There is a lot of controversy surrounding the idea of biblical marriage and “traditional family values” (a masquerade of biblical marriage). Normally, I am the one going “Rambo” on the blogsphere and facebooks trying to disrupt what is usually a festival of liberal thinkers preaching to themselves. A lot of people do nit-pick and try to convince others (normally those like-minded) that traditional marriage is a problem.

The whole idea, though, is not to disrupt traditional marriage; it is to prove a relative ideology which, in a postmodern world, does not align with any one “truth” but a conglomeration of self-defeating and logically fallacious “truths.” The homosexual agenda, as far as acceptance is concerned, is not new on the scene. But, the idea that homosexuality is supposed to be more acceptable or as acceptable to everyone is what is new.

Whether or not someone is for the homosexual agenda one thing can be made sure; the politics behind this movement is to disarm that which Christians, social conservatives, and right-winged advocates hold dear to their arguments.

Ultimately one cannot argue to a pig what is so special about sheep. Ultimately, like proverbs says, fools will be fools and will not be able to see truth. However, I would like to take the opportunity to answer to something a friend of mine has brought to my attention.

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One way that both liberals and conservatives lob grenades at each other is through “memes,” otherwise hailed as quirky quick-blasted rebuts using different funny, ironic, or pathetic pictures. Sometimes, though, these pictures are not very interesting, but the content sure does rest very heavily on the interpretation and understanding of these pictures.

The picture in question was sent to me via a liberal facebook page; here are the tenets of the picture:

“According to the Bible”

1. Marriages must be in the same faith
2. Not only should a wife be subordinate (Ephesians 5:22), but she must prove her virginity lest she be stoned (Deut. 22:20-21)
3. Marriages should be arranged
4. If a woman’s husband dies without having had a son, she must marry is brother, and have intercourse with him until they have a son (Mark 12:18-27)
5. Many of the “men of God” were not only married but had at least one concubine (Abraham, Caleb, Solomon)
6. God frequently blessed polygamists (Esau, Jacob, Gideon, David, Solomon, Belshazzarr)

So forgive me if I’m not interested in your “Traditional Family Values”

These statements are meant to be witty and condescending. Beyond their value, they serve the purpose of disarming the “strong beliefs” that conservatives have. Unfortunately, there are many who are disarmed by these statements because they only have a cursory understanding of scripture and fall quickly under their own feet from these accusations.

What I will do, however, is address each point and try to draw some conclusions.

(1) There are many things which the Bible commands Christians to do, and this is one of them. The funny thing about this accusation is that, to a strong Christian, one would not understand why this is such a bad thing. This is something, however, that does come up in these grenade throws, and that is this: fools do no understand the reasons behind perfectly adequate statements. Whoever wrote this does not believe that it is important to be equally yoked, to be on the same spiritual level with a spouse, otherwise they would not have responded in this manner. Many people both secular and religious believe the accusation behind this statement because they have a false view of what marriage is. It is no wonder that, whoever wrote this meme, is trying to make this point.

At this point, I want to say that what I am more concerned about is a biblical marriage, and not “traditional family values.” There are many things which are biblical, but are not in traditional family values (and vise versa).  There are many who hold to “traditional family values” but do not subscribe to “equal yoking.” This particular statement, that of the first in the aforementioned list, is actually very important; but as long as someone doesn’t understand, or want, or cannot reconcile this with their own, then it is useless defending it. Note, however, that it is very important that people be equally yoked before entering into marriage.

Marriage is not about love, children, sex, or pleasure, but holiness. Out of holiness, God’s sanctifying grace in our lives, do we come to see love, children, sex, and pleasure. When pursuing marriage, we must be honest first about who we are fundamentally before God and see if those involved are of the same accord. A wikkan marrying a baptist is not acceptable; they are fundamentally separated.

(2) This is a pig trying to make sense of a sheep’s ways. When Ephesians mentions “submit” the common meaning of this phrase can only mean (to a pig) “submit without question or quarral.” This is, honestly, horrendously wrong. It is wrong, first, because the author of this meme is not practicing good contextualization (not that it would help he/she understand). Literary contextualization requires the reader to see the context of a particular statement and harmonize said statement with the rest of the context. This produces a contextually sound interpretation. The context of Ephesians 5 is describing how the Christian lifestyle reflects God’s communion with Christ. For the Christian, and anyone with the eyes to see, this means divine love, a love which we are to mimic. What does it mean to submit? Well, in the opening of the middle paragraph of Ephesians 5, it describes the backdrop of our submission – Christ. Subordination for wives and husbands is to mimic Jesus’ subordination unto God the father. Subordination in this sense is not a bad thing, but a very good thing. If we submit to each other, in particular ways for the Husband and Wife, as Christ did unto God, then sacrifice and obedience to God is accomplished. Remember, the writer of this graphic is interested in exalting love before holiness, and selfishness above altruism (in the sense Jesus spoke).

But, the writer doesn’t stop here; it continues. The writer parallels a subordinate wife with her virginity. All together, one can see that this second point is meant to disarm traditional marriage by proving that misogyny is present in “traditional values.”

Not that someone would be able to see it, but if they could, here is how I would respond as a whole to the second half of this point: Deuteronomy was the law divided into two parts, ceremonial/ritualistic provisions and moral restraints. The whole point of Deuteronomy is to emphasize the character of God and his nature, to set Israel apart for himself and to make his nature known through their deeds. The painstaking task of performing rituals and cleansings were to ingrain the idea that God is holy. To be anything but is vile.

Moral restraints were also to set Israel apart from other nations. Remember, if man is depraved from the womb, then the deepest desire of man’s heart is to rebel against God. God set forth in Genesis a biblical theology of sex, family, marriage, and lifestyle before the fall. In the fall, we see the defiance of Adam, and we sin against God in every one of these areas. Deuteronomy re-establishes this continuum until Christ came.

Deuteronomy was also accomplishing something else with these moral restraints – preservation. God was even so concerned with man in his fallen state that he set forth laws by which man could be restrained from self-annihilation. The text here in Deuteronomy 22 is speaking to God’s people about the fragility of the society. Historically, the ancient societies were so fragile and breakable that even the slightest moral deviance proved to be fatal to the preservation of the society. One could argue that the greatest societies of ancient history fell because of rampant and misguided morality.

In that era of history God showed that how the pagans treated sex was outrightly wrong. The pagan view of sex was pragmatic, practical, and it devalued the gift of intimacy. In that time, a strong nation, an everlasting nation, was one that valued the family, the practical unit of culture and posterity. If one Israelite were to deviate from one man, one woman marriage (hereafter OMOW), the potential for Israel to die was so high that there had to be a provision for it. Back then, the only faithful Israelite was one who waited until marriage, the marriage night, to prove covenantal responsibility. Those who deviated before marriage were considered to never have been part of Israel (and thus killed). God’s view of sex says, “I created you in my image; I made you for intimacy. That intimacy cannot be shared with other people, other than with your husband/wife. I made you this way because I am made this way; I do not share my Godliness with other Gods. I do not share my compassion with others outside of whom I have chosen.”

However, one can stand firm, though, that we don’t stone a virgin-less woman today because of what Christ did on the cross. Christ fulfilled the law perfectly, meaning there are many things which we no longer need to practice. We can now redeem those outside of Israel, and now we can redeem those who previously did not value sex and marriage highly. Now, there is hope for the lost, and sexually deviant.

(3) You will be surprised about this point, but I don’t have much to say. The most successful marriage of all time is an arranged marriage. That is the truth statistically and culturally. Why? Because it forces people to be unconditionally loving towards another.

The problem with American views of love boils down to this: individualism. “If I am not expressing myself out of my own ‘free will,’ then I am not American or human.” The truth is, though, that this is to be expected. If we believe that arranged marriages are evil because it takes the love out of marriage, then we obviously don’t understand what marriage is about. If we understand that marriage is about holiness, about sanctification, and not about happiness, then arranged marriages can naturally be a part of a culture. But, in a culture were emotions, feelings, and choices are king, limiting all of those things because we ‘have’ to love someone seems unfeeling, unemotional, and very unstable. That’s why many people are surprised, when they see statistics about arranged marriages, that they are so successful.

What is concerning, though, about number three in this list is a lack of scriptural defense. Scripture, as far as I know (and please correct me if I am wrong) does not mention that marriages have to be arranged. It talks about the danger of not being equally yoked, marrying outside of religious affiliations, and other things, but I don’t find a command to arrange marriages.

That being said, arranged marriages, as the Bible might advise, are not all that detrimental to excitement. Often arranged marriages are done by parents, starting at a young age, and following friends who share the same values. Often times in jewish tradition a grandmother or a mother would watch children play, grow up, and be around one another and follow where friendships lead. Arranged marriages are often very loving and exciting, and often are paired with equally yoked partners.

(4) This is just flat out wrong. This passage does not even remotely say what the author of this list claims it does. It is the parable about marriage. Read it and I dare anyone to say it means what the writer says it does.

(5) While it is true that many “men of God” had multiple concubines, one must be careful when sayng that it therefore means God endorsed mistresses. A careful examination of these men shows that God never approved of their behavior, and that He shunned it. In addition, Solomon admits that having concubines and wives was really vain and fleeting (Ecclesiastes). More importantly, the people of Israel (and now Christians) would read these accounts and realize that God saves sinners. These men of God were not men of God because they worked their way to God, but because God, over and over, redeemed them out of the pits of Hell and damnation.

(6) God blessed polygamists, but not the polygamy. Very much like before, God did not endorse polygamy, mistresses or concubines, or any other deviance from OMOW marriage.

Overall, responding to those who criticize marriage in the ways that this meme does are not going to understand what is being said in this post. What I intended for this post to do is to defend the faith, to fight the fight regardless of who listens, so that there may be an account of these things somewhere.