The Aftermath of the Divorce

In my last blog, I discussed the union of the legal and Godly components of what we called marriage.  I ended that blog by saying that if those two components of marriage were ever separated, marriage would lose its meaning.

Since then, the Supreme Court of the United States has issued a ruling that makes same sex marriage legal throughout the country.  America joins 20 other countries with similar policy.  The divorce of marriage has happened in these countries.

It’s important understand that while the legal definition of marriage has changed, God’s definition hasn’t, and never will.  This means that same sex marriages will only be legal marriages.  They cannot be marriages before God, because they do not fulfill the definition of marriage as put forth by God in the Bible.

The importance of this depends on what marriage means to you, and where you stand with God. To a lot of people, going to a justice of the peace and getting married is enough.  Some, however, want to involve their God, and their faith, in their marriage.  For example, a marriage in the Catholic church is one of 7 sacraments, intimate moments between God and man.  It’s even given another name, matrimony.

Since same sex people can now marry, they now become subject to not only the joys of being married, but the responsibilities of marriage and the consequences.  Most obviously, legalized same sex marriage means legalized same sex divorce.

While same sex marriage is legal in every state in the US, the requirements that need to be fulfilled for two people to marry are still subject to individual state law.  This means that it can be very easy to marry, such as the infamous “Las Vegas” wedding.  Marriage in haste, while caught up in the moment, has risk involved.  By contrast, in the Catholic church, couples must attend a series of meetings designed to insure that the couple each other well, and are entering into matrimony after careful consideration.  This is another benefit of a “church” wedding.

As with the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973, society, and especially, the business world, will quickly embrace the decision.  Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers quickly became entrenched and an abortion industry arose which makes reversing that decision impractical, and eventually, unthinkable.  It’s no longer about what is legal, it’s about who is making money.  This decision will be no different. 

One encouraging aspect is justice Kennedy’s remarks in the decision re-affirming the American right of dissent.  But, that doesn’t stop the dissent limiting aspects of the society that led to this decision in the first place.  Already, you see the articles arising of people that are practicing “hate” by resigning their jobs because issuing same sex marriage licenses is against their life philosophy, guided by their faith.  Less obvious in the media are articles like about the Catholic priest who happened by a celebration for the decision by accident and was spat upon.  I guess “love wins” is just another hollow slogan.

The truth is there is no going back at this point with this divorce.  Divorce always victimizes innocent parties and this one will be no different.  Let’s hope that love truly does win in all of this.  

The Divorce of Marriage

Marriage (or, rather, the definition of marriage) has been a hot topic these days, which is somewhat amazing.  The institution of marriage is our oldest one as human beings on planet Earth, and, until very recently, it was one of our best understood ones.

Marriage has its origins in the story of Adam and Eve, and was easy to define when there is only one man and one woman around. Moses takes the opportunity on Genesis 2:24 to state: “Therefore, a man shall leave father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”, in the middle of the Adam and Eve story. Men have wives (sometimes more than one) in the Biblical account from this point forward, and the men are always men, and the wives are always women.  This continued on, until the present day, when something seemed to change.

Looking at marriage from a more modern sense, there were two components of marriage that we strived to keep together: the “before God” (given to us by God, translated to the “church wedding”), and the “legal” (to define rights, such as support, children, property, many stemming from divorce). We knew that marriage was one institution, so we accommodated the “God” aspects and the “state” aspects under one general term and one process, administered in two ways: by mayors, justices of the peace, ship’s captains, etc… (legal), and by religious celebrants (both before God and legal).

In the current climate, on the legal side, many governments are redefining marriage to be between two human beings, gender not defined.  This has caused the harmony between “legal” and “before God” marriage to be discordant. God hasn’t changed His mind about marriage, but man has. You cannot use the same term to mean two fundamentally different types of union.  There are, and have been, many legal remedies that accommodate unions between two people that are outside the traditional, common, unified definition of marriage, but these don’t seem to suffice these days.

So, this a legal attempt to redefine a term, more than anything else. By comparison, the term “gay” had a very different meaning not 100 years ago, but through the way the term was used in culture, it became re-defined.  Marriage has a long, well defined and universally recognized meaning that stems from the origin of man, and that meaning defined marriage as between a man and a woman.  What was done culturally, over a period of time with the term gay, is now being attempted with the force of law, over a much shorter period of time, with the term marriage. The former coupling of the legal and the before God that was termed marriage is being uncoupled.

This is the divorce of marriage. But, divorce is the opposite of marriage. So, what does that leave us with?  A term, “marriage” that is really devoid of meaning, since it means two very different things depending on the context.  But, terms don’t work that way, no one uses the term gay to mean happy anymore. But, with marriage, neither meaning is going away any time soon, because same sex people will marry legally, but only one man and one woman will continue to marry before God.  And the relationship itself will be fundamentally different, most obviously, in the fact that one type of marriage can bring forth children without any outside intervention, and one cannot.

When marriage is divorced, it’s not marriage anymore.  It’s nothing.

Thoughts and Prayers

There was a terrorist act in Sydney just before Christmas that resulted in three deaths. There was a lot of coverage of this tragedy in the media. Because the event itself ran over almost a day, and the local television stations went into 24/7 coverage mode of the crisis, there was commentary and reactions recorded from the Prime Minister of Australia, the President of the United States, and many others. Almost all of these reaction interviews featured the statement "our thoughts and prayers are with the hostages and for a peaceful resolution to this situation".

I think they mean well, but this got me to thinking what the "thoughts and prayers" really means. Thoughts are relatively easy to understand, but pretty much useless. Even if they are good thoughts, they don’t go anywhere you’re your head. The meaning of prayers, however, is as variable as the person making the statement, or, more specifically, as variable as their faith.

If I say I’ll pray, but I don’t really believe in God, then, that sort of prayer is just as useful as a thought.  If I pray to an undefined “higher power”, then how do I know if the higher power I’m so agnostic about will hear, much less do anything? If my idea of prayer is to speak to God when a crisis arises, that could be effective, but if you were God, what would you think of someone who talks to you and makes promises only when they need you?  God is more gracious than you or I, and may answer if it is His will, but that sort of prayer is an act of desperation and not a sign of real belief, much less relationship.

If I earnestly pray, but there is sin in my life, I need to settle that first.  That’s what Jesus was talking about when He told the parable of the one going to pray, but having a wrong outstanding with another.  Settle the wrong first, then your prayer will be effective.  Prayer comes out of a relationship with God, it can’t be a one-off.  And, Jesus also said seek (and keep on seeking), knock (and keep on knocking), ask (and keep on asking), in other words, be persistent.  It’s that God doesn’t know what you need or why you need it, He wants you to realise how important it is to you.

People can say that they are praying for a good outcome, but I wonder if they actually do.  But, on the other foot, I need to actually pray (and pray persistently and effectively) if I say I am going to.