The Institute (協会)

I comment here sometimes, but I don't want to identify myself to protect some people I'm going to mention.

Anthony, I hear your heart in this post and I understand your feelings. It is indisputable that the church, as a whole, is doing a poor job of supporting and developing healthy marriages. I myself am a child of divorced parents and my dad has just divorced my step-mom, his third wife of 25+ years. I know the scars that are left by broken marriages.

At the same time I want to say a few other things.

I've been married for seven years, and yes, yes, yes, there have been difficult times and my wife and I have hurt each other many times. Yet without any hesitation, when I think about my marriage, it is characterized by joy and blessing and fulfillment. Yeah, Christians need to be sure to be honest about the state of their marriages and realistic about the challenges that all marriages face (after all, marriage is always the union of two sinners), but we also need to be clear that marriage should and CAN be much more than just about the challenges. Luther said that the life of a Christian is a life of repentance. The same goes for life in marriage. A marriage in the context of the gospel always has repentance and forgiveness available when sinners eventually sin. Thus surviving in marriage isn't based on how strongly in love you feel at any given moment, but upon the promise of God to bless repentance and forgiveness. From that sure foundation, a man and woman can get busy in the gospel's mission of loving their neighbor, with their first neighbor being their spouse.

That is why I DO think "we just need to preach the gospel more." But I mean to preach the gospel fully so that it touches all aspects of life's brokenness, as the Bible preaches it. That means we don't just preach the gospel as a theological abstraction for people to assent to or not, as if their assent will magically cure their marital (or other) problems. It means we get our hands and our hearts dirty by engaging with the mess of our friends' and neighbors' lives. It means we show people that their identity is found in Christ, not in their spouse or their spouse's feelings about them. It means we show them that the example for them to follow is that of Christ's committed love to His bride, the church, rather than the example of their parents and step-parents who have each been divorced at least once. It means we explain to people that their obsessions with pornography, shopping, eating, gambling, working, etc., are actually bondage, but Christ came to give freedom. It means that we teach people that their family's mission is not to become wealthy or secure or happy but to serve their neighbors. There are countless ways that the gospel is the answer to the struggles of marriage. (I know that you were deriding a very shallow understanding of the gospel. And I'm sure that you do believe we need to preach the gospel. But people need to know that the gospel is not shallow, empty rhetoric.)

I also want people to know that not all churches overlook or gloss over the problems of marriages. At my former church in another state, one of the elders and his wife had a tremendous ministry to young married couples (including my wife and me) precisely because they were VERY open about the tremendous struggles they had for the first many years of their marriage. I know of a couple in another church who went to their church's elders revealing that their marriage was in grave danger of breaking up. They received counseling from the pastor and there was a prayer ministry team formed to meet with them on a regular basis. After about 2 years, the prayer team was able to be disbanded because of the tremendous healing that had taken place. The wife said she trusted her husband again. The husband said he loved his wife again. I know another couple in the same church. When the pastors and elders found out they were on the verge of divorce, they didn't spend time picking sides regarding whether one spouse or the other had "biblical grounds." They jumped into the situation with the conviction that the gospel brings reconciliation. There were visits, phone calls, e-mails, invitations to meals for talks and all sorts of life-on-life ministry. I don't know what will happen with this couple but they are living together again and gospel ministry is ongoing.

As I said, Anthony, your feelings on this matter are totally justified. But I want people who have troubled marriages to know that there is hope. If your church doesn't take your problem seriously or doesn't or can't help you--there are churches that can and will! But more importantly Christ has promised and demonstrated in the gospel that He is willing and able to help you. He can save you body and soul from death, and He can certainly save your marriage.

He can even heal the scars from a broken marriage (or two, or three). I am proof of that (in progress). And my dad is too (also in progress). I mentioned that he got divorced for the third time. In the midst of the brokenness he is experiencing, I think he is becoming a Christian. Maintaining love and faithfulness to my wife when we are fighting is a piece of cake compared to what it will be to consider and treat my dad as a brother in Christ!

A said, "He can even heal the scars from a broken marriage (or two, or three). I am proof of that (in progress). And my dad is too (also in progress). I mentioned that he got divorced for the third time. In the midst of the brokenness he is experiencing, I think he is becoming a Christian. Maintaining love and faithfulness to my wife when we are fighting is a piece of cake compared to what it will be to consider and treat my dad as a brother in Christ!"

Good stuff, bro, may you start a revolution!!

Anthony,
Thanks for the post. I wonder whether marriage has suffered more since looking to the state for its sanction rather than the church. The covenant of marriage places a claim of each spouse upon the life of the other. This is a claim only made possible through Christ, because only He can lay rightful claim to any of our lives. We take our life, give it to Him, and then He entrusts it in the hands of our spouse. We don't have to trust or believe them, only Him.
It's a covenant.

By the way, since I know you are into good "guy" books, check out "Husbands and Fathers" by Derek Prince. Absolutely saved my marriage before it started.

Thanks for this piece. My parents never divorced; they just lived separate lives under the same roof. But as the older son, I became my mom's surrogate spouse. It took me years to figure out what I had gone through.

I'm 36, am a solid Reformed Christian, have a good job as a big-firm lawyer, and generally enjoy life. But I'm absolutely ruined as far as relationships are concerned. I give time to my church, work a lot, and use my spare time to travel the globe. I don't even bother dating anymore.

I recently read a great article by Grove City College professor David Gordon entitled "The Insufficiency of Scripture". The article describes precisely why my parents' marriage is an ongoing failure. They, like many evangelicals, have forsaken the pursuit of wisdom, and believe that the Bible is going to gift them with some special formula for a happy life. They want to gain wisdom without enduring the tough process of repentance and forgiveness and repentance and forgiveness, and on and on and on.

Marriages in the church suck because too many folks in the church will not grieve over their sin and cling to Christ for aid. Christ's formula for a happy marriage is simple: Daily die to yourself and live to Him. There's probably a bit more to it than that. But if that's not the starting point, then all of the Christian therapy in the world will do little good.

A lot of us Reformed Christians like to talk about the abstract concept of depravity, yet we resist naming our own sins and casting them upon Christ.

"When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, said, 'Repent', He called for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance." - Luther.

XYZ, said "I'm 36, am a solid Reformed Christian, have a good job as a big-firm lawyer, and generally enjoy life. But I'm absolutely ruined as far as relationships are concerned. I give time to my church, work a lot, and use my spare time to travel the globe. I don't even bother dating anymore."

Bro, your story is sadly common. And, sadly, people who ask you "so are you dating anyone" are CLUELESS about the anxiety and pain that that question brings up. Additionally, folks in your church won't get the fact that when you think about marriage you maybe thinking something like, "heck no, why would I spend the rest of life being abused by another woman."

I'm definitely going to use your quote in the very near future. Thanks for the disclosure!!

What is it, like half of all marriages end in divorce? Add that fact to the 70% illegitimacy rate among niggers, and it's a wonder any kid in America grows up halfway normal.

Thought provoking blog. I just stumbled on here from Google, but I'm going to keep reading. Keep the good work.

Did that dude say nigger? What in the world? I belong to a church and because we are young, black, and desire to be pleasing to God we marry young, some are not doing as well.

Phil, that's way out of line.

On a different subject, one thing that the pastor who did my wedding told me was that cold, indifferent wives are usually made that way...by their husbands. If a man doesn't give his wife the time of day, but spends all his time hunting/fishing/playing video games/whatever, he's going to have a bitter and resentful wife.

If he tends a bit to her needs, she's going to respond as God designed her to, odds are. And men, that's a very good thing.

XYZ, just interact with someone who has a good marriage. No better way than that to recover yourself for relationships, if that's what you might desire. I'd recommend it even if you have no hope anymore; it will teach your heart about God's love for the church, if nothing else.

One of the major reasons for the high rate of divorces in the Church is that so many of you people marry so that YOU CAN HAVE SEX. If you'd just get over all the puritanical shit and cling to the genuine jesus shit, you'd be in much better shape.

I'm the child of divorced parents. My father has divorced at least two more times since he and my mothers split over 20 years ago.

I divorced my first husband a few years ago because I was being a selfish twit and he wasn't being open with me. There are lots of things you learn about a person after you divorce. In retrospect I will say this, we could have worked it out.

I married again this year. I thought my husband was my best friend in the entire world. I have given everything I could to make his life better...I've gotten lies, pain and suffering in return. I am leaving him. He has taken no interest in working to fix our marriage and I will not continue to be blamed for the problems in his life.

I'm sure if there is a God that he dislikes divorce as much as anyone who is dealing with it does. I'm sure my children will have permanent scars left to them because of my actions; that pains me each and every day that I'm alive.

There are some marriages and some people that shouldn't be together - whether they were put together in the church or in a judges office. There are some people that should never get married. Marriage has gone to hell for most of the population of this country because divorce is no longer considered tabo. I know more divorced people than I do married people.

You can't lump sum all marriages into one basket and say that none of those couples should be divorced. You can't say that a church marriage is more sacred to a couple than that of one at the JOP. Marriage is made by the couple, not by the way they were joined together.