You Can't Legislate Morality

In my College Writing class earlier this week, we were discussing some articles about marriage as opposed to cohabitation, and the pros and cons that are involved. I was struck by some of the things that were brought up. For example, people are supposedly given incentive to stay married because of the fact that having to go through the legal process of divorce is more of a hassle than simply being able to pick up and leave your current cohabiting lover. On the other hand, cohabitation requires no joint finances, no long-term commitment, and can be abandoned at any time. Yet, it is socially acceptable to bring a child into the world within the context of such a relationship. How is this logical? If you are not ready to make the "final commitment" of marriage, as one of my classmates put it, then how are you ready to be a parent? By the same token, I am of the opinion that as a general rule of thumb, if you don't think you're quite ready to be a parent, you shouldn't get married.

But as I was sitting there, listening to what everyone in my class had to say, I realised that if marriage is removed from its status as a divinely ordained covenantal relationship, it is more or less meaningless. Apart from the covenant and Christ's model of what marriage should be, what is marriage? It becomes nothing more than social contract, no different from cohabitation, "life-partner"-ship, or whatever sort of ambiguous title you'd care to tack onto it. Divorce rates are embarrassingly high, so high in fact, that the government has tried to put programs in place to get married couples to stay married. The institution of marriage as we know it is most definitely in danger, and is attacked from all sides by post-modern ideas and blatant immorality.

As Christians attempt to combat things like same-sex marriage and rampant divorce, I wonder if there's actually anything left to defend. Marriage in the United States, at least, the way statistics portray it, is not the same institution that God created in the Garden at the beginning of time. Is such a shallow reflection of God's covenant worth defending? Well, perhaps not. But the question we must ask is this: do things really have to be this way? The answer is a resounding no. It is the responsibility of Christians, now more than ever, to preserve marriage, not necessarily through Constitutional amendments or senate legislation, but instead though the living out of Christ's example. True cultural change cannot be achieved through revolution, rebellion, or activism. You cannot legislate morality. Rather, true transformation is brought about through Christ's Church. That is how marriage is going to be redeemed.