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A Different Drummer
Posted by Bowden McElroy in Uncategorized
WARNING: MINI-RANT BELOW.
I usually strive to look at life from different angles. I’ve been accused of marching to the beat of a different drummer (my wife has said it’s not that I hear a different beat, but that I must hear bagpipes). In trying to find something newsworthy and a little bit different to write about, I did a quick search on the Baptist Press News site for “marriage” instead of looking through the usual news sources. I thought I could combine two of my interests – family counseling and the SBC – in one post. “Well”, I thought, “the Marriage Digest section might be interesting”. Nope. Wrong. Not only was it not interesting, it inspired this rant.
Marriage Digest is a collection of stories that deal with the politics of marriage; specifically, with same sex marriage. The first 50 stories (I gave up counting at 50) were all about politics. The only change of pace in the list of articles was that some of the stories were about same sex marriage in countries other than the US. The section should be renamed SSM Digest.
I’m not denouncing same sex marriage as an unimportant issue. It’s just not the only issue. And I would suggest it’s not the biggest marriage issue facing the church.
SSM is certainly not a primary concern for the people I see in my office each week. My clients are seeking help for suicidal impulses, obsessions, or phobias that have left them barely able to function. I’ve seen teens brought by their parents because they were out of control and children whose ill behavior caused them to be kicked out of school at the age of 5 or 6. But far and away, the largest number of people I have seen this past week were hoping to save their marriages.
When affairs, separation, divorce, internet porn, sexually explicit chat room conversations, and anger/rage problems are tearing one’s family apart, the politics of marriage take a back seat.
Consider this a call to spend more time strengthening marriages/families and less time weighing legislation and court decisions.
Something is wrong when the divorce rate is nearly 50% and there is little difference between the church and the world. Something is wrong when the church community appears to be more interested in legislation than marriage education and enrichment. And, that “something” (whatever it might be – and it’s likely to be a confluence of several somethings) isn’t going to be fixed with resolutions and political maneuvering.
Something is wrong when the leaders of our churches (ministers and lay-leaders, alike) view staying married as a choice between obeying God (and being miserable ’til death do us part) or being happy (and divorced). Some Christians convince themselves the choice is between being obedient and miserable vs divorced and happy. Once one buys into that false dichotomy the next step is easy to rationalize: I can be miserable for the rest of my life or I can divorce and God will forgive and I will be happy eventually. (In spite of ample research to suggest divorce does not make one happy and second marriages fail at a higher rate than first marriages.)
Christians consider divorce a viable option when hope is lost. When one convinces himself or herself that not even God can change their marriage, then divorce becomes an acceptable alternative where once it would not even have been considered.
I would hate to see “church” defined solely as a place for marriage and family enrichment. But I would hate even more to see our only concern for marriage be a political one. Surely we have more to offer than “just say ‘no’ to same sex marriage”.
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I must point out the humor of beginning a post that mentioned same sex marriage with a picture of a guy wearing a “dress”… Yeah, I know, it’s not a dress, but I just thought it was, well, hilarious.
We’re working on a couples retreat at Crossroads, and I think such things are hugely a part of the ministry of the church to married folks. We need to continually be doing such things.
Good article. We’re so obsessed with shooting down SSM that we’ve forgotten to enjoy real marriage.
“A man in a kilt is a man and a half.”
-Sir Colin Campbell
Brigadier-General, The Queen’s 93rd Highlanders
Bowden,good rant.
I’ve never seen two growing Chrisitans divorce. Every issue in our lives is a moral issue. Not just SSM. Anger, parenting, intimacy, financial stewardship… they are all moral issues. If we’re not working on our own stuff, we’re messing up our marriages, our children, our extended families, our churches, our communities, and our world.
Bowden:
This was the heart of your piece.
“Christians consider divorce a viable option when hope is lost.”
And the truth of this is that their hope is gone in that the Lord will “fix” their marriage the way they want (which usually means only their spouse changes while they make no changes themselves.
It’s sticking it out and letting the Lord do the hard work of changing me first is what makes a marriage “work.” And trusting God that if I am faithful to change those things that He desires about myself then He will change me enough to continue to live with my spouse and even miraculously change me spouse.
I challenge our older wives to say that to our younger wives, I heard that when I was younger and it helped me to stick it out when I wasn’t “happy.” It will be 28 years for us. God has been faithful!
[...] biggest threat facing the family is not judicial interference. (Nor – as I’ve written before – is it same sex marriage.) The biggest threat to marriage and the family is [...]