Marriage and Divorce in Evangelical Circles

Well, that was a longer time away than I had anticipated. I spent time in Illinois with my partner, enduring the northern version of the Terror Blizzard of 2010. Now I'm back in the deep South, where temps in the 20s seem balmy by comparison.

Certainly there's no end of evangelical goings-on to write about. At present, however, I'm planning for this semester's grad seminar in gender and sexuality, so my mind travels to those topics. Specifically, the conservative Christian net is abuzz currently with the current court challenge to California's Proposition 8, which altered CA's constitution so as to define marriage as solely the union of heterosexuals. As you can imagine, I have a number of predictable opinions about this story...

Conservative evangelical interest in marriage--even apart from anti-gay marriage campaigns--proves a fascinating subject on its own, though, all the more so because at first glance marriage isn't all that central to Christianity as a faith practice. Oh, to be sure, the New Testament uses the metaphor of a bride and groom now and again to describe various features of the Kingdom of God or to characterize the relation of Christ and the Church. But compared to, say, caring for the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the least, the last, the lost--dictating exactly how marriage should happen seems of secondary importance. Paul, for instance, famously (in I Corinthians 7) seems to dismiss marriage as necessary evil for those otherwise unable to live in celibacy.

This sense that marriage serves as a necessary anodyne to human (heterosexual) lust shows up in a recent post on Michael Spencer's "Internet Monk" blog. There the guest poster tracks how the age of marriage in the US seems on the rise. This trend worries the poster because the longer one waits to marry, the longer one is exposed to sexual temptation. Given that rates of sex prior to marriage are high, the poster suggests (citing an article in Christianity Today by Mark Regnerus) that churches begin encouraging couples to marry earlier, with "older married couples mentoring younger ones." The poster ends by posing a series of questions to shape discussions in the comments section (which are themselves stimulating reading):

1. Is sex outside of marriage a sin? If so, why? (I know someone is going to ask the question, so I might as well be the first. By the way, I do believe it is, but I am interested in hearing others reasoning.)

2. Assuming the answer to one is yes, what can we do to help our youth wait for marriage?

3. Is abstinence alone the right message? If it is abstinence plus something else, is this sending the right message?

4. Is early marriage a possible solution?

5. While not discussed above, along with the increase in premarital sex has come an increase in co-habitation. If we are truly evangelistic, we are going to see more and more people coming into our churches who are co-habitating. What do we say to, or do with, the co-habitating couple who starts attending our church?

6. Now this is a question that might seem to come out of left field, but I believe that it directly relates. If our older youth are so likely to have participated in premarital sex, how do we address the homosexual? If seems somewhat hypocritical of us to suggest that they can’t have sex outside of marriage when we are having sex outside of marriage.

The questions, while quite open relative to most evangelical contexts, betray of course a set of presuppositions concerning the marriage issue (sex and sexuality in general, really) and how it relates to evangelicalism. Mainly: the questions betray a fairly common evangelical assumption that heterosexual marriage stands supreme as the Ultimate Goal of Christian adulthood (oddly in contrast to Paul's own opinions, no?). Singleness in celibacy simply doesn't seem like much of an option here. People lust, especially young people, and marriage is the cure for lust.

The questions also overlook an elephant in the evangelical marriage chapel: divorce. Younger marriages tend, as one commenter noted, to be corrosive of long-lasting unions (50% divorce rate, anyone?). Indeed, aren't self-identified evangelicals' divorce rates higher than those of non-evangelicals? Actually, an article I ran into in the November 11, 2008 Christian Century related that the 50% divorce rate so often bandied about drops to as low as 16.7% for adults who marry subsequent to earning a college degree. (source: Stafford, Tim. "Educated for marriage." Christian Century 125.22 (2008): 11-12. Religion and Philosophy Collection. EBSCO. Web. 11 Jan. 2010.). Considering populist evangelical suspicion of higher education, such a statistic doesn't seem likely to get widespread play among evangelicals.

These facts, however, do raise an uncomfortable issue for evangelicals committed both to marriage and to constraining singles' lust. Which is worse: to burn in lust and (perhaps) engage in premarital sex/higher education but then enjoy what will likely be a more stable marriage, or to enter a marriage at an earlier age in order to escape lust? (Of course, the idea that marriage provides an escape to lust is itself a debatable notion.)

More tomorrow,

JF

PS: Prayers for Michael Spencer, who is relying on guest posters as he undergoes treatment for a life-threatening illness. I do not agree with many of his beliefs, but I respect and appreciate his work and influence as an in-house critic of evangelicalism.