Marriage

TH 291

11/2/04

Differences between Augustine’s time and now

• marriage was not a legitimate thing to do
• virginity and celibacy was highly prized
• Great Fathers of the church wrote treatises on celibacy and denigrated marriage
• Augustine viewed world as not about to end
• marriage looked like self-indulgence to people who viewed the world as ending
• Augustine – saw the church replacing Roman civilization, marriage needed to be elevated for the sake of civilization
• still acknowledged celibate life as superior
• Peter Brown – The Body and Society
• Paul also prized celibacy
• Origen – he was celibate, story that he castrated himself because he wanted to be above reproach in his teaching of women
• clerical celibacy not required until later
• celibacy considered next below martyrdom (sacrificing oneself)
• Manichees – required celibacy, religious devotion

Marriage (and related topics) Trends

• in decline in the West
• out of wedlock births increasing greatly
• lowest marriage rate – Scandinavian countries
• not as many married by clergy
• co-habitation and out of wedlock children are accepted
• no statistics (or few) for co-habitation (because they don’t get married)
• church rates as high
• churches are not preparing young people for marriage
• idea – youth groups not preparing young people to be a partner in a marriage
• obviously, parents as well
• many, many re-marry AND they work out
• most people who divorce do want to re-marry
• stable two-parent marriage is no longer seen as the proper venue for raising children
• sex and child-bearing are becoming quite distinct
• Impact: What a family “is” is no longer clear in our culture
• polyamy –
• plutonic sex –

Dr. Charry

• differences in male and female sexuality
• young people do not understand this so they find themselves in places they do not know how to handle
• only sexual impropriety left in our society is incest
• “consenting sex as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody” – what does it mean to not hurt anybody
• we tend to think of sex as a private activity
• it is a personal activity, but it is not private
• sex is a gift from God and it is very unstable
• we have lost respect for it
• taxpayer pays incredibly for these decisions
• loyalty is gone
• no brand loyalty
• no loyalty to neighborhoods
• companies – both ways

Role of family, church, school in helping

• Churches need to help teach from “me” to “we”

Question of ecclesiology

• doctrine of the church
• theological understanding of what the church is
• individualist ecclesiology
• radical end of the reformation
• you become a Christian on your own
• intimate, born-again experience
• confrontation with the Holy Spirit
• then… you join the church
• the church is the church building – a conglomerate of people who have individual relationships with God and show up at church
• low ecclesiology (or no ecclesiology)
• church is sociological

John Witte

• book on development of marriage in the West

Early middle ages

• marriage moved into the church
• in Augustine’s day, marriage option dictated by the state
• status determined who one could marry
• Augustine – living together with mutual consent as marriage
• probably discussing way around status issue

Around 1000 CE, the West settled on monogamy

Stoicism was very prevalent during times of celibacy treatises

• self-control
• people with self-discipline contribute more to society
• are happier
• today’s psychological term – impulse-control
• 1960s psychology – “get it out”
• people are nervous about self-discipline, even “discipline”
• we would look like barbarians to Stoics
• they look conservative to us, but we look barbaric to them

Augustine was terrified by his lack of control in the sexual arena – sign of weakness

• the more self-control the more spiritual
• marriage could never be better than celibacy due to self-control measurement