By David Gushee
On Saturday morning, June 5, 2010, I read that Al and Tipper Gore are separating after 40 years of marriage. On Saturday afternoon, I stood at the front of the First United Methodist Church in Jackson, Tennessee, saying “Her mother and I do” as we “gave away” our oldest, Holly, in marriage.
Inevitably my thoughts turn to marriage in today’s column.
The death of Al and Tipper Gore’s marriage came as a shock to many. The erstwhile vice president and his wife offered no meaningful public comment as to the reasons for the pending divorce. This left the field free for various journalists and scholars to weigh in. I was surprised — though, probably, I should not have been — by much of what I read.
The comments revealed a complete collapse of any public understanding of what most wedding vows still publicly affirm: That marriage is a sacred covenant intended by God to last for a lifetime.
One article focused on brain-chemistry studies of long-married people to explore patterns of biochemical response as these couples relate to each other. (How weary I am of brain-chemistry studies. Earlier generations talked about morality. We talk about dopamine levels.) This piece concluded that some longtime couples still respond with the passion of new lovers, and provided a few helpful hints for keeping the passion alive. This article at least hinted at ways to keep that passion going, which suggests (mildly) that keeping a marriage alive is better than the alternative.
Another article concluded that the divorce of longtime spouses like the Gores is actually an expression of hope. To get divorced in your 60s, the author argued, means that you are willing to risk trading in the reliable-but-unsatisfying life you now have for the uncertain-but-potentially-more-fulfilling life you might be able to create on your own (or with someone new). The implication is that we should not grieve the end of long marriages but instead celebrate the self-reinvention now possible to the ex-spouses. Thus the couple is to be applauded for their courage. That was the argument.
That was not the message being articulated by Steve Bateman, the pastor who presided over Holly and Jonathan’s wedding. (Holly disqualified me from the role due to the great likelihood that I would collapse into a puddle of fatherly goo. Smart move.)
In short, clear, declarative sentences, Steve told Holly and Jonathan that they were making a covenant with each other before God. Their covenant had no escape hatch, he said; it was dissoluble only by death. Pastor Bateman declared that to keep such a covenant is humanly impossible, but can be done through the power of God in lives anchored in commitment to Christ. He defined the love that characterizes a Christian marriage as a I Corinthians 13 kind of love rather than lesser human versions of love. Resolutely, Holly and Jonathan pledged to live out that kind of love.
The pastor directed an exhortation to the wedding party, which ranged in age from 17 to 22, impossibly young and beautiful, like the bride and groom. He exhorted them not just to bear witness to these vows, but as Christian friends to hold Holly and Jonathan accountable to the promises they were making. It was fascinating to me to watch the wondrous, sober expressions on the faces of these young people, which included my own 19-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter. They were being instructed — socialized into the meaning of marriage even as they stood before the gathered congregation looking festive in their aqua dresses and their tuxedos.
I wondered how these young adults were going to navigate the clash between a culture that treats divorce as a courageous exercise of self-expression and a church that at least sometimes treats marriage as a lifetime covenant before God. I am hopeful that my own daughter and new son-in-law carry into their marriage not just a belief in covenant but also the background and the character to live it out over a long lifetime.
But I am painfully aware of the corrosive effects of a culture that every day reinforces a very different vision in which both marriage and divorce are fleeting exercises of self-expression. The clash between this cultural norm and the classic Christian vision is fundamental and irreparable. May God preserve at least a remnant in the church for Christian marriage.