The Church’s Interest in Marriage Yesterday, I argued that the state’s interest in marriage has nothing to do with sex. The church, on the other hand, has a great interest in sex between human beings. Put more sensitively, it matters to a pastor whether and how a member in the church is being intimate with another person. That intimacy affects the individual spiritually and emotionally, and intimacy between persons affects the dynamics of the community. In other words, the church... Read more
If you’re like me, you’d like to listen to radio when the kids are in the house that’s somewhere between the cotton candy of Radio Disney and the occasional F-Bomb on The Current (or your favorite alt music station). Minnesota Public Radio fills in that gap with an excellent station called Wonderground Radio. He had it on last night and heard everything from the Jayhawks, to bluegrass, to DeVotchka, to Coldplay, to “Conjunction Junction, What’s Your Function?” Seriously, check it... Read more
The Government’s Interest in Marriage The State of Minnesota, or any state for that matter, doesn’t care if a married couple has sex, doesn’t have sex, or has sex with partners outside of the spousal relationship. When Anna Nicole Smith married octogenarian billionaire J. Howard Marshall, the State of Texas did not care if they ever had intercourse. They were two mentally competent adults who, though 62 years apart in age, were allowed to marry with no questions asked. As a society,... Read more
I didn’t grow up reading Francis Schaeffer, as so many of my evangelical friends did. I’ve only come to know of him and his work through the writings of his son, Frank Schaeffer. Frank’s writings are, to be sure, slanted against his father’s theology/ideology. Nevertheless, they paint a chilling picture of the Christian thinker and author that Michelle Bachmann now says is her biggest influence. Andrew Sullivan weighs in on a debate between a conservative and a liberal on the... Read more
Marriage Is Not Broken – It’s Changing Marriage has a long and convoluted history. For most of that history, marriage has been about the acquisition or exchange of property and the production of progeny for the purpose of protecting that property. But, at least in the West, that’s not what marriage is about anymore. If you look around at popular culture, it seems that marriage is about formalizing and cementing a romantic attraction. Of course, this isn’t much of a... Read more
Historical Background Christianity has a long and distinguished history of differentiating between the realm of God and the realm of creation. Jesus said that his kingdom was not of this world. And the Apostle Paul expands this idea in the book of Ephesians, writing about the spiritual realm as opposed to the physical. In The City of God, Augustine took the occasion of the fall of Rome to the Visigoths to write a lengthy treatise on the differences between the... Read more
I got married on July 13. In a church, by a pastor, surrounded by family and friends. We wore wedding clothes. We had a reception. You can see the pictures. It really happened. But we didn’t make it legal. This week, in a series of posts, I’m going to try to unpack what I think is a very important point in the debate over marriage in our country right now. People say that marriage is broken, or that marriage is... Read more
Kester Brewin has been considering a couple conversations he had at Greenbelt, and he wonders if there’s something in the air. Namely, will there be an internal backlash in the emerging/-ent/-ence movement to the more radical theology being promoted by Pete Rollins, et al: One of the things I’ve been wondering is if the theological direction that a few of us have been taking is entering into a period of more acute opposition. I had a long conversation with two... Read more
A newly married couple is photographed on the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania, a pilgrimage site near the city of Siauliai. About 100,000 crosses have been brought to the site by pilgrims over nearly two centuries via Eyewitness: Crosses to bear | World news | The Guardian. Read more
Yesterday, at the Minnesota State Fair to appear on Doug Pagitt Radio, Doug, John “the Sidekick” Musick, and I strolled the fairgrounds. We passed a booth that I’d read about in the paper — it had been outside the fairgrounds in front of a local church, then somehow it got inside the grounds. There are a couple odd things about this: one is that it’s well known around here that it’s exceptionally difficult to get a booth at the Fair.... Read more
Theoblogy
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In