Mark Driscoll has become a common name in Christian and even non-Christian circles. He has unwavering followers and harsh critics. Today, he releases his latest book, entitled Real Marriage. He wrote this book with his wife, Grace. The purpose of the book is to use their story and wisdom gained through their own marriage and marriage counseling at Mars Hill, to help change the current cultural trend in the Western world.
In the past decade, we have seen an influx of marriage counseling and self-help books. Why? I believe it is because people are dissatisfied in life. We want physical and emotional affection, but only when it is convenient. We love the romantic idea of growing old with someone until we realize the amount of hard work it takes to make relationships function and be fulfilling. I believe Mark and his wife are using their own story of hurt and suffering in marriage to address the growing trend of discontentment and a deep yearning for something more.
In the first chapter, which is the only one which I can view, Mark and Grace spend much time focusing on the sexual side of their relationship. For years, it was not enjoyable. They spent much of their early years living with the frustration of a less than stellar love life. What they present as the core problem was Grace’s lack of truthfulness. What was the measure of the relationship was the lack of sexual fulfillment. Over and over, especially Mark, talked about how their sex life was not what “the Lord” desired for marriage. It was not until almost the end of the chapter that the truth of Grace’s past emerged, and they were able to wrestle through the difficulties with great success.
The problem I have with the first chapter is that they are using, as a measure of their marriage, the very perspective such books are trying to fight. Mark is writing this book, in part, to address the heightened sexual desires expressed in our culture, and yet he used sex to measure the growth and vitality of their marriage. I do not think that Christians should be asexual, but at the same time, I think we must regain an appropriate perspective.
Let me offer some counter suggestions. First, Mark talked about them both delving into the ministry of the church and not focusing on their marriage during that time. I believe our culture, particularly the church, has lost a right understanding of service or ministry. Service can take many forms, especially in marriage. Although the sexual desires were not what they expected, they still continued to define service in their marriage as characterized by “external” acts outside the covenant (differing ministry acts in the church, small groups, and individuals) rather than the necessary internal acts, in service to one another. A simple act can be the listening of which they spoke in the beginning of the book.
As they hinted without stating explicitly, a precursor to service is an appropriate understanding of commitment. Marriage is a covenant, and a covenant is not something easily broken. In the Bible, to break a covenant means death, a brutal, nasty, bloody death. We do not kill people for divorce, but the point is that the consequence for breaking the covenant should be more than a couple of signatures, legal fees, and rotating schedules for the kids to stay. Any type of breaking of the covenant, whether it is divorce or adultery, should result in much more severe consequences than how we view it today. If you ask the older generations, who did not believe in divorce, their reply would be, “Divorce wasn’t an option so we made it work.”
I am interested to read the book in its entirety. However, if you are on the verge of something horrible in your marriage, if you want to know what the real picture of marriage should look like, or if you are looking for real and practical ways to improve your marriage, then you should consider reading Marriage Matters by Winston Smith. He is one of my professors, with years of Biblical Counseling experience. He will talk of the difficulties of marriage but place them in the right perspective. Marriage is about more than just one’s desires, wants, and expectations. What if marriage was primarily about your own relationship to the Lord and serving Him? Would that frame your understanding of marriage differently? I think for Christians it should! You can find Winston’s book here.
On a side note, I was thinking about pastoral care and how it has changed over the years, decades, centuries. There was a time when one held the office of minister or pastor, and the people respected and trusted that person, without him having to bear every sin in his life. We now live in a world where the office of pastor is mocked and in many cases rightly so. People who have gone into ministry have abused the profession, laundering money and taking advantage of the weak. Now, to be respected and trusted, one has to almost bear every sin in his life. I think Mark’s book is an example of this detrimental change in pastoral care and leadership. I plan to further research this phenomenon and write about it here.