Marriage Done Right: One Man, One Woman

By Jim Daly

A book to challenge the status quo, spark a debate, and get people talking about the issues and questions we face as a country!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Salem Books
• Release date: Jun 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781621575641

Jim Daly

Jim Daly espresidente y CEO de Focus on the Family. Daly ha recibido el Premio Centro Humanitario de Niños a nivel Mundial 2008 y el Premio Fondo Campeón para la Desnutrición Infantil. Ha aparecido en programas de televisión tales como World News Tonigh y Religion & Ethics; y ha sido destacado en Time, el The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today y la revista Newsweek, que lo nombró uno de los 10 mejores líderes evangélicos influyentes de la próxima generación. Daly y su esposa tienen dos hijos y residen en Colorado Springs, Colorado. Visita: www.focusonthefamily.com.  

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Jim Daly

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.

Regnery Faith™ is a trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation;

Regnery® is a registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation

Author is represented by Ambassador Literary, Nashville, TN

Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2011.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

First e-book edition published 2016, ISBN: 978-1-62157-564-1

Cataloging-in-Publication data on file with the Library of Congress

Published in the United States by

Regnery Faith

An imprint of Regnery Publishing

A Division of Salem Media Group

300 New Jersey Ave NW

Washington, DC 20001

www.RegneryFaith.com

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Books are available in quantity for promotional or premium use. For information on discounts and terms, please visit our website: www.Regnery.com.

Distributed to the trade by

Perseus Distribution

250 West 57th Street

New York, NY 10107

To all Christ followers who want to make a difference not only in their own marriages but in the lives and marriages of others.

Contents

PROLOGUEWHY SHOULD WE CARE ABOUT MARRIAGE?

Part I: The Institution

Chapter OneMIRACLE, MYSTERY, AND WONDER

Chapter TwoFROM SAFETY SEEKER TO SOUL MATE

Chapter ThreeWHY MARRY AT ALL?

Chapter FourREFORMED AND TRANSFORMED

Chapter FiveVIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE!

Chapter SixWHY CHILDREN NEED BOTH A MOTHER AND A FATHER

Chapter SevenIN GOOD TIMES AND IN BAD

Chapter EightFOR THE GREATER GOOD

Part II: Your Marriage

Chapter NineTHE SANCTITY OF SEX

Chapter TenREMARRIAGE AND STARTING ANEW

Chapter ElevenLESSONS AT THE END OF LIFE

Chapter TwelveMORE SECRETS TO A GREAT MARRIAGE

Part III: The Twelve Traits of Highly Successful Marriages

YOUR PERSONALIZED MARRIAGE ASSESSMENT

EPILOGUETHE FUTURE OF MARRIAGE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

NOTES

INDEX

A marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that together we become a new creature. To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take…. If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation…. It takes a lifetime to learn another person…. When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected.

—Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season

Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called being in love usually does not last. If the old fairytale ending They lived happily ever after is taken to mean They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married, then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be in love need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense—love as distinct from being in love—is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be in love with someone else. Being in love first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

—C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.

—G. K. Chesterton

Let marriage be held in honor among all….

—Hebrews 13:4, ESV

PROLOGUE

Why Should We Care about Marriage?

The scene on the sidewalk outside the U.S. Supreme Court was chaotic. It was the morning of Tuesday, April 28, 2015, and I was in town for the historic oral arguments of Obergefell v. Hodges, the soon-to-be-landmark case that would ultimately guarantee same-sex couples the right to marry. Spring had sprung in Washington, D.C. The sky was blue and the air was brisk but comfortable. As I walked toward the sun-drenched marble plaza surrounding the courthouse, the smell of freshly cut grass filled the air and flowering trees framed my view.

The idyllic moment, however, quickly dissolved in a cacophony of shouts, chants, and speeches, each voice competing with the others for attention. Bullhorns and loudspeakers amplified the noise. Nearly every inch of the wide sidewalk along First Street was occupied by individuals and special-interest groups. American and rainbow flags fluttered in the breeze. Banners and signs from both sides bobbed up and down in the air. Some were brazen. Others were more muted. It was American democracy on display. The dialogue was civil, for the most part, but decidedly spirited and robust.

It was obvious that those supporting the traditional one-man, one-woman definition of marriage were substantially outnumbered, but I was impressed to see so many young people standing strong for God’s design for marriage. I recognized many of our friends and allies in the crowds. But make no mistake—emotions and tensions were running high.

I weaved through the raucous throng and up off the sidewalk. A policeman waved me past the metal barriers separating the protestors from the plaza. Just to the left of the familiar steps, columns, and large bronze doors, I made my way to the court’s side entrance. It was just after nine in the morning. As I slipped inside, the din of the activists quickly faded. I glanced back over my shoulder and then turned to greet a security guard. It was almost time for the highly anticipated two-and-a-half-hour hearing.

Two months later and two thousand miles away, I watched the announcement of the disappointing five-to-four decision from my desk in Colorado Springs. It was Friday, June 26, 2015. Truth be told, I wasn’t shocked. Since that morning inside the courtroom, I couldn’t shake the sense that at least four and probably five of the justices were eager to redefine marriage. As I listened to both sides argue their case that day, I kept thinking it would be a travesty for the justices to ignore the views of the fifty-one million Americans who had voted in the past decade to preserve the traditional definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman.¹ Of course, marriage is already defined by the natural law. But understanding that not everyone acknowledges that authority and that the Constitution is silent on the subject of marriage, I’ve long believed that it’s up to the people to decide how marriage should be defined. After all, less than twenty years ago only but a handful of people thought it even needed to be defined. It was self-evident.

Yet from the line of questioning coming from the bench, it was apparent that a majority of the justices disagreed with this interpretation of the Constitution.

While Justice Anthony Kennedy initially expressed reluctance to sweep away the immemorial and universal understanding of marriage, he repeatedly asserted that the primary purpose of marriage is to confer dignity on the spouses. Writing for the majority, Kennedy confirmed that line of reasoning, calling the right to marry central to individual dignity and autonomy and insisting that same-sex-attracted persons are merely seeking equal dignity in the eyes of the law.²

Several months later, when news of the death of Justice Antonin Scalia reached me, I recalled how energized and engaged he had been during those historic oral arguments. He had warned that the religious liberties of ministers would be in jeopardy if same-sex marriage were declared a constitutional right. The minister is, to the extent he’s conducting a civil marriage, he’s an instrument of the States, Scalia reasoned. I don’t see how you could possibly allow that minister to say, I will only marry a man and a woman. I will not marry two men. Leaving it to the states to legislate same-sex marriage, he argued, allows them to protect the rights of dissenters. [Y]ou can make an exception. The State can say, ‘Yes, two men can marry,’ but ministers who do not believe in same-sex marriage will still be authorized to conduct marriages on behalf of the State. You can’t do that once it is a constitutional proscription.³

We will know in time if the great justice was prescient. I believe his concerns were well founded. As he wrote in his blistering dissent, This is a naked judicial claim to legislative power, a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. A system of government that makes people subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.⁴

Justice Kennedy seems to have a novel understanding of the word dignity. Whereas Christians and natural law theorists have always seen dignity as an inherent attribute of humanity, Kennedy treats it as synonymous with individual autonomy and the right to define oneself. With all due respect, I think he’s wrong. Marriage has always been recognized as the institution that binds a man and a woman as husband and wife, to be father and mother to any children their union produces, not as a dignity-conferring domestic arrangement. Alas, Justice Kennedy has a vote—and I do not.

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

The journey toward the redefinition of marriage started decades ago. Today’s legal redefinition has its roots in steady and significant cultural change.

The understanding of marriage as the lifelong union of a man and a woman prevailed across cultures for millennia. It protected the children born from that union. Indeed, bringing children into this world has historically been seen as the primary purpose of marriage. Marriage, sex, and childbearing were linked in people’s minds and usually in practice.

And then came the sexual revolution, breaking the iron triangle of marriage, sex, and childbearing and ushering in monumental changes in our collective worldview and culture.⁵

A pivotal moment came on May 9, 1960, when the Food and Drug Administration approved the sale and use of the pill. As my friend Dr. Al Mohler has observed, this form of birth control turned pregnancy—and thus children—into a choice rather than the natural gift of the marital union. Many contend, moreover, that the marital union itself was weakened by the pill, which facilitated adultery and other forms of nonmarital sex. In some hands, the pill became a human pesticide.

With easy access to birth control and, after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, to abortion, it was easier for couples to opt out of marriage. Many did, and cohabitation rates increased thirty-five-fold from 1960 to 2010, further weakening marriage.⁶ The devaluing of marriage in favor of merely living together has accelerated even more among the millennial generation.

No-fault divorce arrived in California in 1969⁷—with Governor Ronald Reagan’s approval—and had spread to every other state by 1985.⁸

Taken together, these developments helped reduce marriage, in the eyes of many, to a solemnized expression of emotional love. No longer did the majority of people hold a conjugal view of marriage as the lifelong, exclusive union of a man and woman who, in most cases, have and raise their children together.

SHOULDN’T TWO PEOPLE BE ALLOWED TO LOVE EACH OTHER?

Once that conjugal understanding of marriage was undermined, it became easier for people to accept a definition of marriage as the union of any two persons, regardless of their sex—a definition based on the philosophical shrug of the shoulders, Love is love.

The Church, unfortunately, made up of fallible and imperfect people, didn’t do all it could to respond to this rapid cultural change. When we could have offered a vision of God’s plan for marriage and the family, many of us were ourselves caught up in the sexual revolution.

We could have encouraged young couples in love to marry, but we told them to postpone marriage until they had a college education, a stable job, and a healthy bank account. No longer was marriage an institution that helped shape and mature young people. Rather, it became the cherry on top after they had achieved a certain level of success. We could have offered a bright, shining example of the vitality and joy that can be found in a Christ-centered marriage, but Christian divorce rates rivaled everyone else’s.

A HAUNTING QUESTION

No wonder a homosexual activist once asked me, Since Christians haven’t done so well in the arena of marriage, why not let us try? That sounds like a reasonable question, but what my friend doesn’t understand is that God’s plan for marriage isn’t any less true or wise just because Christians haven’t lived it as well as they could have. Despite our shortcomings, God’s design—one man and one woman, committed for life, welcoming and raising children together—remains the best model of family there is.

NOTHING ELSE BENEFITS MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN MORE THAN BIBLICAL MARRIAGE

Perhaps even more important, nothing else more beautifully represents the Gospel. And so this is why it’s critically important that we care about marriage.

They say that law is downstream from culture. If that’s true, then the judicial imposition of same-sex marriage—first in Massachusetts in 2004⁹ and throughout the country eleven years later—shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Furthermore, as Christians, it’s important for us to humbly and candidly acknowledge that we bear some of the blame for the downward trajectory of the marriage culture.

OWNING OUR PART OF THE PROBLEM

When my homosexual activist friend challenged me about the mess heterosexuals have made of marriage, I had to acknowledge his point. It’s time for us to own up to our own sin and get our own house in order. Though we can educate, encourage, and pray for the culture, we cannot control it. But we do have it within us to take our own marital commitment seriously. The most powerful way we can do that is by loving our spouse the way Christ loves His Church.

After decades of no-fault divorce, many Christians simply tire of their spouses and allow themselves to be whisked away by a fantasy, that the grass will be greener on the other side of the fence. Premarital sex and cohabitation have become commonplace among those professing to be Christian. Here at Focus on the Family, calls to our counseling department reveal that Internet pornography is destroying marriages on a daily basis. And many persons, particularly younger evangelicals, are simply choosing to bypass the altar altogether. In fact, I saw a recent report saying that for the first time ever, more than half of American adults are unmarried.

As we Christians struggle to uphold one-man, one-woman marriage, the trends are not in our favor. Does that mean that we should shrink back and admit that marriage is a lost cause? On the contrary, I think our witness to the beauty and goodness of true marriage becomes all the more important. It will be up to us to show a fraying culture that marriage is so much more than just a piece of paper or an association of any two or more persons who profess to love each other. It is a sacred union of a man and a woman that confers myriad benefits on the spouses, their children, and society at large—benefits that cannot be replicated by any other relationship. I would go so far as to say a society cannot flourish, or even long survive, without stable marriages at its core.

For all its material benefits, the marital bond, for Christians, is above all the mysterious symbol, a miniature representation, of the relationship Jesus has with His bride, the Church (Eph. 5:31–32). When we demonstrate unwavering commitment and sacrificial love to our spouses, we are mirroring to our culture the very love Christ has for His people. What an awesome responsibility and privilege!

That’s why I urge Christians to pour themselves into their marriages. Research tells us that the divorce rate for Christians who take their faith seriously is notably lower than that of the general population, but even so it is still far too high. What a testimony to our neighbors it would be if the divorce rate of believers were but a fraction of the general population’s.

THE