Tag: Marriage

Love That Lasts Past One Night

University StudyingOver the past few weeks, the New York Times has published a couple of articles of special interest to Christians.  The first is by Kate Taylor and chronicles the seedy underbelly of the college hook up culture.  The picture she paints is dark and disturbing:

At 11 on a weeknight earlier this year, her work finished, a slim, pretty junior at the University of Pennsylvania did what she often does when she has a little free time.  She texted her regular hookup — the guy she is sleeping with but not dating. What was he up to? He texted back: Come over.  So she did.  They watched a little TV, had sex and went to sleep.

Nationwide, nearly 3 in 10 seniors say they have never hooked up in college.[1]

Take a moment to ponder the significance of this statistic.  It’s not that three in ten college seniors have hooked up, it’s that three in ten college senior have not hooked up.  This means by the time a college graduate walks across the stage to receive a diploma, there’s a 70% chance he or she has engaged in casual, illicit sexual activity.  This is nothing less than ghastly.

Now, contrast this with a New York Times article by Ross Douthat on college campuses as one of the last non-virtual bastions at which to meet a lifelong mate.  He begins his column by citing a 2012 study:

From about 1960 to 1990 … neighborhood and church had a roughly steady influence over how heterosexual couples met, with about 10% of heterosexual couples meeting as neighbors and about 7% meeting in or through houses of worship.  After 2000, neighborhood and church went in to steep decline along with most of the other traditional ways of meeting romantic partners.[2]

It seems the dating strongholds that have traditionally set people on the path to marriage are in steep decline.  This trend does not hold true, however, for college campuses:  “College has also dipped since 2000 as a place to meet, but only modestly,” Douthat notes.  What, then, is the upshot of these statistics?  Douthat concludes:

It seems fair to assume that there are still a lot of people who would prefer to meet their future spouse the old fashioned way — through initial flesh-and-blood encounters embedded in a larger pre-existing social network.  If that’s your preference, the university campus is one of the few flesh-and-blood arenas that seems to be holding its own as a place to form lasting attachments.  So for those Americans who do attend college, the case for taking advantage of its denser-than-average social landscape might actually get stronger as the non-virtual alternatives decline.

So there you have it.  On the one hand, college campuses can be hotbeds of squalid sexual hookups – places where people make out at night and walk out the next morning.  On the other hand, college campuses remain ideal environments for meeting, dating, and, eventually, marrying.

The apostle Paul issues a sobering warning about the effects of sexual immorality, saying that God gives over people “in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another” (Romans 3:24).  When reading such a warning, I can’t help but think of an especially telling story from Kate Taylor’s article:

For many Penn students, their initiation into the sexual culture takes place at fraternity parties during New Student Orientation, a five-day period before classes start in the fall, which, along with Spring Fling in April, is known as the biggest partying time of the year.

“You go in, and they take you down to a dark basement,” Haley, a blond, pink-cheeked senior, recalled of her first frat parties in freshman year. “There’s girls dancing in the middle, and there’s guys lurking on the sides and then coming and basically pressing … up against you and trying to dance.”

Dancing like that felt good but dirty, and like a number of girls, Haley said she had to be drunk in order to enjoy it. Women said universally that hookups could not exist without alcohol, because they were for the most part too uncomfortable to pair off with men they did not know well without being drunk.

The first line of the last paragraph haunts me:  “Dancing like that felt good but dirty.”  Another word for “dirty,” of course, is “degrading,” the very thing which Paul says is the result of sexual immorality.

So often we read Paul’s words in Romans 1 as a condemnation of those whose sexual ethics differ from those of Christianity.  But Paul’s words are much more than a condemnation.  They are a sad statement of reality.  And even the New York Times knows it.  Sexual immorality is dirty.  Sexual immorality is degrading.  Perhaps C.S. Lewis puts it best when he writes specifically of females trapped in sexually promiscuous lifestyles: “I have no sympathy with moralists who frown at the increasing crudity of female provocativeness.  These signs of desperate competition fill me with pity.”[3]  Like Lewis, may we pity those who are so desperate, they willingly degrade themselves sexually.  Such degradation is truly heartbreaking.

The choice is clear.  At college, a student can either degrade him or herself in sexual recklessness, or take advantage of a university’s social landscape to form friendships and, by God’s grace, a lifelong marriage relationship.

My prayer is that more and more people would choose chastity – not only because it gives glory to God, but because it really is better for His creations.  It really is better for you.  You don’t need to degrade yourself.  For you have One who was degraded for you on a cross.

[1] Kate Taylor, “Sex on Campus: She Can Play That Game, Too,” New York Times (7.12.2013).

[2] Ross Douthat, “The Dating World of Tomorrow,” New York Times (7.19.2013).

[3] C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis: Readings for Meditation and Reflection, Walter Hooper, ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 88

The Downfall of DOMA

Supreme Court 1The headline was welcomed with both cheers and tears:  “Supreme Court strikes down Defense of Marriage Act.”[1]  For some, this ruling was a welcomed vindication – and indication that the argument for same-sex marriage had not only won the day in the Supreme Court, but in the court of public opinion.  Others were saddened and even embittered.  Former Arkansas Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee tweeted:  “My thoughts on the SCOTUS ruling that determined that same sex marriage is okay:  ‘Jesus wept.’”[2]

So how is a Christian to respond to this ruling?  There are two things I believe that are paramount to any Christian’s response.

The first is humility.  Responding with bravado – either for or against this ruling – is not helpful.  Whether it be the raucous celebrations of many of this ruling’s supporters or the vitriolic denouncements of many of this ruling’s detractors, anything less than a humble and gentle spirit leads to combat rather than conversation.   And as I have written elsewhere, simply trying to win against each other rather than listening to each other means that no matter who supposedly “wins,” everybody loses.[3]

The second thing needed is honesty.  Christians need not compromise moral conviction when it comes to human sexuality.  We simply must hold to our convictions humbly rather than haughtily.  The biblical moral vision for human sexuality is clear:  sexual intimacy is to be reserved for a husband and wife in the lifelong covenant of marriage (cf. Genesis 2:24-25).  Deviations from this – be they fornication, adultery, or homosexuality – are prohibited by Holy Writ.  It’s okay to say this.  It’s okay to stand up for this.  It’s okay to make a moral pronouncement on marriage.

Indeed, as I have thought through the court’s ruling on DOMA, I find Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion to have far reaching moral implications:

The avowed purpose and practical effect of the law here in question are to impose a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the States.

The history of DOMA’s enactment and its own text demonstrate that interference with the equal dignity of same-sex marriages, a dignity conferred by the States in the exercise of their sovereign power, was more than an incidental effect of the federal statute. It was its essence. The House Report announced its conclusion that “it is both appropriate and necessary for Congress to do what it can to defend the institution of traditional heterosexual marriage. … H. R. 3396 is appropriately entitled the ‘Defense of Marriage Act.’ The effort to redefine ‘marriage’ to extend to homosexual couples is a truly radical proposal that would fundamentally alter the institution of marriage.”… The House concluded that DOMA expresses “both moral disapproval of homosexuality, and a moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality.” … The stated purpose of the law was to promote an “interest in protecting the traditional moral teachings reflected in heterosexual-only marriage laws.”[4]

In Justice Kennedy’s opinion, DOMA was drafted and passed into law with the express purpose of interfering “with the dignity of same-sex marriages.”  How does he know this?  Because DOMA demonstrates “both moral disapproval of homosexuality, and a moral conviction that heterosexuality better comports with traditional (especially Judeo-Christian) morality.”  In other words, Justice Kennedy claims that the Judeo-Christian morality in which DOMA is grounded diminishes the dignity of same-sex marriages.  Such a diminishment cannot be tolerated.  It is, in a word, illegal.  This is why DOMA must be overturned.

The duty of the Supreme Court justices is to render legal decisions.  But every legal decision carries with it an indissoluble moral component.  In this instance, this legal decision’s moral component is in the declaration that a law based on the Judeo-Christian sexual moral standard is discriminatory and illegal.  Such a pronouncement replaces the Judeo-Christian sexual moral standard with a sexual moral standard of its own – one that is open to same-sex marriage while still, interestingly enough, discriminating against other forms of marriage (e.g., polygamy).  Thus, what Justice Kennedy and the Supreme Court majority have done is issued not only a legal opinion, but a moral valuation.

Laws are irreducibly moral.  Laws against murder or perjury or theft inevitably promote some vision of what morality is and means. Thus, even the justices of the Supreme Court cannot render a strictly amoral legal verdict on whether or not to federally recognize same-sex marriages.  What they declare on this issue will always, in some way, involve judgments of and on morality.  The question we must ask ourselves is, “Is the morality of the Supreme Court majority the right morality?”

Justice Kennedy has given his answer.  What’s yours?

[2] Mike Huckabee, twitter.com/govmikehuckabee (6.26.2013).

[3] Zach McIntosh, “The State Of Our Public Debate: Same-Sex Marriage As A Test Case,” zachmcintosh.com (4.8.2013).

[4] United States v. Windsor, 570 U. S. 1 (2013).

Dodging Dating Disasters

Date 1Recently, I was talking to a friend who is in the throws of the dating scene.  Over the course of our conversation, it began to strike me just how complicated, frustrating, and frightening dating really can be.  Her past few dates had not gone so well.  And she was beginning to lose hope.  “All the good ones are taken,” she said with a definite edge of resignation.  “I’m just going to have to take what I can get.”

The more I pondered her statement, the more concerned I became.  Her willingness to just “take what she can get” seemed to be nothing but a setup for a let down.  After all, if her past few dates had ended poorly because she just settled for what she could get, how much worse would things go if she married someone just because he was all she thought she could get at the time?

Over the years, I have shared with people a taxonomy that helps them consider who to date and who not to date.  The interesting thing about this taxonomy is that it is one we all use or have used, but we often use it only subconsciously.  Pulling this taxonomy from our subconscious to our conscious, however, can help us identify our patterns of thinking and, hopefully, save us from dating disaster.  So it is with this in mind that, if you are dating or would like to date, I would encourage you take a moment and create a three-column list.

Column 1: What I want.

In this column, simply write honestly what you would like in a companion.  And don’t sugarcoat it. If you’re a lady who wants the guy who looks like a cross between The Rock and Vin Diesel, write that down.  If you’re a guy who wants the girl with the perfect hourglass shape, write that down.  Hopefully, you also have some more modest and meaningful desires for a companion as well – someone who has a good sense of humor, a deep intuition, or a knack for solving big problems.

Column 2: What I need.

In this column go the non-negotiables.  The non-negotiables include items such as faithfulness, forgiveness, commitment, and, of course, a hearty trust in the Lord.  Think long and hard about this column and try not to confuse what you actually need with what you think you need.  For instance, you may think you need someone who meets some predetermined standard of outward beauty so that you will be intensely physically attracted to them.  But though physical attraction is important, outward beauty inevitably changes and fades.  Thus, striking outward beauty is not really needed – even if you think it is – because it cannot be kept.

Column 3:  What I’ll settle for.

In this column go the compromises you are willing to make.  And as I did in the first column of what you want, I would encourage honesty.  Sadly, many people are willing to make compromises morally to try to make a dating relationship work, engaging in intimate acts that are rightly reserved for marriage.  But, of course, not every compromise is immoral or embarrassing.  Some compromises are neutral.  For instance, if you want a person with a good sense of humor, but wind up dating someone who couldn’t deliver the punch line to a joke to save their life, that’s a compromise, but can your significant other’s lack of humor can also become endearing in its own right.

Now, think about each of your three columns and consider these questions:

  • How does column three affect column one?  Are there any things you want in a mate that you could live without?  If so, this is good!  This means that you know your wants are just that – wants – and not necessities.
  • How does column one affect column three?  Are there any wants on which you should be willing to at least consider a compromise, but you’re not, thereby treating a want from column one like a need from column two?  If so, you are in a danger zone.  For when you refuse to even think about compromising on a want, you are putting your desires ahead of another person.  And this is selfishness, which leads only to relationship breakdown.
  • How does column three affect column two?  Are there any things you know you need on which you are willing to compromise?  If so, you are in a danger zone.  Compromising on things like integrity, faithfulness, or faith is a recipe for a relationship disaster and great emotional and spiritual harm.
  • How does column one affect column two?  Are there any things that you want in a relationship that are opposed to what you need?  For instance, if you want someone with good looks, does this tempt you to become shallowly infatuated over how a person looks on the outside rather than being committed to who they are on the inside?  If so, you are again in a danger zone.  The righteous needs in column two should always trump the desired wants in column one.

As you can see, what matters most is column two.  Columns one and three are both negotiable.  This is why when I counsel those who are dating, I encourage them to give on columns one and three, but not on column two.  For column two holds the keys to long-lasting relationships.

So if you’re dating, or getting ready to enter the dating scene, think on these things.  Taking just a few moments to fill out these columns now can save you a lot of pain and heartache in the future because these columns can help you keep your priorities straight.  And keeping your priorities straight can help keep your heart in tact.

The Marriage Recession

Marriage 1I’m not surprised, but I am saddened.  A recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center confirms what we already know:  the estate of marriage has been in decline now for decades and it continues to decline.  Richard Fry summarizes the study’s findings:

In 2011, 4.2 million adults were newly married, about the same number as in 2010 and sharply lower than the 4.5 million newlyweds estimated in 2008…The decline in nuptials from 2008 to 2011 is in keeping with a general trend away from marriage in the U.S. Barely half of adults (51%) were married in 2011, according to ACS data, compared with 72% in 1960.  Marriage increasingly is being replaced by cohabitation, single-person households and other adult living arrangements.[1]

Two things are striking about Fry’s summary.  First, the rapid decline of married households from 1960 to 2011 is astonishing.  It represents nothing less than a seismic shift in premium our culture places on marriage.  Clearly, the value that people place on marriage has taken a precipitous fall.  Second, Fry’s observation that “marriage is increasingly being replaced by cohabitation” is also tremendously significant, for it marks a radical departure from God’s ideal of a covenanted relationship between one man and one woman who share and confront life together (cf. Genesis 2:24).

Of course, there are some who applaud this shift away from marriage toward cohabitation as the inevitable unleashing of a long-suppressed epicurean desire that has finally managed to shake itself free from the asphyxiating antiquated constraints of Victorian mores.  What these jubilant celebrants who eagerly preside over marriage’s funeral fail to notice, however, is the disturbing darkness that the decline of marriage reveals in the hearts of humans, not only as it pertains to sexual passions, but as it pertains to a basic lack of concern for others.

One of the blessings of marriage is the commitment it demands.  Rather than arbitrarily living with someone to whom there is no formal, long-term, and, indeed, life-long commitment, marriage demands the kind of fidelity that does not shift with better times or with worse times, with riches or with poverty, with sickness or with health.  The promises a person makes in his or her marriage vows are to remain firm even when everything else in life is in continual flux.  Thus, marriage vows are not primarily for the benefit of the one who makes them, though there are certainly blessings to be found in God-pleasing vows, but for the one who receives what they promise, for the vows focus especially on the interests of the partner to whom they are made.  A refusal to make these vows and instead cohabitate can allow some couples to unscrupulously hop from one relationship to the next, discarding any lover who a person feels no longer “meets their needs.”  In its worst form, then, cohabitation can amount to little more than rank selfishness on display.

Ultimately, at the same time marriage forges our character, it also reveals our character.  Marriage forges our character because it calls us to remain committed to another person even when our natural inclination would tend toward severing a relationship.  Marriage reveals our character because whether or not we are willing to enter into such a relationship in the first place says a lot about how willing we are to trade our own self-interest for service to another.  Marriage matters – not just because it safeguards the romantic relationships we have, but because it exposes the kind of people we are.  My prayer is that more and more people commit to be individuals of fidelity and service rather than sensuality and selfishness.

[1] Richard Fry, “No Reversal in Decline of Marriage,” Pew Research Center (11.20.12).

Facebook Follies

“Does Facebook Wreck Marriages?”  So asked the provocative title of Quentin Fottrell’s blog for the Wall Street Journal.[1]  Of course, we know that Facebook in and of itself is not responsible for the breakdown of wedded bliss; rather, it is the way people use Facebook that damages marriages.  Still, the statistics cited in Fottrell’s article are staggering:

  • More than a third of divorce filings last year contained the word “Facebook.”
  • Over 80% of U.S. divorce attorneys say they’ve seen a rise in the number of cases using social networking.
  • Of the fifteen cases Gary Traystman, a divorce attorney in New London, Connecticut, handles per year where computer history, texts, and emails are admitted as evidence, 60% involve Facebook exclusively.

Why does Facebook play such a key role in so many connubial collapses?  Fottrell brings in an expert for keen insights:

“Affairs happen with a lightning speed on Facebook,” says K. Jason Krafsky, who authored the book Facebook and Your Marriage with his wife Kelli. In the real world, he says, office romances and out-of-town trysts can take months or even years to develop. “On Facebook,” he says, “they happen in just a few clicks.” The social network is different from most social networks or dating sites in that it both re-connects old flames and allows people to “friend” someone they may only met once in passing. “It puts temptation in the path of people who would never in a million years risk having an affair,” he says.

Krafsky’s last line is key:  “It puts temptation in the path of people.”

Jesus knew how readily people can fall to temptation when it is placed even peripherally in their path.  This is why He warns His disciples, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak” (Mark 14:38).  Jesus’ caution against temptation and His diagnosis of the flesh’s relative spiritual strength, or rather, its lack thereof, ought to be taken seriously.

When a marriage is in disarray, Facebook can provide an all too easily accessible foray into the arena of temptation.  Its appeal lies at two opposing poles.  On the one side, Facebook provides a public forum for a scorned spouse to spout off about how he or she has been wronged and receive eager and many times blind support from friends who are, at best, only partially informed about the situation.  On the other side, though Facebook is public, it deceptively feels private.  After all, it’s only “friends” who can see what you are posting – that is, until a divorce attorney subpoenas records from your Facebook account and presents them in court as incriminating evidence.

Both the public and private faculties of Facebook make its appeal to those in rocky relationships almost irresistible.  But when Facebook is used to arbitrate an unsettled union, it inevitably leads to ruin.  For it allows couples to steep themselves in the sometimes rotten advice from friends or the sometimes illicit advances of lovers while avoiding conversation with the person they need to be talking with the most – the other spouse.

So, how can a couple use Facebook to connect with friends – old and new alike – while steering clear of its more seedy enticements?  A few practical, common sense safeguards can go a long way to protecting your integrity – and your marriage.

  • First, make sure your spouse has access to your Facebook account.  There is no reason why your spouse should not know what you’re posting online.  If you’re trying to surprise him or her using a little help from your Facebook friends, find another way.  Sustained trust trumps an occasional need for the secrecy of a surprise.
  • Second, if your marriage is troubled, personal details are not Facebook appropriate.  You don’t need uneven advice from partial pals, you need professional guidance from a licensed therapist.  Facebook is a great place to post thought-provoking quotes, interesting articles, and even pictures of your Memorial Day backyard barbeque or your newborn bouncing baby boy.  It is not an appropriate place, however, to air your, or someone else’s, dirty laundry.  Falstaff, though he was a shameful coward in Shakespeare’s Henry the Fourth, proved to be wise beyond his actions when he said, “The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have sav’d my life.”[2]  Discretion on Facebook may just save your marriage.
  • Third, be discerning.  Believe it or not, regardless of a person’s Facebook classification as your “friend,” not everyone you communicate with on social networking sites has your best interest at heart.  And not everyone who proffers advice via the internet knows what he or she talking about, or, as the case may be, “posting” about.  This means that you should not set yourself up to get bad advice from your Facebook friends by posting sordid details of your life gone awry, nor should you insert yourself via public posts into someone else’s messy Facebook spectacle.  If you’re truly concerned about someone, a face-to-face conversation, or, if that is impossible, a private conversation by some other means, works much better than a public posting.

Finally, a sober estimation of your own sinful desires and weaknesses may be the best safeguard against the wily relational entrapments that internet social networking can bring.  No matter how strong you may think your marriage is, all it takes is one click or keystroke to lead it down the road to ruin.  And so we pray, “Lead us not into temptation” (Matthew 6:13).

[1] Quentin Fottrell, “Does Facebook Wreck Marriages?” The Wall Street Journal (5.21.12).

[2] William Shakespeare, Henry the Fourth (Part 1, Act 5, Scene 4).