfigure the biblical standard of faithful marriage. And, of course, praise God that there is forgiveness. But such believers would not want their pastor, out of sensitivity to them, to neglect to teach on marriage, painful listening though it may be. Divorced Christians who read their Bibles must be aware that God dislikes divorce as much as he does homosexual behaviour.
Naivety, carelessness and the devil
The union of two sinners was always going to be beset by some difficulties. Christians need to be continually and proactively taught to apply what the Bible says into their marriages. It used to be naively assumed that two Christians are bound to maintain their marriage — the old picture of the triangle, and both parties being connected to Jesus at the apex gave, I believe, a false sense of security. We all know divorced Christians. And we all know Christian marriages which are a very, very long way from mirroring Christ and the church. And yet we carry on and don’t talk about it and for the most part don’t do anything about it. And, again, I say that if the devil cannot destroy marriage by act of parliament he will do so by the carelessness of Christians, for whom romance and tenderness are forgotten concepts.
Marriage, Christ and the church
More than ever, we who are committed to the idea of lifelong heterosexual marriage need to pray and work and change in a way which will demonstrate our commitment to our own marriages. This means the relational habits and routines of every day must come under biblical scrutiny, privately and through the regular preaching of God’s word. If marriage is a picture of Christ and the church, we can all benefit from a better understanding of what a good marriage looks like.
If we want to keep lifelong, heterosexual marriage as more than a quaint notional option, we need to do more than defend it in debate and argument. We need to be growing biblical marriages and showing biblical marriages. As (in Pride and Prejudice) Mr. Darcy says to Mr. Bingley when the latter express his intention of proposing marriage to Jane Bennet, ‘Go to it!’
