DISCIPLESHIP: MARRIAGE AND ABUSE
Atesha is not married yet she is carrying a child by the man that she is living with. She believes that she has found true love and has proven her love by giving herself body and soul to her lover. But is he worthy to be a husband and father to the child that will be born? Atesha thinks so, but Jodi doesn’t know. Jodi has not pried into the details of Atesha’s life. She has only heard what Atesha complains about. Apparently, he lost his job because of his cancer. Jodi wonders, though, if he lost his job for some other reason and made up the story about his illness. It seems obvious they didn’t wait to cohabit until the boyfriend had the resources to rent or buy a house. He was still dependent upon his parents and not able to leave their home and provide for his bride. The couple did not wait to have sexual relations until they were ready to leave their parental homes and establish their own.
Cohabiting looks like marriage without the legal document. In the couple’s eyes, the paper has no value, only their love for each other is what counts. This is erroneous. Cohabiting does not have legal sanction. Moreover, it does not receive the church’s (and God’s) blessing. It may or may not receive the blessing of the parents. The couple did not pledge faithfulness to each other until death do them part before God, family and witnesses.
On one level, Jodi and Atesha live in the same world. They are American residents and citizens. They are both subject to the laws of the land and are influenced by the cultural “movers and shakers.” They work at the same place, probably shop at many of the same stores, hear the same news, and are involved in some way with social media.
Yet at another level, they belong to different worlds. Jodi is in the world but not of it (John 17:16). Jodi’s citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). Even though living in this world and largely abiding by the laws and customs of her culture, she has her mind and heart set on hearing what the Lord of her kingdom is saying. To him she has pledged ultimate loyalty and aims in everything to please him.
Concerning sexual morality and marriage, the kingdom of this world is raging against the kingdom of God. This conflict is not always formal, overt, and codified into civil law. Rather, as Paul describes it, the conflict rages within our own soul. It is the conflict of the flesh, the sinful nature, at war with the Spirit of Christ. The desires and acts of the sinful flesh are obvious, at least to believers, Paul writes. They are “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like” (Galatians 5:19-21). This is contrasted to the fruit or deeds of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).
The law of our country gives license to consenting adults to have sexual relations with the same gender or opposite, with people in a marriage or outside of one. An adult having sex with a minor is a terrible crime, but if the minor turns sixteen it no longer is. An affair between “mature,” adult lawmakers is allowed. Immorality is alright, but if you are a lawmaker or state official, you are not allowed to use government resources to cover it up. Adultery is permissible, but not the use of government funds.
But Jesus teaches, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:27-28).
Our legal system gives individuals the right of no-fault divorce. Reasons can be personal or financial conflict, incompatibility, or merely not feeling sexually attracted as before—”Our love has grown cold.” Or, “this other person where I work listens to me and understands me. Therefore, it’s time to move on. And it isn’t good for the children if mom and dad fight all the time. They’ll understand if we do what makes us happy.” But Jesus said, “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 19:1-9).
It is God’s will that those who belong to him marry only those who also are believers. Paul writes that the prospective spouse “must belong to the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39). The people of Israel were not to marry foreign idolaters, lest love for them lead his people to worship their pagan deities. Malachi writes, “Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the LORD loves by marrying women who worship a foreign god” (2:11). God seeks godly offspring, children who worship and obey him as their parents do (Malachi 2:15). Therefore, he instructs his people to keep his commands in their hearts and to impress them upon their children (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). The marriage bond is not to be dissolved. God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16 RSV); or as the NIV2011 translates the Hebrew, “’The man who hates and divorces his wife,’ says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘does violence to the one he should protect’ says the LORD Almighty. So, guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.” (Malachi 2:16).
Marriage in the New Testament Gentile church is held in such high regard that the Apostle Paul says that a believing brother or sister should not divorce their spouse if he or she is willing to live with them. However, if the unbeliever leaves, he should not to be forced to stay. The believer is not bound in such a circumstance. However, to remain married, even to an unbeliever, is preferable. It gives room for the unbeliever to turn to the Lord and it allows for the sanctification of the children (1 Corinthians 7:12-16).
Much of this Biblical perspective is affirmed by a secular British psychiatrist who works in a slum hospital and is on call to treat prison inmates, where he has treated over 10,000 patients. In his book, Life at the Bottom, Theodore Dalrymple devotes a chapter to abuse. It’s a topic that needs to be addressed because so many single mothers have told me that they divorced their husbands or separated from them because of abuse. It ranks with adultery as a justifiable cause for separation. I’ve asked what that looks like, but single women don’t like to talk about it, probably because of a sense of guilt and shame caused by their abusers’ treatment. I appreciated his presentation because it pulled back the curtain of shame that people are not willing open, unless they have first opened up their hearts to the Lord and allowed him to heal them at the core of their being.
In his chapter on abuse, “Tough Love,” he rales against liberal elites whose views, largely adopted by our culture, have “turned the poor from a class into a caste.” (p. 47). He writes, “The sexual revolutionaries wanted to liberate sexual relations from all but the merest biological content. Henceforth, such relations were not to be subject to restrictive bourgeois contractual arrangements—or heaven forbid, sacraments—such as marriage; no social stigma was to attach to any sexual conduct that had hitherto been regarded as reprehensible. The only criterion governing the acceptability of sexual relations was the mutual consent of those entering upon them” (p.46).
Dalrymple has seen the failure of this philosophy firsthand and how it has affected the poor. He continues, “Not for a moment did the sexual liberators stop to consider the effects upon the poor of the destruction of strong family ties that alone made emergence from poverty possible for large numbers of people. They were concerned only with the petty dramas of their own lives and dissatisfactions” (pp. 46-47).
Because of his vast experience, Dalrymple has come to the point where he can identify “a man’s propensity to violence” from “his face and bearing as any other strongly marked character trait” (p. 38). He notes that women in general live in denial and do not recognize an abuser, and so they universally “think of themselves as victims alone rather than the victims and accomplices they are” (p.39).
I was once called to counsel a couple where the man was accused of abusing his wife. This was the second marriage for both of them and many thought it was a precipitous and unwise decision for both of them. While counseling them, I observed how she was manipulating and provoking her husband. He showed no violence in my presence, but I could see where her provocation could lead. Later, connecting what she had said much earlier about being sexually abused by her adoptive father, I realized that she had learned how to blackmail and manipulate her father to get her way as a child; and now she was using that same strategy to get her way with her husband.
Dalrymple concludes that inflamed jealousy is the principle cause of abuse in men and he ties that to sexual license. “If people demand sexual liberty for themselves, but sexual fidelity from others, the result is the inflammation of jealousy, for it is natural to suppose that one is being done by as one is doing to others—and jealousy is the most frequent precipitant of violence between the sexes” (p. 42). The great majority of abusive men that Dalrymple has met are “flagrantly unfaithful.”
An abusive man, devoid of self-worth in almost every area of life, education, job or social standing, derives a sense of status by the control he has over “his girl.” Lacking any other wealth, he possesses the one thing that he can control. This is how Dalrymple describes his jealous control.
“Thus when I hear from a female patient that the man with whom she lives has beaten her severely for a trivial reason—for having served roast potatoes when he wanted boiled, for example, or for having failed to dust the top of the television—I know at once that the man is obsessively jealous: for a jealous man wishes to occupy his lover’s every thought, and there is no more effective method of achieving this than his arbitrary terrorism. From his point of view, the more arbitrary and completely disproportionate the violence, the more functional it is; and indeed, he often lays down conditions impossible for the woman to meet—that a freshly cooked meal should be waiting for him the moment he arrives home, for instance, though he will not say even to within the nearest four hours when he is arriving home—precisely so that he may have an occasion to beat her. Indeed, so effective is this method that the mental life of many of the violently abused women who consult me has focused for years upon their lovers—their whereabouts, their wishes, their comforts, their moods—to the exclusion of all else” (p. 44).
In a more civilized setting, the jealous husband, who is losing control of his wife, will call the pastor, “You have to help me. Make my wife come back. The Bible says, ‘Wives, submit to your husbands in everything.’ Make her do what she is supposed to do.” These men never remember the rest of the context where Paul writes that the husband should love and care for his wife as he cares for the wellbeing and comfort of his own body. He must sacrificially give and humble himself even as Christ humbled himself and gave himself for the church by dying for her sin on the cross (Ephesians 5:25-29). In addition to this ignorance, he demands that the pastor drop everything and do his bidding immediately, that very hour. The outcome he wants is for his wife to apologize and return like a submissive dog, with tail between its legs.
Why don’t abused women just leave? It’s because, writes Dalrymple, these women believe “in the inevitability of male jealousy” (p.43). Thus, they decide it’s better to live with the abuse they know than the abuse they don’t. In addition, they believe that a single woman, alone in the neighborhood, opens herself to being preyed upon by everyone (p. 43). Also, some of those who have left an abuser to find relief with a non-violent man, leave that one as well because they find him to be “intolerably indifferent and emotionally distant” (p. 46).
This way of living out the curse—“Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16)—is often perpetrated in the lives of their children. “The social trend to these kinds of relationships is self-reinforcing: for the children they produce grow up supposing that all relationships between men and women are but temporary and subject to revision. From the very earliest age, therefore, the children live in an atmosphere of tension between the natural desire for stability and the emotional chaos they see all around them. They are able to make no assumption that the man in their lives—the man they call ‘Daddy’ today—will be there tomorrow” (p..44-45).
An outcome of this type of home is that children grow up into lawlessness. They don’t distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate authority. Against any type of restraint or even an intended sign of affection such as a hug, they threaten, “Don’t you touch me!” With men coming in and going out of her life, the mother is the sole authority in the home. Yet, she often undermines even that authority by not supporting the discipline of her child by a school teacher or principal.
The curse of Genesis 3:16 could be lived out in a positive way where the wife submits to her husband and where the husbands loves, cherishes, provides for and supports his wife. In such a home, the husband stands behind his wife when she is disrespected by a child; and if the father discourages rather than encourages by his force, he listens to his wife when she wants him to “tone it down.” United, firm and loving discipline, even if buttressed by appropriate force, exercised by the parents, provides a safe environment where children can thrive and feel the guidance of an all-providing God who is all-together loving, holy and forgiving.
Considering these things, what should the church do? It should unabashedly preach and teach what the Biblical standard is. We, the clergy, often do not touch certain subjects because we know that they may create a stir in the congregation, or offend an influential family who is tolerating sin among its relations. Further, we may feel that teaching Biblical truth about these issues will keep seekers and visitors from coming back. Nevertheless, because the church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15), it is obliged to address these topics in a serious and urgent manner (2 Timothy 4:2-5).
It used to be, in my youth (the 1950s), that only sexual immorality was a justification for divorce. Where infidelity was suspected, a spouse could hire a private detective to catch the offender in the act, like observing the spouse usher another person into a motel room, or photographing the suspect making out in a car by the side of a road. However, today the church cannot rely on the state to buttress the Biblical teaching of sexual morality, marriage, and divorce. Because of this, the teaching, discipling church will find itself more and more in conflict with public practice and the media police.
Jodi and Christians like her will often be challenged. They need to pray for openings to speak the word. Maybe it will be loving commiseration, “Would you like to have breakfast with me where we can talk about what is going on?” It may be a sharp barb, “What did you expect when you did wrong?” At other times, we may be compelled to speak up when morally offensive entertainment is proposed for an office party.
It will be necessary to be vigilant at home about what is allowed on TV and the internet. What friends will our children be allowed to be with? If they spend the night at a friend’s home, what type of supervision will be in place? How will parents and the church teach the youth about sexual morality?
In certain church circles, it is not proper to speak about these things. Sexual messages can be displayed on TV all of the time, but some think that the preacher should not speak about such a dirty topic from the holy pulpit. A church that ministers to the struggling class needs to address these things continually. People of the struggling class are immersed in the ways of the world, and the world is generally immoral. Its prevailing spirit is, that everything is okay, as long as “no one gets hurt.” That is the delusional fiction that many live by.