Marriage
That’s What Marriage is For
Most of us have known for a long time that God’s gift of marriage serves many purposes. It is a beautiful vehicle for intimate friendship, the opportunity to create new life, an advanced course in selflessness and learning to serve others, and a nurturing environment for children and family.
But a recent article on Islam turned on some light bulbs for me. Marriage is all of the above and more. But it is also a vital tool for world peace.
World peace? Isn’t that taking things a bit too far?
I don’t think so. I’ve had my “Aha” moment. World peace and stability.
That’s what marriage is for.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that after Genesis 1, which records the incredible, awesome, magnificent creation of the heavens and the earth, that Genesis 2 immediately records the importance of marriage to the overall creation.
Marriage seems to be the “key” to creation going well.
Of course, God-designed marriage is the joining together of a man and a woman into a relational and physical “oneness” that models the unity of the Trinity. That’s been the God-given definition of marriage for at least six thousand years.
Let’s take a moment to look at the passage that describes its origin: Genesis 2:18-24
“The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.”
“But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.”
“The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.’”
“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
That’s God’s equation for marriage.
A couple things leap out here. First, man needed a woman to make him complete. She was designed to complement him, to make him whole. Second, the woman was made from the flesh of the man (the rib). British theologian John Stott believes that the essence of marriage is God re-uniting male and female flesh through sexual intercourse.
On a micro-scale, that makes a lot of sense. The natural draw of men and women is the desire to reunite maleness and femaleness into a newly constituted unity of life and purpose.
However, from a macro point of view– the big picture of things–maybe the institution of marriage was meant to accomplish a far greater purpose.
Social harmony. Stability. Order. Peace.
This lofty thought came after reading an article on the roots of Muslim Jihad. It’s worth sharing in its entirety.
Is Polygamy the Cause of Muslim Violence?
By: William Tucker
“Syria is submerged in civil war. The Sunni and the Shi’ia of Iraq are renewing their 1300-year-old conflict. Libyan rebels have shut down the nation’s oil industry. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been suppressed and is resorting to terrorism. Pakistan is a cauldron of violence and assassinations. In short, the Muslim world, as usual, is at war with itself.”
“This is not a contemporary phenomenon. Islam has been attacking its neighbors ever since the Prophet Mohammed received the Koran from the Angel Gabriel in the 7th century. Within 50 years of his death, Muslim armies had conquered the known world from Spain to Afghanistan. The Moguls invaded India, setting off a conflict that persists today. The Ottoman Empire besieged Europe for hundreds of years before its collapse in the 20th century. As historian Samuel Huntington has written, Islam has always had ‘bloody borders.’”
“Is there any explanation for this? Is it temperament or history? Is it the inevitable fight over scarce resources? Or, as Muslim cultures would insist, is it because Islam has always been surrounded by hostile neighbors?”
“In my book, Marriage and Civilization, I offer a novel explanation as to why Islam has always been at war with itself and others. It is because Islam it is the only major religious culture that embraces polygamy.”
“Polygamy? What does that have to do with anything? Am I suggesting that because some minor sheik outside Baghdad takes two wives, two young Muslim brothers in Massachusetts feel compelled to blow up the Boston Marathon?”
“Well, yes. In any human society there are approximately the same number of men and women. Under monogamy, which limits each man to one wife, everyone gets a fair chance to marry. When powerful and successful men are allowed to take more than one wife, however, as they are in a polygamous society, this creates a pool of unsuccessful men at the bottom of society who are constantly in conflict with the system.”
“The history of Islam has been one continuous story of rebel groups off in the desert and deciding that the religion being practiced by the authorities and their harems back in the cities is not the ‘true Islam.’ They come crashing back upon the palaces, overthrowing the leaders (no Ottoman Sultan ever died of natural causes) and establishing a new regime that is just like the old one, where powerful are allowed to take multiple wives.”
“The Prophet Muhammad had a novel solution to this problem. Go and conquer neighboring societies and requisition their women. If you die in the process, the reward will be even greater – 72 virgins waiting for you in heaven! ‘Jihad’ has been a clever and effective way of redirecting the hostilities of the ‘bachelor herd’ that polygamy inevitably produces.”
“The fruits of polygamy are visible all over the Middle East. Because women are always in short supply, families can charge a ‘bride price’ to any man who wants to marry their daughter. Because daughters are now worth money, they must be veiled and sequestered so they don’t run off with some callow youth. Older men desperate for wives push down into younger and younger cohorts of the population. Marriages between 35-year-old men and 13-year-old girls become common. (Muhammad’s last wife was age six.)”
“But the main product of polygamy is a population of angry young men who are ripe recruits for terrorism. The Koran supposedly limits a man to four wives but in countries where there are vast disparities of wealth this is routinely violated. Osama bin Laden’s father, a successful Saudi businessman, had 22 wives and 54 children. The unbalance between unmarried men and the available women in Saudi Arabia is the highest in the world. Is it any wonder that 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers were Saudi nationals?”
“Ann Coulter once suggested that we would cure Muslim violence by converting the Islamic world to Christianity. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Christianity’s long enforcement of monogamous marriage has obviously played a critical role in establishing the more peaceful civilization of the West. The same can be said for China and India, where the vast majority adhere to monogamy. None of these cultures is plagued with the endless internal violence and outward aggression of Islam.”
“Converting the Muslim world to Christianity may be out of the question, but persuading it to give up polygamy on the grounds that it creates an inherently unstable society is a task that the rest of the world might be willing to undertake.”
I agree with everything Tucker postulates except the final paragraph. Ann Coulter is right. The key to eliminating Muslim violence in the world is the Good News of Christ which changes the heart and brings a human life into the blessings of God’s ways. One of those blessings is marriage–monogamy–and the peace and stablity it brings to human societies.
The most peaceful societies in the world are biblically based. Look at Europe, the Americas, Pacific Islands, and many other nations where the Good News has created marriages and cultures that create the greatest amount of peace possible in a fallen world.
Why?
Because marriage restrains sin through godly wives who keep men from giving in to their pugnacious natures.
This was a conclusion of Robert Bellah in his 1980s best-selling book Habits of the Heart. In his chapter called “Love and Marriage” Bellah explained that the genius of early America was the centrality of faith, marriage, family, and “superiority of the American women.”
Bellah quotes Alexis de Tocqueville, the French historian, who visited America during the 1930s: “[Christianity] reigns supreme in the souls of the women, and it is women who shape mores. Certainly of all countries in the world, America is the one in which the marriage tie is the most respected and where the highest and truest conception of conjugal happiness has been conceived.”
Bellah concluded what we men know from experience: Women are the superior sex and we desperately need their spiritual sensitivities to restrain our male excesses, guide and teach our children, provide an environment of love and nurture for the family–and in a phrase–keep the peace.
Is there any honest man out there that disagrees? Godly women are the fulcrum of stable families and nations. And it is the institution of marriage that ties us to their apron strings so that we don’t go off half cocked and destroy the planet.
Thirty years ago, in the margins of Bellah’s book, I wrote in my wife’s name–twice. Yes, I desperately need Shirley to bring peace, love, and unity to our home and family!
If we want peace on earth, less wars, and social stability, then godly women anchoring biblical marriages form the time-tested recipe for success.
God is awfully smart.
He knew that’s what marriage is for.
A Royal Dilution – Let’s Restore the Dignity of Marriage
I like weddings. I thoroughly enjoyed mine–it was an all-day affair that brought great glory to Christ and was a joy to share with Shirley and others. As a clergyman, I’ve married many other wonderful couples who used their weddings to promote the virtues and symbols of uniting together as man and wife.
For this reason, I followed the recent royal wedding with some interest, especially due to the media hype that caused it to be watched by billions of people around the world. Some folks criticized the tax-payer expense to the average Brit, and others pointed out the bonanza in tourism that the wedding would bring.
I don’t really care about the financial debate. I’m concerned that the marriage of William and Kate, though they appear to be decent people, is yet another example of diluting the beauty and dignity of marriage.
Marriage doesn’t need any more polluting images. It’s already under siege–and needs to be restored to its once wonderful and lofty place.
During my lifetime, the institution of marriage has been greatly cheapened and tarnished. It’s happened before in other time periods, but I’ve only lived in this one–and it grieves me deeply.
When I was born in the 1950s, marriage was held in high esteem in the United States and many parts of the world. Its ceremonies and traditions meant something and were very unique and special. They were tied to the Word of God and expressed His perspective on love, commitment, purity, and fidelity.
But along came the 1960s rebellion against authority–including the institution of marriage–and the promotion of “free love” without godly parameters. Since that raucous period, the change of worldview in the West has greatly polluted the pure stream of God’s intentions for holy wedlock–with most of the changes being hurtful for men, women, and especially children.
What pains me the most is how the lies of the evil one have become so accepted in contemporary culture–the ones that produced William and Kate and the “Royal Wedding.” Yes–it was a beautiful affair–and many of the words shared in the service were excellent regarding God’s perspective on marriage (Gary Randall has a good blog here on the positives). I’malso sure that William and Kate “love” each other and have a fifty percent chance of living ‘happily ever after.”
So what’s the beef?
It’s this: William and Kate really didn’t get married on April 29, 2011.
They’ve been living together for years for crying our loud! That’s a decade of common law marriage–an arrangement not done according to the divine blueprint.
In other words, in God’s eyes, they were already “married”–at least in a cheapened form of the term.
Because here’s the little lost secret of the meaning of the word “marriage:” The essence of marriage is “joining together”–sexually and otherwise. That unique joining –uniting closely in love and affection according to the original Webster’s 1828 Dictionary–has been robbed of its specialness and power through the excesses of the sexual revolution.
So the modern wedding ceremony and its many spiritual symbols don’t mean much anymore. In Kate and William’s case:
- There was nothing exhilarating about them “becoming man and wife.” They’ve been living that way for years.
- Her white dress was only show. It used to stand for the purity of a bride who had not shared sexual relations with any man prior to her vows. In her case, the meaning was gone because she’d been sexually active for years.
- The kiss at the end of the ceremony didn’t mean anything either. In the past, it was a very poignant moment where the bride and groom kissed each other for the very first time. It was the reward of self-control and honor–and was applauded by those in attendance who appreciated the love and sacrifice that brought couples to that moment.
- The giving of the rings and the signing of the papers was also shallow. They used to mean a solemn covenant to love one another until death do us part. In the case of the royals, many that have gone before them (Andrew and Fergie & Charles and Diana) made a mockery of the commitment. In today’s world, there’s a fifty percent chance that William and Kate will do likewise.
In other words, sexual immorality greatly cheapened William and Kate’s beautiful gift of marriage. The ceremony was essentially a show with empty symbols. The beauty was there–but it was all an illusion that did not speak to deeper truths or lifestyle reality.
It was all, really, a lie. And we know where lies come from.
Unfortunately, in the past few decades the devil has had a field-day deceiving us about love, relationships, and marriage. The purpose of these lies has been to destroy us as individuals and ultimately collapse our culture due to removing the pillar support of godly marriages and families.
He’s done a pretty good job of that–and the fruit of broken and dysfunctional lives all around us is strong evidence of his tragic success. Sure, at this point we’ve become a bit callous to it all, but reality is rather blinding. The devil has been extremely effective in discipling Western societies in phony love and perversions of marriage.
Here are a few of his “marriage and healthy relationships” deceptions:
1. All teens need to “couple up” way before they’re ready for marriage and commitment. In fact, let’s just announce that we are “in a relationship” on MySpace or Facebook! Then we can play kissy face, get involved sexually, break up, cry, feel guilty, and have all our friends comfort us (and get in line to be the next candidate) Then we can do it again and again so that by the time we get to the real thing we’ve given away our heart and body so many times that marriage means very little indeed.
2. After beating us up through many hook-ups and break-ups, then why not do a “trial run” by living together in the illusion of marriage? Yes, we need to really find out if we’re sexually and psychologically compatible! Kind of like trying out a used car–kicking the tires—until you find the right one. Of course, statistics have told us for years that common law or shacking up “marriages” do not increase compatibility and commitment. They diminish it.
3. Even if we get a ring and sign the papers, there’s an easy way out: No fault divorce! Now there’s a misnomer for you. Obviously when two people sever a marriage relationship, somebody must be at fault–at least one–and usually both. But no-fault divorce is a convenient satanic lie because it rationalizes guilt and makes me feel better about blaming the other party and moving on to my next victim, er, spouse. No-fault divorce is one of the worst laws of the past fifty years. It’s shredded the institution of marriage for decades.
4. And since marriage is about me meeting my needs–and doing whatever it takes to get there–then who cares about the kids that we produce. They can change households every two weeks, grow up without a dad or mom–or have two sets of each–and turn out just wonderful! I don’t believe we can begin to imagine the scars and hurts we’ve placed in the lives of precious children who needed one mom and dad and the security of a thing called “home.”
5. And finally, let’s so destroy the concept of marriage that we convince ourselves that basically anybody can marry anybody else if they “love” each other (devil’s definition of course). So now we have homosexual marriage and will soon have multiple spouses and humans marrying animals–all in the name of liberated love! What’s incredible about “homosexual marriage” is that, by definition, men cannot marry men and women cannot marry women because the “plumbing” can’t be joined. No matter–we’ll make it work somehow (in very perverse and consequential ways).
I’ve taken a little fun above to make a point, but I’m truly grieved at the warping and cheapening of marriage during the early part of the 21st century. It has hurt and destroyed so many people–and continues to do so in our culture.
So what can we learn from the Royal Wedding? I suggest we open our eyes and make a firm commitment to return to God’s beautiful design for human marriage. You can start in the marriage you already have, or if you’re single, make a commitment to not put on an empty show with symbols that mean little. If you have some courage and convictions, you can:
- Kiss serial dating goodbye and enjoy many healthy friendships in your growing up years that do not involve sex and its responsibilties. Save yourself for that special “other.”
- Save the kiss! Preparations for marriage don’t require it, and will make that moment in your ceremony something others and you and your wife will cherish for a lifetime.
- Prepare for marriage with God’s choice for you through a courtship relationship where families are involved, discipleship is key, and the friendship is kept pure and growing.
- Keep sex out of it before marriage. It was sheer joy to be a virgin when I entered my marriage thirty-five years ago. I’d saved myself for Shirley. She was worth waiting for. The honeymoon was truly that–almost heaven on earth.
- Be faithful for a lifetime. Maybe you’ve messed up and need to repent and get up on the right and pure road. That’s okay. Redemption is God’s specialty–even of marriages.
Young person: If you handle marriage God’s way you will never be disappointed. But if you follow the devil’s blueprint, you will pierce yourself with many a pang and cheapen and dilute that which was meant to be a very wonderful, life-giving stream of blessing in your life.
Be courageous! You can do it. Let’s restore the beauty and dignity of marriage so that all the symbols and ceremony give honor and glory to the One who designed it for our good.
An Actress, A Governor, and the Culture War
I remember when I first saw Natalie Portman’s picture. Our oldest son, Nathan, had just graduated from high school in 1999 and received his high school yearbook. As a joke, he pasted a photo of her next to his in the South Kitsap annual– as if she was in his graduating class!
He liked her then. She was a rising star.
In 2011, her stardom hit paydirt when she won her first Oscar as Best Actress for her performance in Black Swan. Her acceptance speech was short and seemed sincere–but one little sentence in it caused an old debate to re-surface:
How important is marriage to having children?
The answer to that question determines the overall happiness and stability of societies.
I hope we choose well in the 21st century.
Here are the actual words of Natalie Portman on February 27 at the Academy Awards:
“So many people helped me prepare for this role. Mary Helen Bowers spent a year with me, training me, Michelle Rodriguez and Kurt Froman and Olga Kostritzky, Marina Stavitskaya, and my beautiful love Benjamin Millepied, who choreographed the film and has now given me my most important role of my life.”
“Given me the most important role of my life.”
She was referring to the role of motherhood.
Natalie was clearly pregnant on stage–and also unmarried. She’s had sex (or was in some type of “relationship”) with Black Swan’s choreographer, Benjamin Millipied, and together they’d produced a baby.
In all thirteen generations of American history–except the last two–that reality would have been looked down upon as not ideal or desirable. Children were supposed to be born into marriages where both the presence of a mother and father was necessary and vital to to their nurture and future success.
But Natalie Portman is a part of a generation that no longer believes in the ideal–God’s order of things. She believes that sex or “love” is all that’s required to bring a child into the world.
Enter the Governor–former Governor Mike Huckabee–who is considered one of the leading presidential contenders for 2012. On a March 3rd talk show hosted by Jewish commentator and film critic, Michael Medved, Governor Huckabee shared his perspective on Ms. Portman’s example:
”You know, one of the things that’s troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, ‘Hey look, you know, we’re having children, we’re not married, but we’re having these children, and they’re doing just fine.’ But there aren’t really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie.”
It’s true that Natalie Portman has more resources than most to raise her child out of wedlock. The Governor was right on that point. But he went on to say:
”Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing.”
That is also a sobering truth. The largest single cause of poverty in America is single parent homes–children being born out of wedlock.
Then the Governor-and-possibly-presidential-candidate-Huckabee–shared some down right scary statistics:
“You know, right now, 75 percent of black kids in this country are born out of wedlock. 61 percent of Hispanic kids — across the board, 41 percent of all live births in America are out of wedlock births. And the cost of that is simply staggering.”
Let those stats sink in for a moment.
- Three out of four African-Americans that you know were born missing a dad or mom.
- Six out of ten Latinos are victims of single-parent homes.
- And nearly four-in-ten of all live births in the United States are children that will not grow up “normally” in the loving nurture and more-successful structure of a two parent home.
That’s a huge problem–for any society.
The Heritage Foundation rightly points out that:
“Couples who are married have a higher average household income, more assets, and better health than many of their single or cohabitating counterparts. Conversely, families that are headed by unmarried females make up more than half of all families living in poverty. And paychecks are not the only reason two parents are better. Research shows that ‘improvements in child well-being that are associated with marriage persist even after adjusting for differences in family income.’ With four of every 10 U.S. children now born outside of marriage and welfare spending skyrocketing—especially on single-parent households—policymakers and taxpayers can no longer afford to overlook the effects of family and marriage on civil society.”
This is an important discussion. And it’s not just about abstract statistics.
I am personally close to a situation right now where a young teenager is devastated and hurting. She lives with her mother but they don’t get along because of the brokenness of the home. She spends weekends at her father’s place–and cries. She goes back home to her mother–and doesn’t feel loved and protected.
She’s missing security and blessing because the nuclear family is not valued and encouraged.
But back to Mike Huckabee’s analysis. Governor Huckabee was not singling out Natalie Portman for ridicule or disrespect–just commenting on a national problem that she had brought to the forefront by her words at the Oscars. A few days after, he clarified his remarks:
“In a recent media interview about my new book, A Simple Government, I discussed the first chapter, ‘The Most Important Form of Government Is a Father, Mother, and Children.’ I was asked about Oscar-winner Natalie Portman’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Natalie is an extraordinary actor, very deserving of her recent Oscar and I am glad she will marry her baby’s father. However, contrary to what the Hollywood media reported, I did not ‘slam’ or ‘attack’ Natalie Portman, nor did I criticize the hardworking single mothers in our country. My comments were about the statistical reality that most single moms are very poor, under-educated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death. That’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that society often glorifies and glamorizes the idea of having children out of wedlock.”
For the past week Natalie Portman’s words and Mike Huckabee’s response have dominated the social media. One side has said that what Natalie Portman has done is okay–it’s modern, individualistic, and is nobody else’s business. The other side has retorted that it is not helpful to our society to popularize or condone having children outside of marriage. It only hurts the kids–and the entire society in which they live.
During my lifetime, this is the second major national discussion we’ve had on out-of-wedlock births. The first occured in 1992 when Vice President Dan Quayle made his famous remarks about ficticious TV single mom Murphy Brown–and the media escoriated him for it. At the time, Quayle was tarred and feathered as prudish, out-of touch, and bigoted for his criticism of single motherhood.
Years later, the press quietly admitted that Quayle had been right–and that the growing epidemic of single parent homes was a major problem in our nation.
Apparently we have short memories.
So I welcome the debate again in 2011. Because here’s the simple truth: Sex outside of marriage is not good for people; Having children out-of-wedlock hurts kids and increases poverty; We should not glamorize or condone single parenting; We should work hard to keep our marriages intact–a gift of love, security, and prosperity to our children and their children.
That’s the bottom line.
Elevate marriage and family–discourage its counterfeits.
We are in a culture war over the future of marriage and family. Natalie Portman currently represents the secular side that wants to minimize the importance of the nuclear family. I hear a “demonic echo” coming from that direction. Satan wants to destroy kids and inflict poverty and despair upon people. One of his greatest strategies is to bend and break the traditional family.
I ask you to pray for Natalie Portman and many others like her.
Mike Huckabee represents the other side–the Judeo-Christian consensus that believes that God has something vital to say on this subject. He loves all human beings–especially vulnerable children–and created the family structure to nurture, protect, and defend them. Governor Huckabee wants families and children to be strong, productive, and fruitful.
And now you know the real reason that this story hit the front pages. Mike Huckabee might run for president of the United States in 2012, just as Dan Quayle ran for Vice President in 1992. The secular media, who do not believe in the importance of marriage and family, saw this as a great opportunity to try and cut him down to size.
Let’s not let them succeed.
Mike Huckabee is right on marriage, single parenting, and out-of-wedlock births. I asked my wife to order his book, A Simple Goverment, for my birthday.
Maybe he’s right on a few other important ideas that are vital to America’s future.