“If the sanctity of marriage is so important, where are all the people protesting adultery and divorce?”

“If the sanctity of marriage is so important, where are all the people protesting adultery and divorce?”

This was a poster / picture style question posed by someone on Facebook the other day.  And indeed it is an excellent question.   I believe it was probably intended to indicate that there may be some incongruities of behavior about what people are choosing to pick on in the defense of marriage as it is biblically defined.  It would seem /appear that no one is protesting adultery and divorce anymore.  Yep, the protestors are all gone; perhaps they were on that last train that left for the coast the day the music died.  Or, perhaps the conversation continues, but in a less pubic setting.

So here are my musings on why that is.  First, Adultery.  While there may be some laws still on the books regarding adultery, the executive and judicial branches of the government no longer pursue it with any passion since so many people now practice it.  It is interesting that the question does by being asked, inherently acknowledge that it is a wrongful action, but it also implies there is acceptance of it since it is so pervasive and unchecked. 

And while it might still be law in some places, for sure the thought that adultery is in any way wrong just is no longer culturally relevant.  Adultery is encouraged and even taught via sex education in schools these days.  Early teenagers are being given birth control products without parental consent and some with the help of parents. 

The media as well is very supportive and validating of it, and even elevates adultery / fornication to a recreational sport.  For instance “Big Brother” on ABC.  While it once was the “law of the land” that adultery was immoral, illegal, and punishable by the law, (and it may still be a not so needed “grounds for divorce”) it is now something less than J walking in MOST people’s eyes.  

Please notice that I have not even brought religious viewpoints into the conversation.  It really isn’t necessary.  The people have spoken and are speaking: the law has been and still is evolving away from an ethical system in pursuit of responsibility, justice, and righteousness to one of a more opinion based culturally popular morality of irresponsible unrestricted freedom with no consequences.

We are in a season of change where change has been accelerating in the last 20 years. It’s now like a runaway truck going down I-77 south in Northern VA with no brake ramps to run up.  There’s not much turning back now.  Everyone wants it to be like Woodstock, and no one wants it to be like the Walton’s.

As for divorce, it is a symptom of a decline in the value of family and the value of self as well.  Marriages have been stripped down to legal contracts that are easier to beat than filing chapter 11 bankruptcy.  I actually have a young friend who has a friend who got married recently and was a referring to that marriage before it was to take place as their first “practice marriage.”  Really?  Yes really.  

And then there is the crowd who says, “Why bother getting married?”  There is no sense of relational family, no value in family heritage, no knowing your ancestors, or having an identity that connects you with generations past.  Can the family Crest and forget about genealogy.    They are now a waste of time. Family reunions?  Well, who’s your daddy?  You need to know that first before you can go to one. 

Marriage is not predicated on lasting love anymore.  No more “’til death do we part.”   It is now predicated on whether the other person can keep you happy. If not, marriage is now easier to dispose of than the time it takes to get rid of plantar warts.  And it is a measure of the value of self too, because at least one of the parties who are giving up on a marriage aren’t willing to face their own issues.  They don’t want to face their own demons: it’s easier to live on their own or get a new victim.

Instead of having children as a married couple, single parenting is all the rage these days.  Just line up the sperm donors, the old fashion way or the more modern online shopping way. Can you imagine the night mare Ancestory.com must realize they have committed themselves to?  They will be absolutely belly up in another 20 years or less: too many dead ends and loose ends to chase after.  The family tree has become a wild forsythia bush.

Sociological evidence that growing children need a father figure and a mother figure?  Absolute rubbish in this generation.  Discipline and corporal punishment are grounds for incarcerating parents. Oh, excuse me, I mean guardians; more and more kinds don’t have a set of parents anymore.  Ask any social worker or counselor if the deconstruction of marriage is beneficial to society.

Now I take the occasion to enter the Christian religion into the conversation: formerly the majority popular ethical standard for healthy living in our culture but for sure now the former.   Western Culture is unquestionably Post Christian.

So one would think isn’t the church supposed to be speaking out against adultery and divorce?  Well to borrow a phrase not so concretely attributed to St. Augustine: "The church is a whore, but she's my mother.”  Meaning the church even back in his era has been selling out to the culture. And it’s still doing a great job of it even today.   Some say the divorce rate among Christians is actually higher than the secular world.  How can the Christian community speak out against divorce if it has a higher or even near equal divorce rate as the seculars?  Christians don’t even have credibility with themselves! 

And adultery?  That got swept under the rug a long time ago. There are probably just as many people in church not married having sex with somebody or worse yet having sex with somebody who is married but not to them.  The “church” at large is irrelevant to the world around it because it has lost its connectedness with the words “holy” and “set apart.”  It sells itself to the culture to look attractive (thus being the whore) and finds itself compromised in its ability to preach repentance and live holy because that might offend people and they might leave.  This is a major problem in the church of the western culture not in any one locale.   

The church welcomes all and confronts sin no more for fear they will lose someone.  That does not coincide with the gospel.  The gospel clearly does convey a message of love, reconciliation, hope, forgiveness, acceptance and redemption but not without a desperate recognition of personal depravity and a call to confession, repentance and declaration of Jesus Christ as Lord.    

So until the church of today finds its way back to being true to God’s word, I don’t think you’ll be hearing much in the way of long term objections to adultery, divorce, same sex marriage, the mass killing of unborn babies, suicide, cheating, stealing, or lying; all behaviors that culture used to call sin but no longer does. 

How does the church find its way back to being the voice that promotes a code of ethics to the culture that it based on objective Biblical truth and not based on self-aggrandizement?   By everyone who calls on the name of Jesus as Lord and Savior saying the words, “It starts with me.”