Larry D. is commenting on Rob Bell's assertion that the Church is becoming irrelevant:
So I get the “being alone” thing. God understood the “being alone” thing. But being alone isn’t loneliness. I know plenty of married folks who endure loneliness, even when their spouse is sitting next to them on the couch - I’m sure you do, too. And I know plenty of single people who aren’t lonely. Loneliness isn’t merely a physical state of being. It’s metaphysical, borne from not being in a right relationship with the God who created us, with the Savior who redeemed us, with the Holy Spirit who renews us.
Where Bell says “Loneliness is not good for the world”, he’s right. It isn’t good. Except he has the wrong
solution. Marriage isn’t about curing loneliness. If the cure for loneliness is marriage, then why is there divorce? Or porn? Or adultery? Or ’50 Shades of Grey’? ’50 Shades of Grey’, imho, shows that loneliness really does exist in marriage, but that’s a discussion for another time. Marriage isn’t about having “someone to go on the journey with”. That’s Hallmark card romanticism, a chick-flick pick-up line, sappy sentimentality that ignores the hard reality about marriage. Marriage isn’t a journey; it’s a freaking battle. Every.single.day. A married couple can be nose to nose – or back to back – just as much as they can be shoulder to shoulder.
Overcoming loneliness is a rotten reason to get married. At its very core, Christianity holds that marriage is a lifelong union between one man and one woman, to bring forth children and raise them. At its very best, Christ lives in the center of that marriage. He is the cornerstone that sustains it, and renews it.
Yeah, so what, says Bell. Christianity is evolving. Christians are becoming comfortable with the idea of same-sex marriage, so that those couples can journey together and live in a land where no one judges them, and where churches will accept them, affirm them, and tell them God is okay with their decision. Christians are devolving to a point where feelings are the highest good, where the greatest sin is not being permitted to act on those feelings, or made to feel guilty when they do act. Even if said actions are wrong. Objectively wrong. In-the-eyes-of-God wrong. Cos judgmental.
That’s not the Christianity I know.
solution. Marriage isn’t about curing loneliness. If the cure for loneliness is marriage, then why is there divorce? Or porn? Or adultery? Or ’50 Shades of Grey’? ’50 Shades of Grey’, imho, shows that loneliness really does exist in marriage, but that’s a discussion for another time. Marriage isn’t about having “someone to go on the journey with”. That’s Hallmark card romanticism, a chick-flick pick-up line, sappy sentimentality that ignores the hard reality about marriage. Marriage isn’t a journey; it’s a freaking battle. Every.single.day. A married couple can be nose to nose – or back to back – just as much as they can be shoulder to shoulder.Read it all. Learn a thing or three, all of them important and enduring.
The culture needs us to do so.
