Posted on 12/27/2020 9:24:29 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Ask any random group of ten elderly couples about their marriage, and half of them will probably say something like this: “We were high school sweethearts, tied the knot soon after graduation, worked our way up from nothing, had kids, and here we are. Being married made us who we are today.”
Beneath these stories is a view of marriage as a foundation of life, a starting point for other goals. Today, this view has been replaced by a different one, what some call the “capstone” view of marriage. In the “capstone” view, marriage is a finishing touch to add to a life after individual careers have been achieved, personal goals have been checked off, and we’ve discovered “who we are.”
This massive shift in our ideas about marriage has all kinds of consequences, from delaying weddings (for many people, into their 30’s) to cratering the fertility rate in most developed nations to normalizing premarital sex and cohabitation. Still, the most consequential changes might be occurring within the Church.
University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus tracks these changes in his new book, The Future of Christian Marriage. Regnerus not only described his findings to Shane Morris on the Upstream Podcast, but he also described the dramatic steps that will be required if a culture of marriage is to be restored within the Church.
The Future of Christian Marriage features interviews with numerous Christian young people from seven countries. By being both forward-looking and firmly planted in history, Regnerus traces how marriage went from a natural institution bound up with childbearing and blessed by the Church to one that is now, like so many other things in our culture, determined by adult desires and largely defined (or should I say redefined?) by the state.
One of the most counterintuitive findings in The Future of Christian Marriage is that Christian young people around the world still have a recognizably biblical ideal for what marriage should be. Those he interviewed typically mentioned the idea of a lifelong union of man and woman. Often, they talked about how marriage is a picture of Christ and His Church, as Paul teaches in Ephesians 5. Many even mentioned that children are part of God’s design for marriage.
Tragically, far fewer practice, or even try to practice, this design. The average age at first marriage is nearing historic highs in nearly every country Regnerus studied, and cohabitation is quickly becoming a common lifestyle choice, even for young people within the Church.
So, how did we get here? According to Regnerus, it’s complicated. Economic factors, the growing expectation that women will work outside of the home, the normalization of birth control and the resulting “cheapening” of sex, and the overall removing of children from the picture have all changed, not only our behavior, but how we think about marriage. Even more, Regnerus suggests that young people, including Christian young people, just aren’t that into marriage. In fact, an increasing number is willing to put it off indefinitely.
Here’s what he writes in the book:
“The focus of twentysomethings has become less about building mature relationships and fulfilling responsibilities and more about enjoying oneself, traveling, and trying on identities and relationships…We now get ourselves ready for marriage, rather than marry to get ourselves poised to accomplish common objectives—a home, a job, a family. Instead, marriage itself has become one of those objectives, an accomplishment signaling that [we] have ‘made it.’”*
This is new. Historically, marriage was never considered an optional feature of the Church’s life, nor was it a trophy you won after reaching “adulthood.” God clearly calls some to the single life and elevates their potential for ministry. At the same time, marriage is the picture the Apostle Paul uses when to illustrate the love between Jesus and His redeemed. Marriage reorients our energies and affections away from ourselves and toward others in a way nothing else, other than parenting, can.
If we want Christian marriage to have a future, we’ll need to change this capstone view. Much of the problem that Regnerus describes in The Future of Christian Marriage is a failure of the imagination and the inability to see marriage as attainable. Among the ambitious and surprising suggestions Regnerus offers is to make sure our kids hear the kind of stories older couples often tell. It’s not “rocket surgery” to conclude we need to begin by telling the next generation the truth about marriage.
I’ll link you to The Future of Marriage, Mark Regnerus’ insightful new book, and his fascinating interview on the Upstream podcast at BreakPoint.org.
*Mark Regnerus, The Future of Christian Marriage, p. 38
It’s just something that occurred to me. You disagree?
Think about why they do this. The root of all the issues revolving around the breakdown of the family
If you are really curious and want to do honest research unlike 98% of people regarding this problem, download Humanae Vitae and read it. It will take one to to hours.
“verbiage that solidified my confirmation into the Catholic Church and leaving the cultural confines of American Evangelicalism”
Think you’ve got some problems. More Catholics I’ve met have marriages devoid of Christ than Evangelicals.
“It’s actually the Protestant worldview even more than the secular that has made celibacy out to be such a dirty concept.”
Celibacy isn’t working out too well for the Catholic Church. It isn’t a dirty concept, but neither is it what many are called to.
Alpha dogs are like that... its an characteristic of high need achievers.
He’s been very successful and he has little competition in the field of competence , capability and capacity.
He is what America needs to be America again.
It’s the Obamanite “death to America” crowd that want his hide!
As a picture of Christ and the church, the disintegration of marriage shows us the sad state of the church, and lack of commitment to Christ.
I think your soul mate observation is correct. There are too high of expectations about finding your ideal mate in TV, books, and movies. The Bible says there is no marriage in heaven, so we should not expect to find a soul mate here on earth.
In addition, the Bible councils remaining married to an unbeliever in certain circumstances. Can an believer be a soul mate with an unbeliever?
Did Hosea marry his soul mate at God’s command.
Fornication is a sin but we as a society has normalized it. Most young people wouldn’t wait to get married until finishing their education and settle in careers if fornication was viewed as much a sin as racism or pollution.
“viewed as much a sin“
Do we tell God what us and is not a sin?
He tells us fornication is a sin.
Bookmark.
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