spouse
Image via RNS.
Earlier this week, word got out that Josh Duggar of the TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting had two accounts with Ashley Madison, the website where married people go to look for sexual partners to cheat on their spouses.
The site, whose tagline is “Life is short. Have an affair,” was the target of an enormous hack, which exposed the email addresses and some credit card information of its nearly 37 million users.
Duggar is not the only famous name to be associated with the site, and as people continue to sift through the expanding database, he surely won’t be the last.
But this column isn’t about Josh Duggar. It’s about Josh’s wife, Anna, and the misguided notions of forgiveness that some Christians subscribe to.
Valentine's Day image, nito / Shutterstock.com
So it’s almost Valentine’s Day. Seemingly everywhere you look is a celebration of love and romance. There’s so much sweetness in the air (and on store shelves), it has almost the opposite effect.
Especially if you’re single. Valentine’s Day is often one of the most uncomfortable days of the year. It’s that one special day a year in which single people are painfully reminded that we may very well die alone and childless. Unfortunately, in our romance and sex-saturated culture, every day kind of reminds you of that.
The church hasn’t offered much by way of alternatives. In the evangelical church, there’s far too much “Jesus is my boyfriend” or “I’m dating Jesus”-type songs and teaching that it trivializes the kind of intimacy that can exist between God and humanity. And it silences the deeper pain of loneliness and disappointment that single adults — both gay and straight — can feel. Humans were made for relationship with God, but we were also made for relationships with each other.
There are a couple of issues at work here. On one hand, we’re fed so much junk about sex and romance and relationships from our culture that it becomes difficult to think any differently about love. When the highest, most celebrated form of love in our culture is erotic love and romance, the concept of spiritual intimacy with God seems unsatisfying and — let’s be real — also kind of icky. It feels like a consolation prize, something you say to make yourself feel better about being alone.
On the other hand, in the church, marriage almost becomes an idol. Christina Cleveland writes all kinds of amazing things about singleness in this essay, (so many I want to quote!) but this stands out:
“After interacting with the church, many singles start to wonder: Is there something wrong with me? Is God working in my life? Am I as valuable (to God, to the church) as married people? Does God love me as much as he loves married people? Does God have good things in store for me as a single person?”
(Vaclav Mach / Shutterstock.com)
BELATED CONGRATULATIONS to Jesus Christ after recent research revealed that he might have been married during his short life. (Although, if he had to help with the dishes every night, it might have seemed longer.)
My immediate reaction was to wonder what you get a deity for a wedding present, even though it’s way too late. Their Pottery Barn listing is probably out of date, but that might be for the best, since all the cheap stuff would have been taken by now. (My oldest daughter is getting married next year, so I speak from experience that you’ve got to get in there fast and sign up for that salt shaker. Otherwise, you’re stuck buying an entire set of towels, or a food processor. She’s my daughter, but one must draw the line.)
Trying to get your head around the idea that the shortest verse in the Bible should be “Jesus wed,” the whole thing seems a little farfetched, but you can’t argue with possible science. Harvard Divinity School professor Karen L. King claims that a 4th-century papyrus fragment, written in the Coptic language of Egyptian Christians at the time, makes a reference to Jesus’ “wife.” King presented her findings at a recent gathering of the International Congress of Coptic Studies, which doesn’t seem like the kind of gathering that generates much Twitter traffic, unless there’s a private party in one of the rooms. (“Would you like to come upstairs and see my papyrus fragments?”)
From what I can tell by the photos, the handwriting on the fragment looks like a shopping list I’d hurriedly written out and then couldn’t read when I got to the store. Not having the foresight to bring along a Coptic translator, I’d invariably forget that one thing the family really needs. I wonder if Jesus had to put up with the same condescending looks when he brought home the wrong stuff. Okay, probably not.
Real Marriage by Mark and Grace Driscoll
HE SAID: David Vanderveen
Real marriages develop from two people who are committed to making them work. The specifics of how two real people make one real marriage work is largely irrelevant given the freedom we have in Christ. Marriage is supposed to be a symbol of our relationship with God on earth.
We don’t need more multiple choice tests and true-and-false quizzes with black-and-white answers to bring heaven to earth; we need to put the love of the other first — with God at the core — to make our marriages work.
SHE SAID: Sarah Vanderveen
Real Marriage is a poorly written, poorly researched book by a well-meaning pastor who I believe is struggling with his own sexuality and sense of self-worth. I don’t know how else to explain his weirdly inappropriate fixation on masculinity and specific sexual practices, and his failure to address the complexity of human sexuality and relationships.
It feels to me like he doesn’t really want to understand the whole person, rather he just wants to cut straight to the salacious tidbits. I realize that’s how you sell a lot of books, but still. I get the distinct impression that Driscoll is not a man at peace.