Marriage a Thing of the Past?
Recently, I watched a segment on CNN about how more and more couples are choosing to live together instead of getting married. The segment included two radio host who frequently talk about modern day relationship issues as advice gurus.
The gist of the conversation ended that marriage is just a sheet of paper and many people in today's culture see no need to go through the legal and financial rigmarole of getting married.
The glaring omission from the entire story is the lack of moral conviction. Think about it. If there is nothing wrong with having sex before, outside, or after marriage and if there is nothing wrong with having children outside of wedlock, then what is marriage? A legal contract between 2 people who are dedicated to one another and have decided to make it known to everyone including the state. It is basically a sheet of paper that gives you tax breaks. If that is true, then why bother?
Last night, I watched in horror and dismay the Charlie Sheen interview on 20/20. After 3 ex-wives and 5 children, he has 2 live-in girlfriends. These girlfriends do everything a wife would do. The only difference is they don't have a sheet of paper on the wall declaring that they are married.
I submit this is modern day polygamy. If he was married to them then it would be illegal in most states, but the law says nothing about living with two women, nor should it (that's another post altogether).
I think the ladies in the story got it wrong. The reason why more and more Americans are choosing to live together and not get married is because they do not have the moral conviction to know that sex outside of marriage is wrong.
In God's eyes once a man lays with a woman they are married. This is why we say the marriage is consummated the night of the wedding. This is when it becomes official before God and man.
So is marriage a thing of the past? No, as long as we can show the lost the narrow road, the road to Jesus, marriage will continue to stay strong and maybe even make a comeback
Bottom line: people need Jesus. We don't need to condemn people who choose to live together, nor the people who choose to have sex outside of marriage that would only serve to alienate them. We simply need to love them like Jesus and have the Holy Spirit do his work in their lives.
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The gist of the conversation ended that marriage is just a sheet of paper and many people in today's culture see no need to go through the legal and financial rigmarole of getting married.
The glaring omission from the entire story is the lack of moral conviction. Think about it. If there is nothing wrong with having sex before, outside, or after marriage and if there is nothing wrong with having children outside of wedlock, then what is marriage? A legal contract between 2 people who are dedicated to one another and have decided to make it known to everyone including the state. It is basically a sheet of paper that gives you tax breaks. If that is true, then why bother?
Last night, I watched in horror and dismay the Charlie Sheen interview on 20/20. After 3 ex-wives and 5 children, he has 2 live-in girlfriends. These girlfriends do everything a wife would do. The only difference is they don't have a sheet of paper on the wall declaring that they are married.
I submit this is modern day polygamy. If he was married to them then it would be illegal in most states, but the law says nothing about living with two women, nor should it (that's another post altogether).
I think the ladies in the story got it wrong. The reason why more and more Americans are choosing to live together and not get married is because they do not have the moral conviction to know that sex outside of marriage is wrong.
In God's eyes once a man lays with a woman they are married. This is why we say the marriage is consummated the night of the wedding. This is when it becomes official before God and man.
So is marriage a thing of the past? No, as long as we can show the lost the narrow road, the road to Jesus, marriage will continue to stay strong and maybe even make a comeback
Bottom line: people need Jesus. We don't need to condemn people who choose to live together, nor the people who choose to have sex outside of marriage that would only serve to alienate them. We simply need to love them like Jesus and have the Holy Spirit do his work in their lives.
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I tend to think most of this comes from the conversation we've had over the past 50 years regarding gay marriage. In my opinion, the conversation has lead to the separation of the legal and religious thoughts on marriage.
ReplyDeleteAs the religious community has pushed to disavow the idea of gay marriage, it has brought up the idea of equal rights. This takes the conversation away from Christian values and forced us to think in terms of tax benefits, insurance policies and legal view of a relationship.
Couple that with the failure rate of marriage on both sides, and people are beginning to rethink the whole concept.
Few issues with the thoughts in the blog:
1. Christianity does not equal morality. Not even close. I know you well enough to know that you're not a pharisee, but the idea of saying one person is moral due to affiliation with religious constructs is something a pharisee would say, not Christ. Non-Christians perform moral actions and carry out moral lives all the time, in so much as a Christian does. We are reminded then that everyones righteousness is that of filthy rags. So to denote one groups morality over another, seems to be a failed point as all attempts at morality fail in the light of a Holy God.
2. Why do we care what non-Christians do? Why do we expect them to act like us? Did Christ pass judgment on people who were acting inline with who they said they were, or was his judgment held for those religious who failed in love? You covered this towards the end of the blog, but only after you made the point (twice) that people have low or nor morale conviction. The end of the blog would have better fit if the content of the blog was without opinion and then reminded us at the end of our duty as Christians. It kinda came of as, "We don't want judge you, but we're going to judge you."
3. The Christian church has a higher divorce rate than non-Christians (the immoral ones mind you). So it seems like we should focus our conversations on how "we" as His Church can do better and not worry so much about the world.
4. This world, being broken, can not be fixed - nor can we create a Christian utopia. We can't legislate it (something Christ seems to be VERY against) and we can't brow beat others into being holy.
Thoughts?
1. I did not mean to equate Christianity with morality. I am well aware that there are many who claim to be Christians, but have what we would call "questionable morals." I simply meant that those who follow Christ are more attuned to the Holy Spirit who gives us our moral compass.
ReplyDelete2. I see what you mean by "I don't want to judge, you, but I'm going to judge you anyway." I do not expect a non-Christian to act like a Christian. In addition, I believe that Christ will judge us all regardless of who we said were or how we behave.
3. I agree that we need to work harder on ourselves. We must be the example to the world, since we are a city on a hill and cannot be hidden. Once we can clean up our act and show the world that it is better, the the world will follow. Unfortunately, in more cases than than not we have failed to walk the walk we talk about and condemns those who never claim to agree with our morals and values.
4. I believe that the world is broken, and that trying to make a Christian utopia is a lost cause. However that does not mean that we should not try to change the world. I do not believe in trying to legislate that change. I'm sorry if I implied it. Legislation is merely a reflection of current culture. If we legislate morality without the culture behind it we would end up with something like the Prohibition era or even some wold say the war on drugs. I think that if each Christian can make a difference in their little sphere of influence, then the world as a whole would be a better place.