American evangelical leaders are pretty clear about their opinion that the traditional view of marriage is in near-perfect alignment with what they regard as the Christian ideal. Considering monogamy is a central tenet of that view, it’s understandable if hackles might have been raised by a recent New York Times Magazine account of Dan Savage's crusade to knock monogamy off its pedestal.
Savage, a nationally syndicated sex columnist, contends that an obsessive focus on monogamy can be as damaging to a marriage as infidelity. Not only does it lead to unrealistic and often unattainable expectations for a spouse, says Savage, it can also lead to “boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death and being taken for granted.”
In “Mere Christianity,” C.S. Lewis rightly and succinctly points to marital monogamy or celibacy as the only two options for God-ordained human sexual activity, period. The fact that monogamy, even more than marriage, has been embraced by our culture over the last 100 years is an achievement pessimistic culture warriors ought to ponder.
Even so, Savage's observation on this fact is devastating and cuts across the battlefield in so many unexpected ways.
Savage says in the Times piece that the feminist revolution failed to extend to women “the same latitude and license and pressure-release valve that men had always enjoyed.” Instead, we extended to men the confines women had always endured. “And it’s been a disaster for marriage,” he claims.
The culture-warrior script demands that Savage be identified as "the enemy" and therefore subject to denunciation and rejection. But his argument has made me wonder: What is the difference between an idol and an ideal?
The traditional view of marriage and monogamy is a foundational element of evangelical culture. Yet the evangelical church's obvious inability to uphold its own standard in this case makes it appear hypocritical. In short, the evangelical church has erected an idol whose standards it cannot meet.
Another approach to engaging Savage's critique of monogamy would be to view it through an understanding of the role of the law in the Christian life, as asserted by John Calvin. Savage's observation that "we can't do monogamy" is very much in parallel with Calvin’s assertion that we can't keep the law. You don't throw out the law because you can't keep it, however. The law gets transformed into something else by its fulfillment in Christ. We obey as expression of our gratitude to him.
How would evangelicals and their witness be changed by pursuing monogamy as an ideal rather than an idol? Failure to keep the moral law within a gospel context forces a realignment of values away from a system of righteousness by compliance towards righteousness through grace. What Savage reveals monogamy to be for evangelicals and our culture is an idol, something that cannot by its own power actually yield shalom. What a gospel approach affords is that the benefits of monogamy can be received if pursued as an expression of gratitude. When the crucified and resurrected Lord is focus, monogamy may be received as a cruciform gift (the cruciformity being something Savage struggles to understand).
Even though there is much in Savage's agenda that many Christians will rightly reject, I think his argument exposes the evangelical and cultural idol of monogamy. This exposure affords space for a gospel invitation that should not be overlooked.
(Image courtesy of iStockphoto.)
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Comments (9)
The attacks started back in Genesis, when Abram had Ishmael by Hagar (Sarah's slave woman) when Sarah was still barren, or when Jacob married Rebekah and Leah, and also had children by both of their slaves, or in the book of Kings when Solomon married hundreds of women, or any of the countless other examples of Biblical marriage, by people whom Scripture doesn't seem to see anything wrong with (David had no shortage of wives before the whole Bathsheba incident without their impugning his righteousness), that weren't the "sacred union between one man and one woman."
(This chart has a few more examples...)
The reality is that marriage has been redefined time and again, over and over, by culture after culture, over the 5,000-10,000 years or so we've had human civilization. Even contemporary heterosexual marriages, understood to be partnerships between equals, would be all but unrecognizable to someone living 150 years ago, when it was simply assumed that women were the property of their husbands and incapable of managing their own lives.
To act as if contemporary conservative Christians' understanding of marriage is some kind of longstanding and absolute historical or theological tradition is to ignore the vast majority of both history and theology.
However, I find the apparent 'normalizing' of extra-marital affairs is simply wrong. Certainly, we don't want to idolize monogamy, but neither do we want to idolize sexual excitement and variety (to try to turn his "boredom, despair, lack of variety, sexual death" on it's head a bit). The hedonist idolizes enjoyment in life, and much of this ethic is bowing to a different idol.
As far as evangelicals idolizing monogamy, I think that has to be qualified a bit. First, our high value for monogamy does not extend beyond a formal marriage relationship to cohabitation (regardless of the amount of time together), nor does it extend to homosexual couples (even with the benefit of formal marriage vows/ceremony). Failures within the church, such as the one you referred us to, don't point out the idolatry of monogamy, as much as expose a human's failure to meet it, and at the same time the church's commitment to uphold it. Often these moral failures are dealt with in grace, with an eagerness to forgive and restore that sometimes borders on the unwise, if only in its speed. Church leaders, who fail to uphold their marriage vows, or who engage in pre-marital or homosexual sex, are dealt with differently, because they are leaders. I think both you and I, Paul, understand the dynamics of that. But if we take out that complicating factor, we find people to be very gracious, forgiving, and eager to restore relationships whenever possible.
I'm forced to conclude that monogamy is not typically an idol among us evangelicals, even if it is an unmovable value. If it were an idol, there would be no or little opportunity for forgiveness/restoration, or it would require much more time/effort to accomplish, yet, (setting aside the additional complication of moral failure by leaders) this happens frequently even if imperfectly.
Talking about monogamy in relation to polygamy (as JamesBrett does in his comment), would be an interesting topic here. But I would conclude that, in spite of the ethic of the past (which seemed intent to 'westernize' the culture of new believers overseas), there is a greater tolerance for polygamy among missionaries and mission agencies, though (as I understand it) the great majority of them would not endorse any further marriages of a polygamist, once he became a Christian. That would be an interesting, but I think distinct topic.
i'm just curious about this marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman and where we get our best arguments for such? it seems to me the best argument we could make is that adam and eve were in essence designed for one another. but i have to wonder if the fallenness of our world -- which distorted most all of what God had originally intended -- also distorted marriage?
after all, there sure was a lot of polygamy among the people of God in the old testament?
Whatever its anthropological meaning, our contemporary view of marriage, especially that found amongst evangelicals, not only celebrates an ideal, but serves to articulate real hopes. The household today, no less than that of other eras, models the society; our turning toward it expresses some hope we have, a hope to be needed, a hope for stability amidst flux, a hope that biblical meaning can be lived out even when our jobs and the marketplace seem to deny it.
And if there's hope, then tugging at its hem is also that other child, fear. Idolatry often is less about rebelliousness than about trying to placate the fear that swirls about us: we make our golden calf because Moses is up the mountain and we're up the crick without a paddle and we gotta do something.
Another sign of the confusion would be that surrounding the role of infant dedication. The strength of this practice testifies to the prominence that family has amongst Evangelicals, as well as pointing to a type of corrupted ecclesiology. Marriage flows from the life of the community, it is one of the social institutions that derivatively reflects the Kingdom as social reality. That's why we can think of it as a sacrament. The meaning of marriage does not lie in itself at all, that's what allows us to accept its imperfect form, why we can see in the single mother still something of God's intention, or how even the struggling marriage with its heartaches can be bearable. God's community makes these fragile communities possible. As Jesus reminds us, "a smoking wick he will not crush."
Oh and a short note about Savage. He's actually something of a gnostic, trying to reach to this notion that there is a truth about marriage that is somehow different from the performance itself. Marriage keeps keeps referring to this other Reality. This draws him -- he testifies to it -- even as he wants a space for the flesh. The flesh does not reveal the holy, something that separates him from the Marriage Romantics, evangelical or otherwise, but is something accommodated. Important perhaps, but not constitutive -- smells like gnosticism to me.
I could not believe Pro-Life activists were waiting for Casey Anthony`s release,signs in hand.