Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Covenant Marriage as Ascriptural Event (Part Four)

Is it possible a significant question to be asked during the wedding ceremony, at the time of the exchange of vows, is do you pledge to always consider what is best for the other regardless of the cost to yourself? As a follower of Christ, can there be any other question? Maybe the ceremony is simply a beginning to a lifetime adventure to discover the depths of the vows that were exchanged. Marriage is an adventure that will entail learning how to be intimate - physically, emotionally and spiritually.


Is it possible marriage may be sustained by coming to a new understanding of commitment and faith? That is, the vow remains a promise that does not depend on the other person fulfilling certain conditions (as is the case in contractual relationships), and a relationship that looks to the sustaining of hope within the marriage by acknowledging God is sovereign.


One way to achieve these virtues may be by telling stories and by being formed by those stories – all in the context of a faithful community who accepts those stories as foundational and a community that, with the hope and promise of God, continues the conversations begun by those stories. We will presumably be trained to embody those stories in the concrete mundane of the every day. We can tell the story of Ruth and Naomi, for coming to an understanding of commitment. We can tell the story of Hannah, as recounted in the first two chapters of Samuel for both an understanding of commitment and vows. As well we may gain a sense of commitment from the story of Simeon and Anna at the time of the circumcism of Jesus in Luke 2:21-40. The narrative we know as Scripture is full of such stories all of which are the story of the life of the church founded by Jesus the Christ.


That such a community came to be shortly after the Cross may be seen in the So-Called Letter to Diognetus, dated from the 2nd Century or earlier, as translated in the Early Church Fathers at 216-17, “for Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or customs.... Yet although they live in Greek and barbarian cities alike, as each man’s lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their own commonwealth. They live in their own countries but as aliens.... They marry, like everyone else and they begat children, but they do not cast out their offspring [note that infanticide, particularly as to female infants was supposedly practiced]. They share their board with each other, but not their marriage bed. it is true that they are in the flesh, but they do not live according to the flesh.”


That such communities exist and can exist within our secular system may be seen in a number of examples. Of course, no community has it down pat and I suspect there are difficulties from time to time but the effort, if anything I have said has any merit to it, must be continued. One such community may be seen in the work of Donald B. Kraybill and others in Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy, and in this observation by Fumitaka Matsuoka (reflecting on the heroic stance of a Japanese-American community in California following the devastation to life and property and indeed the atrocity of the internment camps in this country during World War II) in his essay “Creating Community Amidst the Memories of Historic Injustices” in Realizing the America of Our Hearts at 39, “the incarnation of Christian faith is both deeply personal and deeply public at the same time. Japanese-American Christians remind us of a key that does bind the people of the Rashomon effect together. What manner of people are they? Refusing to flinch in the face of the painful and unjust experiences of incarceration, attacking the unjust system that had bound them, they reach out to those who betrayed their trust and inflicted injustice to them, offering to build together a new society.”


Marriage is more than contract or covenant. Marriage is not merely the proper context for sexual activity by faithful couples. Marriage is not simply the telos for those feelings of passion and romance (Matzko-McCarthy puts it well when he says, at 62, “marriage is untamed passion made safe”). Marriage may contain elements of all of these things but it is not and should not be held captive by any of them.


Covenant Marriage as Ascriptural Event (Part Three)

Romance is fleeting.  David Matzko-McCarthy observes love remains the key ingredient leading to marriage, in his Sex and Love in the Home at 153, “two people meet, and they fall in love.  Their love sticks so that they see marriage as the logical and inevitable next step.  This story continues to be the predominant narrative of marital connection.”  Matzko-McCarthy goes on to note the danger of relying on romance and love as the sustaining force of marriage, at 163, “when romance is the linchpin of a relationship or marriage, then the couple, after the first wave of passion is gone, will have to work a great deal in order to conjure up passion or spontaneity.  The romance is likely to die because one or both partners will become tired of working to restore what is supposed to be spontaneous passion.”


This project does not suggest a marriage without romance and love should therefore be successful – clearly such a proposal is inane.  Rather, elevating romance and that vague and misunderstood term love to center stage is not an adequate safeguard against marital difficulties (as well, elevating those emotions, as I suggest we have done, undermines any perceived boost to the longevity of marriage by merely relabeling it to that of covenant marriage).


Is it possible that the intended foundation of marriage is holiness in relationship, as well as procreation?  Now nothing here suggests pleasure is not a part of the equation, but surely not the most significant reason for marriage.  If we understand Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, albeit a shadow of that image, is it not possible that the relationship to be formed by marriage reflects as well the Trinity - the most holy of relationships?  Stanley Grenz in his Sexual Ethics at 55 suggests “marriage forms a picture of  the community which is present in a prior way within the triune God - the community of Father, Son and Spirit. Just as the Trinity is a community of love so also the marital relationship is to be characterized by love.”  Recognizing a tension in the use of the vague term love, as a reflection of the Triune relationship, the view proposed by Hauerwas, see below, as to intimacy fits well as a focus of what we may understand is love expressed within the human relationship.


Is it possible marriage is not simply a vehicle for the expression of feelings of mutual joy (a problematic definition in a competitive economic structure where people are seen as means to an end) where joy is in reality simply a shared selfishness.  If we understand that marriage is the most intimate relationship among human relationships, how we reckon intimacy seems particularly critical.  Hauerwas in his essay “Sex in Public” from A Community of Character:  Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic at 181 suggests “intimacy depends on the willingness to give of the self, to place oneself in the hands of another, to be vulnerable, even if that means we may be hurt.”


Is it possible that, like singleness which is enhanced in community, marriage as well may be enhanced through community - and in particular the community that is the body of Christ, the Church?  Lauren Winner in Real Sex:  The Naked Truth About Chastity at 133-35 relates a most powerful story about a trip with college students to a convent.  During the discussion, the question finally emerged as to how the nuns handled no sex.  The response by the sister is most revealing.  She responded “...giving up sex is a very particular renunciation.  But I think we have an easier time of it here together in our community than you unmarried young people do out there, alone, in the world.”  How much more strongly can the single life, and the married life, be practiced when in relational community.  How much more can, say fidelity, be practiced in a relational community of confession, forgiveness, repentance and encouragement


Is it possible a significant question to be asked during the wedding ceremony, at the time of the exchange of vows, is do you pledge to always consider what is best for the other regardless of the cost to yourself?  As a follower of Christ, can there be any other question?  Maybe the ceremony is simply a beginning to a lifetime adventure to discover the depths of the vows that were exchanged.  Marriage is an adventure that will entail learning how to be intimate - physically, emotionally and spiritually.


Monday, February 9, 2009

Covenant Marriage as Ascriptural Event (Part Two)

Marriage today in the United States is a decidedly secular event. In line with the analysis of Berkhof, marriage as covenant, even within a Scriptural context, is a mutual voluntary agreement between two people, and in keeping with social, moral and legal understandings current today, when one party breaks that mutual voluntary agreement, the other party feels free to terminate that agreement. By transforming contract into a sacred covenant, or so the thinking goes, we have now raised the standard and how we view the sanctity of marriage. C.S. Lewis reminds us, in his classic Mere Christianity, the difficulty with understanding and communication when we engage in language-games. Lewis considers the word “gentleman” which began as a term that identified a person as holding a coat of arms and owning land. The term has come to mean a person who has manners, and therefore no longer acts as a description of a person but reflected simply the opinion of the speaker.


That marriage is now secular may be seen as well in the resistance offered up toward entry into covenant marriage in the three states where it has been enacted. Current numbers indicate that approximately two percent of couples in those states have opted for the covenant marriage, as reported in the column by Cheryl Wetzstein in the September 7, 2008 edition of the Washington Times. As well, in examination of the Arizona version of covenant marriage, you will find the traditional grounds for divorce remain available to covenant marriage couples effectively divorcing the legislation from its intent (pun intended). We Americans simply are not willing to shift away from our contractual thinking and right to be free.


Hence, as cautioned by Hauerwas and MacIntyre, there is great danger with efforts to translate Christian terms into language generally assumed to be available, and understood, by the secular world. One difficulty may be, for secular thinkers as well as most Protestants, we resist the view marriage is sacramental as that sounds much too Roman Catholic for our tastes. Yet coming to a fuller understanding of marriage within the context of Scripture, as opposed to clothing the relationship with Christian-sounding language and symbols, through legislation and for that matter recitation of vows more often than not performed as ritual, may be the better method to strengthen marriage and decrease the number of divorces. Learning to speak the language of Scripture may be the remedy for the marriage crisis and take us beyond the idea of contract - and covenant - as the foundation of marriage.


Is it possible we have confused romance with love? Is it possible we are confused as well as to that term “love?” Stanley Hauerwas in his essay “On Marriage and Homosexuality” in Better Hope: Resources for a Church Confronting Capitalism, Democracy and Postmodernity at 49, believes this is precisely the situation when he suggests “love is far too vague a term to do any work in helping us to discover the disciplines necessary to sustain a marriage, particularly in our cultural context (recall the C.S. Lewis observation about the term gentleman). If this is in fact the situation, relying on romance and love to sustain a marriage is just as likely to succeed as fail – then again is that part of the reason why approximately half of all marriages fail?

Covenant Marriage as Ascriptural Event (Part One)

In this reflection, I hope to demonstrate some of the more practical aspects of language and its formative power.


Shortly before the turn from the 20th Century, a wave of efforts emerged, beginning in Louisiana to be followed by Arkansas and Arizona, which created a new legal category of marriage - the covenant marriage. While to date it appears the movement is stalling, a boost to the potential occurred in 2005 when Governor Mike Huckabee converted his marriage, in front of a stadium audience, to a covenant marriage under the new legislation in his state of Arkansas.


This inquiry examines the idea of covenant marriage and proposes it lacks a clear basis in Scripture despite its being surrounded with Christian language and symbol. Indeed, it is aScriptural and seeks to transform what is now a secular event into a Christian event - an effort doomed to failure due to a faulty underpinning.


Theologically, since the publication of the classic Christ & Culture by H. Richard Neibuhr in 1951 an entire generation of theologians and clergy has sought to transform or translate what is decidedly secular in culture into a Christian event. John Howard Yoder in his critique of this classic, Authentic Transformation: A New Vision of Christ and Culture, at 42, notes that Neibuhr clearly preferred his fifth typology, Christ transforming culture, and that thinkers in social ethics have come out in favor of that typology regardless of their particular theological heritage.


The covenant marriage effort apparently seeks to infuse a Gospel core into the current sad state of disintegrating marriages. Yet such infusion or translation if you will may also be seen as dilution. Stanley Hauerwas observes, in Wilderness Wanderings, at 3, “for me the question is not how can theologians make Christianity intelligible to the modern world but how can theologians make sense of the world.... I therefore have little sympathy with attempts to translate Christian speech into terms that are assumed to be generally available.” Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, in his essay "The Fate of Thomas" in The Religious Significance of Atheism at 25, argues more directly “any presentation of theism which is able to secure a hearing from a secular audience has undergone a transformation that has evacuated it entirely of its theistic content.”

The actual specific identification of covenant and marriage occurs only one time in Scripture, in Malachi 2:14, “You ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.” (NIV) All other references to marriage as a covenant are, at best, implied, and at worse, forced as in its essence covenant is an agreement. Covenant in terms of Scripture, while having a connotation of holiness nevertheless remains in essence a mutual exchange or agreement. And if we are to be faithful and honest to the story given to us in Scripture, we must acknowledge that humanity has never considered any agreement, let alone a covenant, as continuously binding. In Jeremiah 31:32 we see that humanity has broken its covenant with God, in a passage that has impulses of a marriage covenant, “it will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the LORD.” (NIV)


Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology, at 262, observes that the term rendered covenant “does not depend on the etymology of the word, nor on the historical development of the concept, but simply on the parties concerned.” In other words, when a covenant is from God, it has the character of a disposition or one sided arrangement imposed by one party to another, but otherwise the covenant, when between equal parties becomes a mutual voluntary agreement.