Toward a Biblical Theology of Marriage

A Study of the Bible's Vocabulary of Marriage

Martin

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781498272322
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Does the Bible provide a construct for marriage that is relevant for a confused world? This book reflects a pastor's conviction that biblical revelation culminating in Christ does speak to the issues and potentials for marriage in such a world. By focusing on what the biblical vocabulary of marriage, from Genesis to Revelation, may reveal of the Creator-Redeemer's intent for marriage, Ernest D. Martin develops a Christological paradigm for marriage that is consistent and applicable.Pastors, teachers, and counselors will find biblical faith perspectives useful in responding to the challenges and opportunities they face in the several phases of marital relationships. This short book will greatly benefit anyone seriously concerned with what the Bible says about marriage.

1

Who Needs One?

Almost all cultures have and perpetuate the practice of marriage as a formal basis for cohabiting. Ceremonies and mores vary, but the cultural assumption goes on that marriage is a given for human life. Historically marriage was primarily a family event. Roman Catholicism (followed by some other traditions) has made marriage a sacrament, thus giving it a strong ecclesiastical bent. Calvinism has focused on marriage as covenant. Lutheranism has viewed marriage as an order of creation to restrain sexual sin but with no role in salvation. Probably more by default than intention, much of Protestantism and society in general leave the definitions and the regulation of marriage primarily as a function of the state. At this writing, the United States Internal Revenue Service, operating under federal law (Defense of Marriage Act, 1996), says who is married and who is single for taxation purposes. Even though several states now legalize same-gender marriages, those couples must file as single persons with the IRS, with resultant higher taxes than if filing as married. Although ministers and churches may (and should) require premarital counseling, all other requirements are specified by the state in which the marriage takes place. Officiating ministers need to be registered with the state to make the marriage legal. We have allowed ourselves to be confined to legal definitions of marriage, without at least equal time for a theological perspective.

Common law marriage, recognized in some states, rests on a slightly different definition of marriage. Cohabitation in itself does not constitute marriage. Where the status known as common law marriage is recognized, it cannot be dissolved with “common law divorce” apart from due legal proceedings.

Although marriage continues to be held as society’s ideal, it is increasingly the case that couples live together without the benefit of formal or legal marriage. What was once commonly regarded as “holy matrimony” has come to be considered by many as “a take-it-or-leave-it piece of paper.” The 2000 census reports 5.5 million unmarried partner homes, about 5 percent of all homes, which is up from 3 percent in 1990. The number of women raising children without fathers around was up by 25 percent in the decade.1 Babies born “out of wedlock” seem to raise fewer and fewer eyebrows. One can hardly avoid the evidence that marriage, and consequently also family, is in deep trouble.

David Popenoe, in the State of Our Unions 2007 essay, “The Future of Marriage in America,” says, “There can be no doubt that the institution of marriage has continued to weaken in recent years. . . . Fewer adult are married, more are divorced or remaining single, and more are living together outside of marriage or living alone. . . . Today, more children are born out-of-wedlock (now almost four out of ten), and more are living in stepfamilies, with cohabiting but unmarried adults, or with a single parent.”2 The increase of cohabitation without marriage accounts in a large part for the decline in the divorce rate in recent years. One anomaly in this scene has to do with age and length of marriage. “In 2006 the divorce rate among Americans over fifty was triple what it had been in the early 1990s. Longevity of marriage was no longer a factor in staying together, nor was age.”3

Popenoe notes that the weakening of marriage is less pronounced in America than in European countries (especially northwestern Europe). The demise of Christendom is more advanced there than in America, as yet. The fading of institutional church power and influence, along with acceptance of secular individualism, correlates with the growing abandonment of marriage as a traditional institution.4 The evidence is abundant that marriage, and consequently also family, is in deep trouble.

As one example, Christoph Monsch-Rinderknecht, a Swiss Reformed pastor, finds in his research that marriage in his country has moved from the traditionally accepted norm to marriage as convenience and now as love-marriage. In Switzerland, where the state has the exclusive right to marry, some couples choose to add a church ceremony to their civil marriage. Couples who do not have an active relationship with the church leave it as a civil matter or live together without any marriage formalities. His research in 2005 (part of his DMin project) projected that 52.6 percent of marriages in Switzerland will end in divorce. The fallout has devastating effects on children and on the future of marriage. With the church being increasingly sidelined, this pastor was led to provide pastoral colleagues with materials to use for marriage enrichment settings and for counseling those open to a church ceremony.5 From a Christian perspective, finding a place to stand in this social confusion is imperative.

An increase in cohabitation without formal or legal marriage indicates a changing attitude toward marriage. Further evidence about the perceived value of marriage is found in the shortage of U.S.-born babies available for adoption. While there is a lamentable increase in abortion being used as a remedy for unplanned pregnancies, only 1 percent of women with unplanned pregnancies choose adoption. Many teen girls choose motherhood as single parents but for the wrong reasons. Their misguided choices are then reinforced by peers (schoolmates begging for copies of sonograms) and state agencies wanting to be of help but inadvertently making teen motherhood attractive. Babies/children being raised by grandmothers, although in some respects commendable, also adds to the deterioration of marriage and family values.

Fatherhood is also in trouble. An increasing absence of fathers in parenting children is disturbingly evident. Identified as the “male problematic” by Don Browning and others,6 biological fathers are too often abandoning responsibilities toward their children and the mothers of their children. In broad terms this means many of today’s children grow up without benefit of a male figure in their lives. The effects are disastrous for children. Research says children generally do better in about all ways if in a two-parent, intact family. One-gender parental arrangements beg the question: how do children in those “families” gain sexual identity and develop healthy cross-gender relationships?

Multiple factors contribute to this growing reality. Fathers do not automatically invest themselves in their sired children the way mothers do, who carry, bear, and care for their helpless offspring. In many cases the work culture in which fathers are involved distances them from their family (children and wife), in time, geography, and energy. A widely held assumption that it is the father’s job to provide for the family and the mother’s job to raise children justifies the father’s absence in the parenting responsibilities. Sometimes a “female problematic” may be involved. The mother may, for a variety of supposed reasons, think she can be the best parent without a man involved. Her “man/men” (her father or the father[s] of her child/children) may have created that feeling. In the economic downturn of 2008–2009, more men than women have lost their jobs. As a result, gender roles have changed. Many more husbands/fathers are caring for their children, while the wives/mothers are gainfully employed. And the fathers are enjoying it!

While just about everybody agrees we have a serious problem, solutions are far from uniform. Opinions differ on what needs to be done to remedy the problem. A biblical theology of marriage that includes relationships between father and mother and the shape of a healthy parenting process is imperative if the church is to respond helpfully.

The social sciences have been calling attention to what is perceived to be a crisis for family. Many in these fields are now saying that the focus needs to be on marriage as the way to address the future for families. That, they say, will require the combined efforts of religion (with Christian faith having much to offer), social sciences and agencies, and the political arena.

The social sciences contribute valuable data and assessment of what is happening in marriage and family. Social sciences have also introduced the concept of “role” into husband/wife relationship. That translates into terms such as “a man’s place” and “a woman’s place” in the primary social unit of husband and wife. Neither the term nor the concept of “role” is to be found and delineated in the Bible. The concept is more skewing than helpful in coming to terms with the biblical texts in their settings. Robert M. Hicks writes, “Marriage roles determined by gender” is one of the common myths about family that is doing serious disservice. Although the concept is accepted uncritically, even by evangelical authors and speakers, Hicks contends that it has no basis in Scripture, and results in confusion and hurt.7

Marriage has fallen into disrepute for a variety of reasons. One is the prevalence of domestic violence that has led to marriage being called a “hitting license.” Violence within marriage and family won’t stop by reaffirming a clearer definition of marriage, of course. But the reality of spouse abuse calls for comprehensive teaching on the marriage relationship as the primary social unit.

Among those examining what is happening to marriage and family as a result of modernization (industrialization and globalization) is Don S. Browning, Alexander Campbell professor emeritus of ethics and the social sciences at the University of Chicago Divinity School and director of the Lily Project on Religion, Culture, and Family. Browning sees a threat to marriage in modernization, “the spread throughout the world of technical rationality and its efficiency-oriented and cost-benefit logics and patterns,” and globalization, “the process by which information, images, symbols, and styles of life zigzag back and forth across the world.” He contends that these and related factors are having a disruptive effect on families everywhere. He is not calling for a turning back of the clock but a reconstruction of marriage and family, with religions, particularly Christianity, taking initiative in getting marriage on the agenda again. Browning envisions religious entities taking a proactive approach—not merely decrying the deterioration of marriage and family but promoting intentionality and solid meaning into marriage. Christianity uniquely contributes, he says, the trilogy of grace, forgiveness, and self-sacrifice.8

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Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Who Needs One?
• Chapter 2: The Quest
• Chapter 3: Overview of the Biblical Data
• Chapter 4: Weighty Words and Concepts
• Chapter 5: Intra-canonical Continuity and Movement
• Chapter 6: What About . . .
• Chapter 7: Comparisons
• Chapter 8: Purposes for Marriage
• Chapter 9: Challenges and Opportunities for the Church
• Appendix
• Bibliography