Some have questioned the use of the word 'crisis'. How can there be a 'crisis' when God is soverign? The answer lies in the meaning of the word 'crisis', at least as we are using it. Something is a crisis not when God becomes impotent to fix it and we, as powerful and soverign humans, need to race out and fix it. We are using the word 'crisis' here to mean a systemic problem, a sin of our society, that demands our action.
We see Scripture filled with such crises. Abraham faced one such. People came to him and told him that his brother lot and his family had been captured by enemy kings... taken off, no doubt to slavery or death. Gathering his troops together, he acted: racing off and rescueing Lot and all of those took with him.
James faced such a crisis. It was being noised about that the apostle Paul was teaching Jews not to circumcise their children, and to apostasize against Moses. Again, James acted: he asked Paul to take a vow, and to pay for the vow of four other Christians, so that all would see that these charges were nothing.
And God faced such a crisis (altho, in his case, we realize that the crisis was something he deliberately provoked for our own edification). He had created a man, and set him in the garden, and given him a variety of dominion tasks. And yet, God said, "It was not good..." It was not good for man to be alone. And God acted, saying, "I will make a helpmeet for him." Matching action to words, God made a helpmeet for Adam, taking the material for her from Adam's rib, and brining her back to Adam to become the one flesh that she was.
So what is this crisis? Well, it is a crisis of marriage, and it is presenting itself in at least two different ways:
- In the 'dating' church.
There is a part of the church which I will call the 'dating' church. This section of the church (which has no visible borders) includes those who have bought into, or continued, the modern US/European's concepts regarding the path to marrige. Individual choice, feelings are emphasized... morality and the wisdom of others is deemphasized. Some level of physical involvement before committment is assumed... ranging from petting to intercourse.
This article will not deal with that part of the church. Much has already been written on the blasphemy that this model represents... of the multiple and repeated quasi-marriage relationships that are involved and how they blaspheme against the chaste, permeanent, covenental relationship that our marriages, in a reflection of the Church and Christ, are supposed to represent.
--in the 'not dating' church
The rest of the church has rejected this. We have rejected 'dating', in particular it's emphasis on the isolated individual in decision making, and extensive physical/sexual interaction as part of the path to marriage. Call it 'Christian Dating' or "Courtship' we have Christians attempting to replant parental involvement in the path to marriage, and to protect their children from defrauding and outright fornication.
So what is the crisis? First of all they aren't, actually, getting married. In spite of the fact that the parents believe in fruitfulness, multi-generational faithfulness, and a host of other pro-marriage, indeed, pro-early marriage concepts... their children aren't getting married. Walk into pretty much any anti-dating church and you will find yourself surrounded with Godly, unmarried, young people. Their parents may well be still producing child after child... but their children are producing none... because they have no spouse.
Secondly for every anti-marriage church, indeed, for every anti-marriage parent, we have a different anti-marriage theory, a different method. These methods all seem to have a central theme: how it is that my daughter can marry the most perfect boy in the church (altho, truth be told, he may not be good enough and we may have to look elsewhere), but other than that they have no consistency. Except for telling the young men of the church exactly how and why they are not good enough, they have no common theme.
Above all, they each fail to do justice to the entirety of the Biblical picture. Most admit openly that there are no Biblical examples of the model they lay down; some even going as far as admiting that the Biblical examples contradict the model that they propose. Most of them, overtly or by implication, conform to many of the principles of this worlds view of marriage... principles wich flatly contradict the Biblical record.
Action is needed. Like Abraham we need to gather our troops and march into the field. Like Paul we need to dispel a false rumor. Like God we need to provide helpmeets for our children. And, like them, we need to do it now.
What are the effect of this crisis?
First of all, our church is depopulated. Now, this is hardly noticeable, unless one literally 'runs the numbers'. A visit to an 'anti-dating' church will be overwhelming for one not used to it... you will find yourself literally awash in children. But, altho there are young children, most of them don't belong to young parents. Very few nineteen year old are chasing down their one year olds. Instead a careful examination will reveal that the nineteen year olds... indeed the 15 through 27 year olds, are mostly not married at all. They are doing no being 'fruitful and multiplying'.
Secondly, our children are immature. Many books have been written suggesting that this is the cause of their lack of marriage, but I wonder if (indeed, I would argue very strenusously that) this isn't indeed the *result* of their lack of marriage... and the lack of marriage of their peers... and the lack of a vision for marriage by their parents. (see: http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/08/23/why-arent-emerging-adults-emerging-as-adults/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AlbertMohlersBlog+%28Albert+Mohler%27s+Blog%29) for some aspects of this immaturity.
Thirdly, our children are frustrated. I, personally, know of several 'failed' courtships... some failing early in the process and other failng almost at the last minute. And, since the geas for these courtships is on the young people themselves, and in particular the young man, this leads naturally to a sense of frustration or even a coldness.
Between 1708/9, when Samuel Gerrish courted Mary Sewall, and 1835, when Theodore Weld courted Angelina Grimke, the rituals of courtship underwent profound changes. Parental influence and involvement in the selection of their children's marriage partner visibly declined. Young women and men were increasingly free to pick or reject a spouse with little parental interference. At the same time that courtship grew freer, however, marriage became an increasingly difficult transition point, particularly for women, and more and more women elected not to marry at all. (from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/uscourt.cfm)
Another issue, one clearly warned about in Scripture (I Cor 7) is that of fornication., When the Puritans removed the parents, and replaced them with romantic love, in the path to marriage:
By the middle of the eighteenth century, parental influence over the choice of a spouse had sharply declined. One indication of a decline in parental control was a sudden upsurge in the mid-eighteenth century the number of brides who were pregnant when they got married. In the seventeenth century, fathers--supported by local churches and courts--exercised close control over their childrens' sexual behavior and kept sexual intercourse prior to marriage at extremely low levels. The percentage of women who bore a first child less than eight-and-a half months after marriage was below ten percent. By the middle of the eighteenth century, the figure had shot up to over forty percent.
(http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/uscourt.cfm)
... rampant fornication was the result. Praise God most anti-dating churches are not faced with this overt fornication... but how do we control for the mental issues that Jesus spoke of in the sermon? What price are our children paying for their delayed (if they happen at all) marriages in their thought life?
Our churches are beginning to re-speak of the age-old concept of muli-generational faithfulness. We get a resounding reminder of the importance of this concept from God in Jer 35:
18And Jeremiah said unto the house of the Rechabites, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Because ye have obeyed the commandment of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according unto all that he hath commanded you: 19Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever.
And yet our delayed (if they happen at all) marriages are robbing us of much of the power of this. Psalms 128 speaks of our seeing our grandchildren... how much more powerful it is to not only see, but to be an active participant in their lives. Younger marriages multiply this effect: a man who marries at 18 could be seeing his greatgrandchild at the same time as the man who marries at 27 would be seeing his grandchild.
We need to return to a Biblical view of the path to marriage. We need to make it a priority to arrange for our sons to "Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth." and for our daughters to be that wife of the the youth.
0 comments:
Post a Comment