<drumroll>

 

the private sorta-covenant David and Jonathan had.

 

Now, I fall on my sword.

 

 

 

seppuku

 

hari-kiri

 

 

Here lies Laika.  Sit.  Stay.  Good dog.

 

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Brandon:
1. Trinitarian love forms the basis or foundation for the marriage. Without it, you don’t have a marriage.

Trinitarian-LIKE love...yep.

Right. It isn’t perfect is it? I need to go back on this somewhat. I believe I OVER-spoke. Because it isn’t perfect? I would still consider those people who don’t have THAT level of a relationship married. A couple could have a “sick” marriage (to use psychobabble), but a marriage nonetheless. For example, there are many marriages where the relationship is characterized by a lack of agape and romantic love, the question, “What minimum commitment is necessary to constitute a marital bond IN THE ABSENCE OF THE IDEAL?” would be appropriate at this juncture. At the very least, I would say that the marriage requires some rudimentary commitment on the part of each spouse to the other person and to the marriage itself. So, you can’t have an IDEAL marriage without Trinitarian type love. But that doesn’t mean that you are not married. When this degree of commitment (rudimentary) is present, marriage can become (is) a reality at least at that level.

Brandon:
First, the Trinity forms the basis for the sex act itself. And the act itself forms the REPEATED ENACTMENT OF THE CONVENANT BETWEEN THE TWO PARTNERS AS FORMALIZED IN THE WEDDING CEREMONY. That is, if the Trinity implies relationship, that relationship, in the human realm, is characterized by bonding. That bonding occurs through the sex act. The sex act POINTS BACK TO the formalized wedding ceremony. That is, just as MARRIAGE is significant as a CENTRAL EXPRESSION of the drive toward bonding? So also, WITHIN marriage the sex act serves as the primary means of expressing not only our fundamental sexuality as male and female but ALSO the MUTUAL COMMITMENT of the marriage partners.

I would fundamentally agree with your concept, but not with the particulars. Whereas you say that sex act should be seen as a repeatable ENACTMENT or SIGN of the mutual commitment entered into by the covenant as formalized in the wedding cermony, I'd just say that sex is the repeatable sign of the COVENANT...period. There's no need to add the ceremony on their because it's extraneous to the covenant ITSELF. (That is, unless you want to argue like Laika that public, initiating ceremonies are necessarily INTEGRAL to covenants...which I'd find VERY hard to argue).

Bottom line: A covenant does NOT have to have an initiating public ceremony in order to be a covenant as such.

Really? OK. I would say that what you have here is a HIGHLY PRIVATIZED (inward) AND INDIVIDUALIZED view of marriage of which itself is NOT Trinitarian based (IMO). There’s two questions here. One question concerns the inward commitment or covenant? And the other concerns that which is formal. Can we have one without the other? That’s one question. The second concerns the appropriate location of the sex act. Should it be located WITHIN the context of the formal and therefore marriage or can it exist on the outside of the formal? Also, is the sex act a repeatable enactment of the initial formality? That’s the second question.

I can only deal with the first one right now. Let me say it like this. First, inwardness BY IT’S VERY NATURE calls forth outward expressions in some form or another. That is, the inward life MUST express itself outwardly. This is backed by James, that if faith is not backed by outward action? It’s DEAD--D-E-A-D--DEAD. John says the same thing. How do we know what love is? Christ lays down his life for us. (1 John 3:16, 18).

Now, the inward commitment the couple may sense leading to the BOND (community) of male and female? This calls forth for outward expression. Though there are many ways in which the couple can SEAL the expression of the inward commitment? Two actions are FOUNDATIONAL so much so as to be AT THE HEART of all other acts (I mean think about it, benevolence, kindness, a kiss, a hug, etc, are not at that level, they are BASED on these two actions). One is the public declaration of the covenant in the presence of witnesses. This act constitutes the actual beginning point of the marital bond (I hope what I say below explains this). The other is the sex act which is a repeated enactment of that formalization. I’ll explain that when I have more time and after I explain question number one.

As, I’ve already alluded to, the nature of the inwardness commitment HAS TO BE expressed outwardly. The marriage license and the wedding ceremony (in whatever form they take) are reminders that marriage is NEVER PURELY PERSONAL (Hmmm…Trinitarianism???….Church support??).

There is a relationship between the inward and the outward or the private and the public. In order to illustrate this, I HAVE to quote Kari Jenson and I would say, read it a million times, it has to be one of the best quotes I’ve seen on this issue of why we NEED the formal public declaration. She says this:

In fact, the promise of marriage is anything but private. As marriage is the most profound commitment between two persons, so its public declaration is the most profound action we can perform in the world of men. The PUBLIC PROMISE TO LOVE IS THE REMARKABLE MERGING OF THE PRIVATE WITH THE PUBLIC, OF THE INDIVIDUAL WITH THE UNIVERSAL, OF THE WORLD OF THOUGHT WITH THE WORLD OF ACTION. For in the public sphere, ACTIONS RULE, in the private, thought. TO ASSUME THAT ONE CAN PROMISE LOVE IN PRIVATE IS SERIOUSLY TO MISUNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF PROMISE. PROMISE IS ACTION AND THEREFORE AN ESSENTIALLY PUBLIC UNDERTAKING.

On top of all this Meph Man? A public vow SOLIDIFIES an or the inward commitment. How is this? Well it ASSISTS the individual in whether the inward commitment is ACTUALLY PRESENT. When you stand in public that means you have ADVANCED IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP (in other words, that Trinitarian love is not FULLY REFLECTED. Remember you don’t need full blown Trinitarian love to actually be married. Just something, at the least, more rudimentary). It calls the two persons to determine if they REALLY mean what they now are asserting and what they have already spoken of in private (inward).

Another thing, about, at least, wedding ceremonies? Is that they have been planned and they occur within the context of celebration. In other words, this is not some little two bit promise? What it does when it occurs like this is that it serves as a mental reminder of the vow a couple has spoken in the presence of witnesses when they are hit by hard times. Now, it doesn’t necessarily happen all the time? I’m simply saying that the formalization of the covenant CAN serve as a bold reminder and a resource for renewed strength to CONTINUE TO BE FAITHFUL TO THE COVENANT THEY SHARE.

This is why I would say that the wedding ceremony operates in a way analogous to baptism. Ultimately it is faith, not baptism that taps into the resources of God’s grace and opens the door to salvation. Nevertheless Meph Man, without baptism as its divinely ordained outward expression? Inward faith remains INCOMPLETE and tentative.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No, No, No, No, No….you are a asking the wrong question here Meph Man. What are we talking about again? A TRINITARIAN basis for marriage. The question is NONE of these:

1. Is a marriage acceptable before God (in God’s sight, in the eyes of God or whatever) without the formality (whatever form that takes)?

2 . Can you have a marriage without the formalization? In other words…

3. Does a marriage exist when you simply have the private covenant? That is, is it authentic?

4. Is there no authentic marriage when all you have is the formalization without the Trinitarian love?

No. The question is none of these. The question concerns BONDING or the DRIVE toward bonding and therefore, ultimately to community.

The question is this: What is the significance of a public formalization (i.e.wedding ceremony) to the attainment of community? What is the significance of the saying of a wedding vow publicly to the achieving Trinitarian-like community? Whereas you ascribe lip service and give the formality absolutely no significance, except for benefits, I ascribe significance (BONDING) to the formal act itself. IF YOU WANT TRINITARIAN TYPE LOVE? Two foundational acts form the basis to achieve this. Those two acts are the formalization of the covenant and the sex act. Forget the benefits and all that for the moment. What happens when you publicly formalize the inward or the private? You bond. You have a “gluing.“ You aren’t going in the opposite direction. That bonding is significant to the attaining of a more perfect community. Even if you have symbols, if they are done in private, don’t have that bonding ability like they would if they were public. And this isn’t a benefit!? This is what is needed for attaining community! Now I wouldn’t say that when we formalize the covenant we automatically achieved a deep level of community. There are many other acts that contribute to this. But the two main ones are: formalizing of the covenant and the sex act. If the eschatological goal is Trinitarian community? Why not do those acts that lead to that?

This is why your baptism dichotomy (between one who is baptized and does not live an authentic life and one who is not baptized and DOES live an authentic life) is false. That question, like those above is a moot point. That is not what is at issue here. The question is not, “Can I be an authentic believer and not be baptized?” or “Can I be baptized without an authentic faith?” as important as those are. The question is, “What is the significance of baptism to faith?” “WHY is baptism important?” Not, “Will it help me live more authentically?” Baptism, though, unlike a formal wedding ceremony, does not create any sort of bond or bonding process.

P.S. That quote from Jenson is from “On Marrying.” Probably different than, “On Marrying, Again.”

 

Some preliminaries here and then I will rip into Meph Man’s stuff. He isn’t here…so it don’t matter no how. HA! HA! HA! 

What if people think the marriage process is archaic and outdated? What if the people think that the marriage process is a social convention more than a holy bestowing of a grace (a sacrament)? What if people think that the marriage process is little more than a symbol of what is REALLY meaningful...and decides it's unnecessary?

Then if we follow suit, we are following the INCREASINGLY secularized culture. What is secularization? As a result of the Enlightenment, it is a process that entails movement away from a religious basis for UNDERSTANDING life. That is to say, that people view FEWER DIMENSIONS of personal and social existence by means of reference to or in terms of religious symbols and stories. As this process advances, anything religious is moved more and more to the fringes or to the private and seen as having little if any bearing on life beyond the realm of personal convictions.  D.A. Carson spoke of the privatization of religion as being more dangerous than the total elimination of religion.

What this means in terms of sexuality is this. Whereas people in the past interpreted sex acts and sexuality in theological categories (presently for our purposes here Trinitarianism) and having public implications, now, because of the secularization process the whole gamut of sexuality is divorced from its theological roots and severed from the public domain, and made exclusively private.

This hasn’t happened simply by having this paradigm shift, but certain technological factors have played a significant factor in to it. Privacy itself is the underlying thread through it all and is technological in nature as well. For example, we drive in capsules with tinted windows shut out from the rest of the world known as automobiles. Hotel rooms is another one (even rooms in our own living quarters). There is a certain sense of anonymity that is offered to us in these things. However, it is with the advent of privacy as a presupposed context for living that has impacted sexual mores and attitudes. There is also the advances in medicine which has also contributed to the secularization of sexuality. Many of these medicines give the impression sex can occur without consequences. But what THIS has contributed to is the impression that people can have sex SOLELY for the purpose of pleasure in which sexual activity has been disengaged from the context of permanent relationships where it used to be placed.

K. Now, I’m about to say something and if Meph Man is reading this PLEASE understand that this is not what **I’M** saying, but that what some have as a pretext (in their thinking) for your statements on male headship. I have to admit Meph Man that my first reaction (as it is whenever I read male headship material) is that your statements are rather chauvinistic. Male chauvinism. And I’m sure that at some gut level, that was the impression of some of your female readers. Regardless, the pretext of thought in the minds of some if they KNOW YOU is this: It is often men (and might I add black men and not so much women, white or black) who feel most resentful about being disempowered by past colonial overlords who are likely to marginalize and disempower women of their own country and not even recognize their inconsistency in doing so.

In other words, in their thinking they are saying, “Here is a black man (if not because he’s black it’s because he’s male) from the South whose community has been disempowered seeking to empower himself by taking away power from some other "inferior" people group.”

Your background may not have much of a factor playing into your theological reasoning on gender relations. Of course, there are many white men who have not been disempowered that believe in hierarchal male headship. However, many white men are from the south and in my opinion their theological reasoning’s on this have a long history in white southern culture with it’s white anglo saxon male dominance as a pretext for living. Even if you AREN’T in that category, many men (period) have this overriding fear of appearing culturally feminized. And in the community of faith, this loss of status is compensated not by rejecting the modern version of the “male culture of honor” but in effect re-creating it in their own churches and families, sometimes with women’s complicity. Now, I’m NOT saying this is the case for you, but it (black male) is something that is a possible strike against you with some people.

Now, having said that, John was making a big ta-doo about 1 Cor 11 passage as being cultural and not being universally applicable to which Meph Man agreed.

In either case, I personally think Keener's argument that this was a culturally conditional statement, and not a universally applicable one, is solid.

I don't disagree at all. Really. What I'm saying is that Paul brings in the creational order concept to validate his point 1)because he believes its AUTHORITATIVE and 2) because he believes it's TRUE. He uses the his points about Creation to argue for his MAIN point about head coverings. We still have to deal with the implications of his points about Creation. Just because that wasn't his MAIN point doesn't mean it was any less of a theological assertion that Paul believed was true. It is this that we must wrestle with.

I have to say that I pretty much agree with Meph Man here. The cultural is used to bring out an understanding of “eternal word.” However, it may be that (as happens in biblical interpretation and hermeneutics) that we confuse these two things such that what may be eternal (and what we REALLY want as Christians) we are culturalizing and what is cultural we are “eternalizing.” Such is the case as I see it here in the context of gender relations.

Hear me now and listen to me laaaatar. It is beside the point or it is a moot point whether Paul believed Adam and Eve were actual historical persons. What John is saying is ALSO a moot point. Simply because he is not dealing with the text itself. He’s referencing the text (“Hey look, this is cultural and not universal. Therefore we don’t have to universalize it.”). But he’s not addressing Meph Man’s interpretation of the text directly. Look at it like this. Of the metaphorical use of “head” in vs. 3 three things can be said.

1. This is the first appearance and the only place where “the body” is NOT mentioned or assumed. When Paul speaks of the “head” in relation to the church in other writings it is a metaphor NOT for “lordship” but for the SUPPORTING, LIFE-GIVING role that in ancient Greek thought was to have in relationship to the body. So, head, yes. Body? No.

2. What is in view here is not Christ’s relationship to the church but SPECIFICALLY his relation to the man (=male human being). That relationship must be viewed against the backdrop of God the Father to Christ. It is unlikely that Paul is setting up a whole relational metaphor that would change meanings between the pairs. So what we can say is what is REALLY the issue is the NATURE of the relationship between God and Christ.

3. Whereas the Jewish community use this metaphor to refer to clan chieftain or leader the Greeks had a broader range of uses all of which shown to arise out of their relationship of the head to the body (it’s most important and prominent part and the “source” of the body’s working systems, etc).

4. The earliest extant consistent interpretation of this is to be found in Cyril a contemporary of Chrysostom. The question is, was Paul speaking from his Jewish heritage or was he speaking into the Corinthian’s Greek setting using a metaphor that would have been familiar to them, so that what becomes of the issue is what KIND of relationship exists between the man and the woman? In the end there are several reasons why Cyril’s interpretation would be what Paul was thinking.

Those reasons would be thus:

1. Nothing that is said following this verse HINTS at authority-subordination relationship. Most of those on the hierarchal side have either a husband-wife or “church order” relationship in view. The latter is READ INTO text and while it is possible that the former may be intended nothing INHERENT in the discussion that FOLLOWS REQUIRES such in view. 1 Cor 11:13-15 is about men and women IN GENERAL and is not helpful for understanding the head metaphor.

2. In 1 Cor 11:8-9 where Paul may be saying something about the metaphor? The relationship is clearly not one of subordination to the man as “leader.” Paul is explaining that the “woman is the GLORY of the man.” She comes from the man (from his SIDE) and was created for HIS sake (because he NEEDED her?). It may be that he “derives” his worth FROM her. The Genesis narrativesThat is what makes her the “man’s glory.” If this is an extension of the 1 Cor 11:3 passage then what Cyril has in mind is what is clearly the case. Also, in scripture, “glory” is never to used to suggest that Paul has a subordinating relationship in mind. Which then, makes sense that women who are bringing shame on themselves are therefore bringing it on their husbands.

3. Lastly, if you notice in the passage, in the opening passage Paul includes the third member even though he says “God as the head of Christ.” This is not picked up again. This is probably a reference expressing a chronology of “salvation history.” 1 Cor 8:6 says that all things were “created through Christ.” The man became the “source” of the women’s being, while God was the “source” of Christ’s incarnation. This makes sense of all the members in way that using subordination does not unless you embrace a heterodox Christology. Corey, thoughts? Selah?  Meph Man (if you're still there 3D loooooooser) John?

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(o)

(o)

Zach:  If God was the presiding minister, how do you know?  Did he tell you?  And if he presided over that marriage, who's to say he doesn't preside over common law marriages today?

 

POW:  So, marriage is primarily spiritual/religious, and not cival/legal.

 

Zach:  I agree that is how it should be, but I think you'd admit that today this is often not the case (even within the church).

 

POW:  Marriage is no more an ideal than "Christ and the Church" -- but not less either.

Zach:  The Bible also compares the relationship of Christ to the Church in terms of slavery.  If an institution is ideal if it can be used as a metaphor for Christ and the Church, then slavery is ideal too.

 

I personally believe that an unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.

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Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre

(o)

Sorry, I thought common-law-marriages meant that you lived AS IF married, but not married, long enough for the law to force upon you both the responsibilities of marriage.

 

As to God presiding:  "Let no man...What God has joined..." Also, I'm sure that He who is everywhere was THERE too.

 

Zach:  That is what I mean by common law marriage.  What's the difference between being married and living as if married?  There is no record of Adam and Eve committing their lives to each other or to monogamy.  There is no record of a ceremony.  All it says is that they came together and had kids.  Leaving father and mother and cleaving to a wife is a fairly obvious euphemism for something.  That something is not a commitment or ceremony.

 

That God was there is hardly the point.  He was also there when Hitler invaded Poland.  His presence is hardly an endorsement.

 

POW:  You are being silly.

 

Zach:  I genuinely believe that in general singleness is preferrable to marriage for Christians.

 

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Watch me fly. Freedom like wings and I will use them. Freedom like wings and I will spread them wide. - Stavesacre