Anonymous Asks (380)

“Does a Christian marriage have to be romantic?”

Men and women born much prior to the ‘Summer of Love’ — like, say, those who managed to live through a World War, the Great Depression or any of the plagues and famines of prior centuries — would probably find this question hilarious. Even today, in cultures where the social or financial advantages of being married outweigh any potential negatives, a deficiency of romance in a marriage rarely amounts to a stopper.

However, we live in an era in which a young person’s view of marriage is often wildly unrealistic. Feminist media propaganda shapes the expectations of most young women — and many men.

Quote of the Day (51)

Cognitive dissonance exists because it’s possible for otherwise-intelligent men and women to hold two points of view at the same time that mutually exclude at their core. ‘X’ and ‘Not-X’. That sort of thing.

I ran into this in a conversation with two women at work many years ago about the Liberal Prime Minister they had just helped elect. As I listed government policy after government policy with which I knew they both had serious issues, they nodded in agreement like twin bobbleheads of the sisters from Full House. These were indeed bad policies, and they were driving our country into the ground. We were all on the same page about that.

“So … why?” I finally asked.

Anonymous Asks (370)

“What’s the key to making marriage last?”

Almost anybody with a properly functioning arm and a working pair of eyeballs can hit a dartboard. It’s a lot harder to hit the bullseye. If you asked me “What’s a key to making marriage last?” or “What are some important ways to make a marriage last?”, well, that’s easy. When you ask, “What’s the key?”, that’s much tougher.

Do I really have to pick just one?

Anonymous Asks (361)

“Does marriage hinder your relationship with God?”

Hmm, I suspect somebody has been reading 1 Corinthians 7. “Those who marry will have worldly troubles.” “The married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided.” “The married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.” “I want you to be free from anxieties.”

If the apostle Paul is correct — and several decades of observation strongly suggest to me that he is — then, yes, it’s certainly possible that any given marriage can become an impediment to one’s service for the Lord, peppering life with distractions and putting you in the position of trying to serve two masters, which we know is impossible. I don’t believe it has to, but it can.

Too Hot to Handle: How I Didn’t Meet Your Mother

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Rod Dreher says nobody meets their spouses at church anymore.

Catholic, Protestant, whatever: some Christian folks are making the case you’ll have better luck finding a spouse in a bar or restaurant, through friends or online than you are going to have finding a man or woman in your own local church worth partnering up with for life. And Dreher agrees.

That’s quite a claim, IC. Where did you meet your wife?

Immanuel Can: At church, first. But we didn’t get interested in each other until we started working together, serving the Lord at a university. My experience may or may not be indicative, though.

The Right Woman for the Job

In the last few days, I’ve come across two different discussion threads online about the problem of Christian wives disrespecting their husbands in public.

One case involved a pair of friendly couples from the same local church. The first couple had observed on several different occasions the way the wife of the second couple treated her husband in public. The first husband and wife (surprisingly) agreed that this woman’s treatment of her man was inappropriate, unchristian and a terrible testimony to anyone watching.

Readers floated a few suggestions: maybe the observing husband should talk to the disrespected husband; maybe somebody should talk to church leadership about the problem, and so on.

Anonymous Asks (350)

“Does an unmarried couple who have sex become married in God’s eyes?”

Some years ago, I had a late night phone call from an old friend to whom I hadn’t spoken in years. He was reviewing his relationship history. Many of these, frankly, had been sinful and ended in disappointment. The most recent was no exception. Despite professing to follow Christ, he has been initiating and falling into uncommitted sexual entanglements most of his life.

“I’ve been ‘one flesh’ with over thirty women,” he confessed. “Which relationship does God regard as ‘the one’?”

Too Hot to Handle: Woman Overboard

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Last week we discussed the “new normal” — that almost 70% of divorces are now initiated by unhappy wives — and suggested a number of possible reasons for a phenomenon that is growing not just in the world but in our churches: young women brought up in Christian homes, most or all of whom have made professions of faith, seem increasingly able to walk away not just from their husbands but from their families, often to raise the children of their new partner.

Tom: We talked about the Internet and the work environment, IC, and the family-associated problems of over-protection and legalism.

But let’s leave the family for a moment.

Too Hot to Handle: Abandoning Ship

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Men have always done it mid-life — some men, anyway, though thankfully Christian men did it somewhat more rarely.

We met the “right” waitress, secretary, serving wench or married woman bathing on a rooftop and bailed on our wives and families. We did it to find happiness (or at least firmer skin or, for a time at least, a cheerier disposition). We did it to demonstrate we were still virile and desirable. Or we did it for some other perfectly scrutable male reason that we wholeheartedly believed was unique to our own experience.

Tom: It took them a while to catch up, Immanuel Can, but thanks to feminism’s influence, women are doing it too, and they’re doing it with a vengeance. Almost 70% of divorces are now initiated by unhappy wives.

Marriage and Education

As a pastor, Doug Wilson is concerned about an over-reaction to egalitarian feminism that disparages the idea of providing daughters with a “rigorous education”. Later commentary suggests Doug’s idea of rigorous means something like a “general liberal arts education … at the college level” (university in Canada). He feels discouraging one’s daughters from pursuing such an education is “a really bad idea”.

Accordingly, Doug recently banged out seven theses on the subject to make his case.

Anonymous Asks (321)

“I just graduated Bible college without finding a partner. Would taking a pastorate improve my prospects?”

Having only just graduated, and being presumably somewhere in your mid-twenties, if your primary concern is attracting women, I recommend starting a rock band. That’s a sure-fire profession for wannabe chick magnets. A pastorate, not so much.

Of course, if you can’t sing or write music, that’s a bit of a problem. Let’s work with your original suggestion a little.

The Commentariat Speaks (32)

An anonymous Christian man recently produced this wall of text looking for advice about his marriage, appropriately entitled “A Broken Situation”. To cut a long story very much shorter, it’s a fifteen-year marriage during which the husband indulged a porn habit for many years, before finally confessing to his wife and two Christian men, all of whom are now keeping him accountable with the aid of a software package they monitor regularly. For the last three years, he’s also been part of a weekly men’s prayer-and-confession session, which he feels has been a help in keeping spiritually on track.

So here’s the catch: the porn habit ended six years ago. The monitoring and weekly confessing continues, probably until the Lord returns.

Anonymous Asks (314)

“Is it wrong for a woman to propose marriage to a man?”

Funny story, or maybe not. When I tried to generate a suitable picture to accompany this post, I made 25 attempts with my usual AI tool to show a woman proposing to a man. Eventually, I gave up. No combination of carefully worded prompts could induce the algorithm to produce anything but the most traditional image of a man on one knee holding a ring. I could get the woman to change positions, but I could not get the man to stand up and appear to be the object of feminine desire. Every one of the terabytes of data to which this tool has access was telling it I couldn’t possibly want what I appeared to be wanting.

I had an easier time generating an image of Israel being nuked. Hmm. Maybe we can learn something from that.

Semi-Random Musings (35)

From the department of “It’s All Been Done Before”, my ongoing trek through the last several thousand years of humanity’s follies continues with the first volume of the Cambridge Medieval History, which takes us from Constantine through the twelfth century.

Constantine is most notable for “converting” and subsequently making Christianity the official religion of the then-declining Roman Empire. This act led to a few moral reforms for those who lived at that time. (The newly empowered state religion frowned, for instance, on the cruelties of the Roman amphitheatre, crucifixion and the widespread practice of exposing unwanted infants, especially girls.)

It also compromised the church in ways we are still dealing with today.

Ruminations on the Original Sin

I have heard the story of the Fall retold many different ways. In a 2014 sermon, Matt Chandler put Adam in the driver’s seat, actually baiting Eve into her act of disobedience to God. It was a broad caricature pandering to the female half of his audience rather than a faithful retelling of the Genesis account. Another sermon I heard two Sundays back minimized Eve’s part in the Fall to such an extent that the speaker never once mentioned her name.

Hey, in our militantly feminized modern church environment, I understand the temptation to soft-pedal a woman’s involvement in plunging her race into centuries of sin.

Vows and Consequences

Biblical marriage requires a one-flesh union, but not every one-flesh union is a marriage.

After uniting for life the first man and woman in history, the Holy Spirit editorializes in Genesis 2, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” The Lord Jesus affirms this statement in Matthew 19. It is not mere patriarchal opinion.

Now notice what he did not say. Sometimes that is as important as what is said.

Letters from the Best Man (8)

The following is absolutely fictional and increasingly common. There is no Brad and definitely no Jill, in case that is not obvious. There are, however, way too many people in their position.

You still up, Tom?

Sadly. Surprised you are. Don’t you have to be out the door by six-thirty?

Can’t sleep. Decisions, decisions …

What’s on your mind, Brad?

Two girls. Well, women, obviously. Friends who started coming to my Thursday Bible study.

Anonymous Asks (291)

“How should a Christian respond to being in a loveless marriage?”

People have different personalities and experiences, as well as different levels of character development and maturity, so it should not come as a surprise that we enter married life looking for different things. In general, men are looking for respect from their wives, and women are looking for love from their husbands.

I am getting that from a couple of places.

She’s Just Not That Into You

He’s Just Not That Into You was a 2009 romantic comedy that explored why relationships fail or succeed, and why a romantic pairing that appears to have “worked” for years suddenly stops working for one of the partners, whether it’s the man “falling out of love” with the woman or vice versa.

In the various couple-scenarios trotted out by the movie’s producers, it apparently never once occurred to them to introduce one in which the woman was on hormone-based birth control when she first became attracted to her future life partner, then stopped using the pill once they had committed to each other.

Maybe research into all “the pill’s” many side effects wasn’t quite there in 2009.

Anonymous Asks (284)

“Is it inauthentic or dishonest for two Christians to remain married when they don’t get along?”

It is simply a sad fact of life that not every Christian enjoys the company of every other Christian at every moment. Almost everyone grinds our gears in one way or another. As soon as the honeymoon is over (and sometimes before), you will find out things about your partner you didn’t know and don’t like. Put two very different believers under the same roof, bind them legally and spiritually to one another, and you have a recipe for persistent unhappiness when one or both behave unbiblically.