Yea, come on, you knew I’d wade into this discussion eventually. So hear me out, send me your “questions”, comments, attacks, call me names, blah, blah. It’s funny when someone takes a liberal stand especially in the church and they get pushback, well that’s mean spirited and bigoted. When someone takes a position that takes a Biblical stand and they get attacked, well good for the people who stood up against that mean, ugly, hateful person.

Yea, the liberal position is always kind of adolescent, very short-sighted, and very intolerant. So when you take a true Biblical position, you might as well resign yourself that you’re going to get pushback from people who simply don’t want to understand the issues and really try to deal with them, they will just brush it off as “haters” and give you their adolescent pettiness and not hear a word you say.

This setup is prompted by a podcast by J Warner Wallace, who I think is great. I try to “ripoff” more of his stuff, but a lot of times, just can’t keep up. He was talking about marriage in the podcast I will comment on, and for the most part I agree and i certainly understand where he is coming from. I want to camp on one point that I do have an issue with, and then I will discuss the rest of his points.   [highly recommend his book “Cold Case Christianity”]

He says “marriage is about parenting”… Yes! But it is also about the spousal relationship, One should do what they can for their children, they certainly want to raise their children to be responsible contributing adults, they certainly want to raise great Christian men and women, but the marriage relationship is about your spouse. The emphasis in the Bible over and over is about husband and wife, starting in the Garden of Eden. Further, my wife and I are empty nesters, we probably will be empty-nesters longer in our lives then when we had children. I’m never going to be truly closer to anyone more than I am my spouse, assuming you have a healthy and long marriage. I know that is certainly an issue, but that is at least the standard we should all strive for. Be there for your spouse, do what builds and supports him and her. I’ve seen it both ways, where one spouse focuses on the children for 20 years and essentially ignores the spouse and then wonders after the children are gone why the spouse has left, emotionally and often physically. Now there’s no children and no spouse.

Having said that, I will quote from Wallace’s podcast and as you can see, I really don’t disagree with the spirit, but I did want to address that one point.

“Marriage is about parenting, it is society’s gift to the next generation. Children have the assurance that the man and the woman who combined to give them life are responsible/ accountable to them.” [I certainly agree here, but what better model is there then a man and woman who are wholly devoted and accountable to each other. Your children are going to be married adults a lot longer then they will be children, which model will serve them best in the long run? – Driskell]

“Family structure is aimed at having children and children are best served in a family anchored by their biological mother and father.” [Please don’t give me the argument about people who can’t or chose not to have children. I know, I get it and I’m not saying they are wrong or invalid, but fess up, those marriages are distinctly in the minority. If that’s where you’re at I really don’t have an argument, but let’s not frizz up the discussion, with every little exception, because that is what’s causing the biggest problems in the United States, letting the exceptions, the special cases drive the debate. The exceptions can and should be worked out, not try to re-create an entire social order – Driskell]

“Children have a right to be raised by their biological mother and father. Biological ties between parent and child matter,” [period, they just do and that has to be honored, yes there are cases where children are taken out of bad situations and there are wonderful adoptive parents, yes, yes and yes. But again very exceptional – Driskell]” Obviously children are rarely consulted if the homosexuality of the “couple” is imposed on the child, they must accept that structure.”

Wallace quotes David Brinkenhover President of “American Values”: “The one institution that is the most pro-child in society is the marriage between biological mother and father.” [Please let’s not discuss the petty exceptions, 999 times out of 1000, the biological mother and dad are far better then any other arrangement, please don’t try to argue otherwise. – Driskell]

Brinkenhover goes on to say: “Is marriage a private love relationship between two people? Marriage is not a license to have sex or receive social benefits. People are in ‘love relationships’ or having sex who are not married. It’s a commitment to children, to stay together as a family. Marriage is a gift we give to the next generation.”

People are going to have sex in and out of marriage, a marriage license certainly doesn’t drive that especially in this day and age. Further the argument for homosexual marriage is often camped on the “social benefits”, ownership, rights of inheritance, etc. Those things can be resolved without trying to define society’s stand on marriage. Come on, be honest, it’s just another way to “play” the system, especially the judiciary, and also the legislative.

God created the institution of marriage, it is certainly up to the state to regulate it and it does. Although more often it’s manipulated and played by unelected bureaucrats and judges. It is the church’s responsibility to hold people accountable to that. Yes, stuff happens, things aren’t always going to work out, if it didn’t work out the first time, all the more reason to be very serious and diligent the next time. As I started this by saying, do your best for your spouse, children are important, but your spouse is for life and we remember that it is God who brought together the man and the woman in the Garden of Eden, then children. Don’t use children as pawns and do what you can to keep judges or bureaucrats from trying to manipulate the marriage relationship or the parent relationship. For those who have done all that they can, keep them and their children in prayer, help them and the church to help them stay as faithful as possible.