Christian Marriage in Context

Over the past few posts at Sigma Frame, Jack has gotten some other commentators involved, including reposting something from yours truly. For those who have been following my years of chatter about the advantages of the tribal social structure, it probably seems obvious that the answer to many questions about Christian romance and marriage is the faith community changing how it does things.

That doesn’t do much good to a man or woman feeling the powerful urge to find a mate, because those kinds of changes that I suggest are a long way off, even if anyone is listening — and mostly they aren’t. So what do we do in the mean time?

You aren’t going to like the answer, because I am duty bound to include a prophetic warning. In broad general terms of how God is working right now, particularly in the West, this is a bad time to worry too much about getting married. That is, don’t get wrapped up in thinking that marriage and raising a family is a given in following Christ right now. Maybe in a few years His wrath will be spent enough to start looking at a different “normal,” but this is a bad time. Indeed, if you have a marriage now, there is a higher probability it will dissolve. These are not normal times.

That’s not to say He won’t build good marriages right now, but that it’s less likely. We as His servants have other, higher priorities. Having a good sex life on any terms is just not that important in this context. We should build a vision of following Christ that is much more willing to sacrifice such things. You’ll notice Paul in some of his letters said similar things, and we happen to know the historical context indicates a similar social instability. He never forbade marriage, but encouraged some of his readers to put it aside if they could.

Still, even without that prophetic message, there are important issues that seem to be missing from the common lore of Red Pill for men. I discern an element of idolatry for “hot” women and a vibrant sex life. Nothing — nothing — in Scripture encourages men to pursue those things. There may be a little lyrical chatter in Solomon’s writings, but it’s just that: lyrical Hebrew symbolism. The symbols point to something much more important, and we have good evidence that even Solomon, for all his divine wisdom, got lost on the path to a truly righteous marriage.

I’ll reiterate what I said before: the divine mission comes first. I treat that is an emergency issue, hammering it home with urgency as the first priority right now in my teaching. I’ll skip over a lot of other stuff I might be able to write about because all of that other stuff cannot possibly be done right until we settle the issue of a seeking a sense of divine calling. And if everything else in your life is screwed up, let it all go to Hell if the one thing you can do is secure in your own soul that sense of mission.

God may not want you married. Or He may want you to marry someone who doesn’t inspire envy from other men/women. Yes, God grants us all different provisions in our divine mission callings, and it has nothing to do with our Western sense of fairness. It’s the same basic answer we give to all the perverts out there: sexual satisfaction is not a fundamental human right. Nothing in revelation points to the existence of any kinds of “rights.” It’s the wrong frame of reference. Sometimes you find yourself born into a situation that calls for celibacy. Celebrate the goodness of God, because whatever He chooses, by definition, is in your best interest.

That said, only you can know what God wants for you. If you don’t explore the possibilities, you may be missing out on something really wonderful. I know a thing or two about that kind of wonderful. I broke lots of churchian rules and still do, and my mission is sweet, and so is my beloved wife. It’s going to look like luck, but that’s just a sign you are facing something God hasn’t explained to you, yet. And He may not explain it ever. I also know a thing or two about frustration and having to settle for things that aren’t what I would call “the best.” The path of my life is littered with big ideas that never worked out, glowing visions of glorious things that could be, but that turned out to be other than what God had in mind. Some of those things are recorded on my blogs.

I didn’t marry for beauty, or love, or any number of other things. I married for the mission; I had full assurance of faith that my God would make it work. That’s my testimony. My divine mission calling includes trying to explain how I did that, in hopes that somehow some of my story will have meaning for others. Based on the testimony of other men with a sense of being truly blessed, there seems to be a few common threads in our stories, even if they aren’t entirely aware of what we share.

A blessed marriage is the side effect of something else, so getting too deeply involved in chasing the dynamics of romance isn’t going to do much good until we settle on that “something else” that makes marriages work, because it will be the same blessings that arise from marriages that come apart when your spouse refuses to join the mission. It’s not a question of what we deserve. What we deserve is a short miserable life, a lingering painful death and eternity in Hell. As long as you can’t embrace that truth, nothing else is going to work very well.

That said, there’s a lot of teaching in the Red Pill lore that points back to Biblical Law, and much that does not. There’s plenty that is simply not relevant to you. Get out your Sword of Spirit and starting trimming out the gristle.