Have you found your true love?
Reflections on idolising the perfect relationship.
The old Disney movies always ended with a wedding – the heroine marries Prince Charming, and they live happily ever after. This beautiful image found in so many fairy tales and romantic comedies assumes this truth: happiness lies in finding the right person.
So why would Christians deny this fulfilment, happiness and love to people simply because they’re not heterosexual?
The OCCA team are regularly invited to speak on the topic of sexuality. Not only is it such a big part of being human, it’s also a controversial barrier to embracing the Christian way of life. Christians can seem uncaring, bigoted and mean when they hold to the creation pattern of marriage.
But I wonder if we’re making the problem worse by idolising marriage and the nuclear family. Whilst we may talk about being part of “the church family”, many people experience isolation and an absence of care because their life doesn’t reflect a traditional family structure or their marriage doesn’t look like that exalted fairy-tale romance.
‘Dear children, keep yourselves from idols’. 1 John 5:21
An idol is anything put in the place of God and it’s easy to let any good thing take a higher place than it should. Marriage can be a source of identity (as I define myself in my relationships), of purpose (as serving my household demands so much of my energy) and of acceptance (as I can find much of what I need in my household).
But ultimately these are things that can only be found truly and completely in God. God never intended for marriage to fulfil us.
This is tremendously good news for anyone whose marriage is a source of pain rather than joy, who is mourning a spouse or is longing for romance.
Jesus, the perfect human being who remained single never said, ‘get married’. Marriage is a wonderful gift of God, but it’s not the fairy tale many make it out to be.
The Christian hope offers something so much more. To hope that marriage will fulfil what only God can satisfy is to aim too low.
‘It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased’.
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
To explore this topic further, I recommend these three resources by people who have really grappled first-hand with these issues, and have a wealth of wisdom to share.
Don’t Waste Your Singleness: A talk given by Sam Allberry for The Gospel Coalition.
What Does Jesus Teach About the Nuclear Family?: A great article by our friends at Living Out.
An Atheist Gay Activist Finds Jesus: OCCA alumnus, David Bennett tells his story on the Re-Enchanting podcast. (Having recently completed a PhD on gay celibate asceticism, his perspective is well worth hearing.)
As ever, I trust you find something here to both encourage and provoke you as you wrestle with the big questions.