Trials and Tribulations

fo-rizzle

(via shit-thatblows)

castianiity:

Hey all my friends, fucking read this shit right now.

(Source: randomlovesawkward, via ahumblesspare)

(Source: satired, via yellowmidnight)

masquerangel:

…I feel EXTREMELY misrepresented.

Now, this chart is often used to point out that legalizing gay marriage is a much more sensible course of action than protecting the “sanctity of traditional Christian marriage.” Which is true, btw. In my… humble? opinion, there’s really no case against legalizing gay marriage because a.) any group against homosexuality has no right to impose those beliefs upon the rest of society, and b.) a homosexual couple has just as much of a right to the pursuit of happiness via marriage as does a heterosexual couple. Instead, I’m upset because this chart is a complete and utter failure as a representation of what Christians believe about marriage.

And, well, maybe you don’t care that I’m upset, haha. And I know this chart was probably made to be a humorous jab at whatever the heck the argument for protecting “traditional” marriage is supposed to be- and it should be jabbed at- but I don’t feel that such a seemingly comprehensive, carefully produced chart is the best means of making that jab. I see the humor, I can take a joke… but I have seen people use this chart as a basis for criticism against Christianity’s ideas of marriage. Now again, don’t get me wrong- there’s nothing wrong with being critical of anything- but to equate THIS chart with what Christian marriage actually is? It’s ignorant, insulting, and downright preposterous. It is for this reason that I would like the fair opportunity to defend my beliefs against the ridiculous accusations it makes about what type of marriage Christ supports.

The main problem with this chart is that it vastly misinterprets the marriage laws of the Old Testament, and says nothing about the vitally important shift from “law to love” that came with Christ as read in the gospels of the New Testament. Essentially, all the laws given in the Old Testament were given to Israel to promote physical/sexual health, economic well-being, preservation of culture/species, and strict accountability. The laws of the Old Testament follow the “eye-for-an-eye” level of fairness. Now, when I say “fair”, I mean it literally in the sense that a person gets exactly what he or she deserves. Our world- Earth, nature- is fair. Consequences are paid with no room for sympathy or second chances. Fairness is brutal, rigid, unforgiving. Therefore, I’m not going argue that these laws were morally stable because, well… they weren’t! They were fair instead of moral. Morality is what creates grace out of the brutality of what is fair and deserved. Bottom line? These laws were NOT given as standards for Christian morality- in fact, the near exact opposite is true!

When Christ came into the picture in the New Testament, he brought that missing forgiveness into the picture. He represents the “love” side of that “law-to-love” shift between Testaments. One of the things Christ taught was that the “eye-for-an-eye” way of thinking is wrong, preaching forgiveness in favor of the rigidity of deserved fate.* When Christ came into the picture, virtually all of these laws (with the exception of the Ten Commandments, which ARE standards for morality) were abolished because love (Christ’s teachings) takes their place. All in all, it should be pointed out that God does not advocate the marital practices of the Israel in the Old Testament, and the ones in the New Testament are the ones that Christians are expected to follow!

With this basic foundation laid out, I’d like to talk more about the chart in two sections: first about the true nature of the Christian nuclear family, and second about all the other circumstances that were chopped out of their original context and thrown sloppily onto the above chart.

1. MAN + WOMAN (NUCLEAR FAMILY)

This is the fraction of the chart that upsets me the most because it is the only section of the chart that directly relates to the actual picture of Christian marriage; the other sections deal with Old Testament scenarios that I’m pretty sure (or at least optimistically assuming) that the general public is aware Christians don’t practice/support. The chart makes five claims about “Christian” marriage: that it must be between a man and a woman, that wives must be subordinate to their husbands, that interfaith marriages are forbidden, that they are generally arranged and not based on romantic love, and that any bride who could not prove her virginity was stoned to death. I’ll talk about these each individually:

• “Marriage is between a man and a woman”: To discuss Christianity’s relationship to homosexuality would be to go off on an incredibly complex and controversial tangent; here, I would like to simply point out that not all Christians see Biblical evidence that monogamous homosexual marriage is sinful. Also, I’d like to state again that regardless of any Christian church’s viewpoint of homosexuality, non-Christian married couples shouldn’t be held accountable to Christian marriage standards.

• “Wives must be subordinate to their husbands”: *IF YOU ONLY READ A FRACTION OF THIS POST, PLEASE LET IT BE THIS SECTION!!* It is an all-too common misconception about Christianity that married women are forced to be placed below their husbands… everything about that is FALSE, FALSE, FALSE! It is true that the Bible assigns different roles to a husband and wife, but those roles are not “King” and “lowly maid-chef-whore.” The actual roles God assigns a husband and wife are this: a wife is to respect her husband, and a husband is to love his wife.**** It’s true that Ephesians 5:23 states that “the husband is head of the wife,” but this does NOT translate to “the wife is below the husband and exists to be his slave,” as it is often sadly equated to. What it DOES mean is that wives are called to support their husbands and respect his decisions; HOWEVER, husbands are also called to “love their own wives as their own bodies”, meaning that he must treat her with the love outlined in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.** He is also to be willing to give even his life for her sake, a direct parallel to the love Christ expressed by dying for the people of the world.**** What this all adds up to is a picture in which a husband must be willing to do anything for his wife, and a wife having enough respect for her husband to not take advantage of that love. It’s the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of mindless subservience; it’s a cycle of equality that encourages sympathy, compassion, communication, and understanding.

• “Interfaith marriages are forbidden”: It is true that Christians are taught to marry other Christians, but it needs to be understood that this is not a principle stemming from intolerance. Christians are taught to marry a partner who also shares a relationship with God because is it an extremely foundational compatibility issue. Christians (in theory…) are called to put their relationship with God at the heart of all of of their actions, words, decisions… everything. In marriage, two people become one and must make choices as a unit. If one spouse is motivated by God’s will and the other is not, they are going to have extreme difficulty working together on a foundational level. Additionally, 1 Corinthians 7:13 explains that “a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him.” This reveals again that intolerance is not motivation of same-faith marriages.

• “Marriages are generally arranged…”: This argument stems from the fact that many Old Testament marriages were indeed arranged. As I pointed out earlier, practices like this went on in Old Testament society because they were extremely economically beneficial (many times more so for the women involved) and promoted the preservation of the society. Again: they were put in place to allow the people of Israel to survive, and were not based on Christian moral standards.

• “…and not based on romantic love”: This is true, and for good reason: there’s a difference between love and initial attraction. Almost half of marriages today result in divorce, and why? Because couples aren’t willing to stand by one another after that initial romance fades away! So no, the Bible doesn’t instruct Christians to marry their partner based on initial infatuation- but it MOST CERTAINLY calls Christians to ALWAYS be loving to their spouses! Marriage is so much more about how spouses treat one another than it is about how they came to be married. Additionally, the biggest difference between attraction and real love is that real love is an ACTION that can be expressed regardless of whether or not emotional attraction/satisfaction is felt towards a person at any given time.** In fact, love occurs at its deepest at times when it is most difficult or unnatural to give.***** To conclude, I’m NOT saying romance is discouraged in Christianity; it’s just not as important as actual selfless love is. That is the type of love Christian couples are called to have for one another.

• “any bride who could not prove her virginity was stoned to death”: Again, this was something that took place in the Old Testament. Christianity does not attempt to define this as moral. In fact, Christ saves a woman about to be stoned to death for adultery by causing the men holding the stones to feel guilt about their intentions. This story can be read in John 8:1-12*** and is another example of how Christ rejects the brutality of the Old Testament law.

2. OTHER MARITAL CIRCUMSTANCES CITED ON THE CHART

Remember, all of these situations represent occurrences in the Old Testament, so none of them are meant as moral guidelines for a Christian marriage. I also realize this is where the more humorous jab at the idea of “tradition” lies, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time here. I won’t attempt to justify the situations on Christian moral grounds because they were not meant to be justified on Christian moral grounds. However, there are some important clarifications that need to be made:

• Slaves, concubines, and polygamy: Slaves (as kept by the Jews of the Old Testament) were not people who were involuntarily oppressed based on their race, skin color, gender, or any other aspect of their identity; actually, they were not even held against their will. Slaves were people who volunteered to work for their master for a set number of years in order to pay off debts, have a place to live, and be taken care of. I’m not saying it was the most favorable seat in society, I’m just trying to add a little context. God has never advocated racism or slavery as we understand it today. Concubines were similar in nature, except that one of their duties included engaging in sexual activity with their masters for both pleasure and child- bearing purposes. Again, I’m not saying it was the best situation to be in, but concubines would at least become a part of a more financially stable household and increase the chances of that household’s lineage to continue. Polygamy was practiced for similar reasons in the Old Testament, allowing more women to move into a home with financial stability and again, to increase the chances of carrying on the family lineage. Again, all three of these scenarios were not rooted in morality, but instead in brutal necessity for the survival of these early Jews. It’s hard not to look at each situation on the chart as utterly horrific in context to our abundance of rights in today’s day and age, but in most cases they were much, much better than the alternatives.

• Sexual submission of the wife to her husband: Again, the Old Testament laws promoted the survival of Israel, and sex was vital their existence as a means of procreation. Also again, I’m not going to defend this submission on moral grounds because the Bible doesn’t aim to do so either. However, what the Bible says about wives showing sexual subservience to their husbands in the New Testament is largely taken out of context and misunderstood. 1 Corinthians 7:4 states that “the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does” and goes on to say that “likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” Again, the message of equality stressed within Christian marriage is clear! Neither member of the couple is supposed to withhold sex from the other “except with consent for a time…and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (1 Corinthians 7:5) It’s true that a lot of marital problems either stem from or relate to problems in the bedroom, and all this verse is saying is that in Christian marriages, spouses are responsible for fulfilling each others sexual needs.

To wrap all this up, my goal in writing this response to the above chart is to defend something I believe in. Basically, I don’t want all my friends to expect to see me at a Westboro Baptist protest telling gays they can’t get married- but their slaves can, as long as the male slave first rapes the female(s?) and coughs up 50 shekels- because God’s a homophobic, slave-drivin’ misogynist and all. :/

And I know non-Christians don’t walk around with the impression that Christian men keep concubines and marry their dead brother’s wives all the time. However, I do know that it might not be too much of a stretch for some to see God as a homophobic misogynist… and that’s where my feelings of misrepresentation come in. I’m just trying to show that the Bible teaches that God is Love, that He does NOT “hate fags”, and that He really puts women on an incredibly high pedestal.

Us Christians already do a good enough job of giving the world the impression that the opposite is true without charts like this though, don’t we? :/

My final defense: God is Love, and Love is perfect… but religion is flawed because man is flawed.

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Thank you for any time you spent reading this! I’d be happy to speak/listen with anyone whose interested in anything relevant to it. :)

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*Matthew 5:38-42 (NKJV): 38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. 41 And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.”

**1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NKJV): “4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.”

***John 8:1-12 (NKJV): “1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him; and He sat down and taught them. 3 Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, 4 they said to Him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. 5 Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned. But what do You say?’ 6 This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear. 7 So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, ‘He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.’ 8 And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10 When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?’ 11 She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’ 12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.’”

****Ephesians 5:22-33 (NKJV): “25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

*****Luke 6: 32-33 (NKJV) “32 ‘But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.’”

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