A Marriage Revolution
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[0 Comment]Between the high number of divorces—particularly among Christians—and now the new furor over redefining the institution of marriage to include same-sex partners, it seems that traditional marriage as God designed it is under attack.
We've watched the culture and our court system take almost an "anything goes" attitude—that marriage is okay between any two people who say they love each other. The editors of Marriage Partnership want to clearly stand for what marriage is and what it contributes to our world. This is not about wagging the finger at those outside the boundaries of God's will. Instead, we want to hold up the "light," as Jesus tells us to do in Matthew 5:14–16. Marriage Partnership is committed to helping Christians model such good, God-honoring marriages that our culture takes notice.
Not often does MP run editorials. But we felt this opinion piece by David Neff, editor of our sister publication Christianity Today, was so strong, we knew you'd want to read it. This begins a two-year series we're starting in the next issue about what makes Christian marriages so distinct and the role model for others to follow. You won't want to miss it!
—The Editors
Same-sex marriage makes perfect sense—if you buy North American culture's take on sex and marriage. More than four decades after the introduction of the Pill, hardly anyone now getting married remembers the time when pleasure, procreation, passion, companionship, and parenthood were all intimately knotted into a bundle called marriage. Without those connections, marriage has become an arena for mere self-fulfillment and sexual expression. Even the Ontario Court, in its June 10, 2003, affirmation of same-sex marriage, could describe marriage as only an expression of love and commitment. If that's all there is to marriage, why not grant the same legal benefits to committed same-sex couples as to married heterosexuals?
There is, however, an alternative view, rooted in the Bible, in history, in tradition, and in nature. And those of us who see marriage through those lenses can only think of "same-sex marriage" as we think of "fat-free sour cream"—a triumph of the modern, technologically blunted imagination.
The modern spirit has often been devoted to overcoming nature with technology. This has been a blessing when it has nearly wiped out some life-threatening diseases. Unfortunately, it's also synthesized inferior substitutes for real things, ranging from the invention of calorie-free sweeteners to the recent creation of embryos that were genetically both male and female.
That same modernist spirit is at work in the juggernaut that seems bent on normalizing same-sex marriage. May God bless the resistance: Matt Daniels and the Alliance for Marriage for promoting the Federal Marriage Amendment. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R.-Colo.) and her 75 colleagues cosponsoring the Amendment in Congress. And Maggie Gallagher for elucidating the cultural consequence of legalizing same-sex marriage.
Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 2004, Spring
More from David Neff:
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