For our society, it came last week in the results of a new study.
For our nuclear family, it came this week in the news that a friend of one of us recently entered into a legal marriage to his same-sex partner. And several of his friends -- who are, or were, professing evangelicals – applauded the wedding and marriage.
The new report from the Pew Research Center included the following troubling trends:
-- The percentage of American adults who have never married is at an all-time high. One in five adults 25 years of age and older fits this description. In 1960, only nine percent of adults in that age range had never married.
-- Only 46 percent of Americans say society is better off if people make marriage and children a priority, while 50 percent say society is just as well off if people have other priorities. This way of thinking is stronger among younger adults: 67 percent of those 18 to 29 years of age affirm the latter perspective, and 53 percent of those 30 to 49 agree with it.
These trends provide more evidence of “the marginalization of marriage in American life,” R. Albert Mohler said on his podcast Oct. 2. Mohler is president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
“We’re involved in a massive social experiment in the present to see if you can have a society that does not respect marriage – that does not have marriage as the central relational expectation,” Mohler said. “No previous society known to human experience has been so organized, but in our post-Christian, postmodern, post-whatever age, a considerable number of Americans have decided that marriage is now one of those things we can well do without.”
This is not an insignificant issue for the church of Jesus Christ. Marriage is a gift to all human beings. God, not humanity and not human society, established it. It is to last as long as a man and a woman who have made vows to each other live. It is important to the children marriage produces, and it is important to the societies they fill. Its fullest meaning is its portrayal of the ultimate marriage between Christ and His bride, the church.
As the church, we are to affirm God’s definition of and intention for marriage. We are to defend it and explain it before a watching world. We are to present it to the people of God as the beautiful, one-flesh covenant and vital means of sanctification it is designed to be. We are to honor it, while also honoring singleness biblically. We are to remember the church – made up of the married, never married, divorced and widowed – is eternal. Our marriages are not. We are to remember our primary mission is to make disciples, not husbands and wives – though disciples who are married should be gracious, loving and faithful husbands and wives. Yet, we are to promote the true meaning of marriage and the sacrificial service that makes marriage joyful and rewarding while pointing to the beauty of Jesus.
This is a challenging time for the church on the issue of marriage, but we can take heart that God remains in control and we are blessed to be His representatives in this culture. May we represent Him with compassion and boldness as those who have nothing of eternal significance to lose because of His gospel.
* -- Photo source
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