Do Christian Men Have an Obligation to Marry Young?

Photo Credit: hanzabean

Kay S. Hymowitz has written a fascinating article for the Wall Street Journal Online about the trend we are seeing of men that seem to be intentionally delaying adulthood by avoiding marriage and parenthood until much later in life.

Hymowitz quotes comedienne and author, Julie Klausner:

"We are sick of hooking up with guys," writes the comedian Julie Klausner, author of a touchingly funny 2010 book, "I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters and Other Guys I've Dated." What Ms. Klausner means by "guys" is males who are not boys or men but something in between. "Guys talk about 'Star Wars' like it's not a movie made for people half their age; a guy's idea of a perfect night is a hang around the PlayStation with his bandmates, or a trip to Vegas with his college friends.... They are more like the kids we babysat than the dads who drove us home." One female reviewer of Ms. Kausner's book wrote, "I had to stop several times while reading and think: Wait, did I date this same guy?"

Hymowitz goes onto identify that ambiguous stage of life that more and more men are occupying for longer periods of time -- pre-adulthood.  Those classified in the pre-adulthood stage are males that may be post-college age-wise (mid 20's and up), but are living life fundamentally no differently than they did while in their teens or early 20's.  (If you're having a difficult time envisioning this, picture Adam Sandler in nearly any movie that he has ever been in.) 

How could this be a problem?  Well, if you're a single women that is looking for a man who you can settle down and start a family with, it may seem like slim pickings when examining the field.  For most women, the ideal potential husband probably has showered within the last 24 hours, does not regularly go out with "bed head", and doesn't occupy a job that could easily be filled by a fifteen year old high school student.  A pre-adult doesn't fully understand that adulthood not only brings with it independence from one's parents but also responsibility to be a productive member of society.

For the pre-adult male that is perpetually stuck in a state of "21-ness", marriage and family could be the last thing on his mind. Hymowitz comments further:

"Unlike adolescents, however, pre-adults don't know what is supposed to come next. For them, marriage and parenthood come in many forms, or can be skipped altogether. In 1970, just 16% of Americans ages 25 to 29 had never been married; today that's true of an astonishing 55% of the age group. In the U.S., the mean age at first marriage has been climbing toward 30 (a point past which it has already gone in much of Europe). It is no wonder that so many young Americans suffer through a "quarter-life crisis," a period of depression and worry over their future."

In many ways, I have a hard time relating to men that live life well into their 30's and 40's without any plans to marry and have children.  Fairly early on during my time in college, I began praying about whether I thought God would want me to get married and prayed specifically about the type of woman that I would want to marry.  When I believed I had met her, I didn't waste any time.  I met my now-wife when I was 24 and married her shortly after I turned 25 (we were wed less than a year after meeting).  We had our first three children by the time I was 30.  Needless to say, if there was any boy left in me, I was forced to grow up due to the responsibilities inherent in being a husband and father.

Mark Driscoll, a pastor in Seattle, wrote a controversial article on this very topic several months ago.  In the article, Driscoll pulls no punches as he describes these pre-adult men as "boys who can shave."  Look at some of what he had to say:

"What happens if you walk into the church and try to find out what a man looks like? First of all, you're not going to find a lot of guys in most evangelical churches. The least likely person to see in church is a single, twenty-something male. He is as rare at church as a vegan at a steak house.

In the world, boys who can shave are children who are consumers. In the church, boys who can shave are cowards who are complainers.

A buddy of mine calls them evangellyfish because they have no backbone. They don't declare a major, church, theology, or fiancé. They don't want to fail and they think if they don't try, then they can't fail. And by definition, that's a failure.

They are, however, endowed with the spiritual gift of complaining. They say, "I hate the church. The church just wants my money." As if the church wants his futon, Xbox, light beer, and computer filled with free Internet porn.

Here's the cold hard truth: it's a lot harder to do something than it is to complain about those who are doing something. The notorious sin of Christian guys is complaining about guys who are doing something rather than doing something."

While Driscoll's words certainly are pointed, I have to admit that I agree with much of what he has to say. Boys are tentative, irresponsible and wait for others to do things for them. Men take initiative, willingly accept responsibility and gladly call others to follow them.  But does this mean that Christian men that wait until later in life to marry are in sin?

First, there is no age that the Bible states when a man should marry. Throughout history men have generally married at a variety of ages, depending upon the era and culture in which they lived. So I don't think there is a "right" age for all men to seek out marriage.

Second, marriage is not for everyone. There have been some great men throughout history (both Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul come to mind) that did not marry because they felt they could serve God more faithfully without the responsibilities of marriage. So a man that feels called by God to a single and celibate lifestyle for the sake of the gospel should be applauded.

Third, there are men that desperately want to get married and God has just not brought the right woman across their path. They are committed to living a God-honoring lifestyle and are not willing to compromise their convictions just because they have a desire to get married. These men, too, should be admired and esteemed.

However, I think that the trends show that there is an increasing number of Christian men that are prolonging marriage because they simply don't want to accept the responsibilities that come with having a wife and, possibly, children. It is not that they feel called to singleness or aren't interested in women, they simply don't want to grow up and move on to the next stage of life.

Being a husband and father forces us to grow up and truly live as men and that scares a lot of guys.  These "boys who can shave" realize that having a wife will mean that they will be responsible to and for someone else and that is intimidating.  It means they will not just be living for themselves anymore but will need to take someone else into account.

But their passivity affects others whether they realize it or not.  There are literally millions of godly, available women that are searching for a husband in a world seemingly made up of boys. I know of too many women that are waiting for a man of initiative to pursue them yet the single men that they interact with are too busy playing video games and hanging out with their buddies.

It can grow wearisome for Christian women to wait for years for a godly man to pursue them and settle for any nice guy that shows an interest in them. My advice to women is to not settle when it comes to your dating relationships and the choice of a husband. If you want to be married to a man, don't date a boy.

For the men out there, Driscoll has this advice:

"Men, you are to be creators and cultivators. God is a creator and a cultivator and you were made to image him. Create a family and cultivate your wife and children. Create a ministry and cultivate other people. Create a business and cultivate it. Be a giver, not a taker, a producer and not just a consumer. Stop looking for the path of least resistance and start running down the path of greatest glory to God and good to others because that's what Jesus, the real man, did."

How Christians Can Relate to Our Culture

Photo Credit: Steve Rhodes

For any thoughtful Christian that wants to make a lasting difference in the lives of individuals and society, there needs to be given serious consideration to how we will relate to the broader, non-Christian culture in which most people live.

We can seek to live our lives no different than non-Christians and blend right in with everyone else.  We can view ourselves as being in a war with the culture (with Christians being the good guys and everybody else the bad.)  Or we can take a different approach where we seek to engage the culture while maintaining our distinctiveness as followers of the Nazarene carpenter.

Pastor Mark Driscoll offers a compelling perspective on this topic in an article posted to his blog, entitled "Why Christians Go Postal Over Facebook, Jay-Z, Yoga, Avatar, and Culture in General."  I encourage you to read the whole post but here's a highlight

"Engaging culture requires discernment by God’s people to filter all of the cultures they encounter, Christian and non-Christian, through a biblical and theological grid in order to cling to that which is good and reject that which is evil. As we engage culture (watching films and television, listening to music, reading books, shopping at stores, and so on), we must do so as theologians and missionaries filled with wisdom and discernment, seeking to better grasp life in our culture. We do this so we can begin the transforming work of the gospel in our culture by contextualizing the good news of Jesus. Not compromising. Not changing. Contextualizing.

Practically, this means doing what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:22–23, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.” The truth is that every ministry is contextualized, the only difference is to which culture and which year of that culture. Everything from pews to chairs, sound systems, projectors, suits, and a printed Bible in the English language are very recent missiogical contextualizations in light of the two thousand years of Christianity."

As Driscoll shares in his post, it is up to us to discern which elements of our culture we are to 1) Receive; 2) Reject; or 3) Redeem. Every culture on earth has things that are given by God and areas that are intrinsically evil.  There are also those aspects that were once good but have become corrupted over time. The thoughtful missionary understands the difference.

American Idol Worship

For many of us when we think of the biblical concept of idol worship, we think of golden calves and false gods. But for those of us in 2009 America, idol worship is very much real and alive. In the midst of an examination of the Ten Commandments, well-known Seattle pastor Mark Driscoll was recently interviewed on ABC's Nightline concerning the topic of idols. He pointed out how our modern-day gods of sex, money, image may be just as destructive, if not more so, than those of antiquity.

Driscoll defines an idol as follows:

"An idol is someone or something that occupies the place of God in your life," he said. "[It] gives you identity, meaning, value, purpose, love, significance, security. When the Bible uses the word 'idol', that's what it's getting at."

Simply put, an idol is anything which replaces God as the rightful center of our lives. We can look to idols such as movie stars, athletes, singers or politicians. Or our idols may be materialism, physical gratification, our work or even leisure. It could be anything where we say, "God, this is more important than you and I will give my time, thoughts, money and my heart to it in a way that not even you can compete."

Our hearts can easily stray and living within such a self-centered, consumerist culture such as ours does not help much. We are constantly bombarded with messages about what we deserve, what we owe ourselves and the luxuries that cannot be done without. If we are not careful, our affections wander and we end up investing our lives in selfish pursuits that will ultimately not matter when the final accounting of our lives takes place.

Pastor Driscoll's interview on Nightline can be viewed below. Please click here if the video player doesn't show up.

John Piper on Television & the Movies

As an avid movie watcher and an occasional television viewer, I found John Piper's recent comments on these forms of media both challenging and uncomfortable. Dr. Piper, a pastor out of Minneapolis, was on a panel at a conference and was asked to speak to his aversion for television, which was assumed to be in direct opposition to that of Mark Driscoll, another well-known pastor and fellow panel participant.

By his own admission, Piper offered a curt response at the conference and failed to adequately address the question. You can watch the interaction in question here. He then wrote a well thought-out viewpoint on his blog in which he explains why he doesn't own a television.

Like many other forms of technology, television and, by extension, movies have the ability to draw people both away from God and closer to Him. They also have the capacity to help families bond or lead them into isolation from one another. It all depends on how we choose to utilize them. So although I'm not one that feels all Christians should not own a television, I do think Piper's onto something.

As a minister of the gospel, I believe it's important for me to understand what is going on in popular culture in order to be relevant to those I'm seeking to minister to. However, it doesn't mean I have to immerse myself in the stuff. I knew who Lady GaGa was for months before I finally heard one of her songs this past week (and for what it's worth, I don't really get it). But even in the desire for relevance, we can easily get caught in the snare of temptation without even intending to. Look at what Piper has to say on the matter:

"I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.

If you want to be relevant, say, for prostitutes, don’t watch a movie with a lot of tumbles in a brothel. Immerse yourself in the gospel, which is tailor-made for prostitutes; then watch Jesus deal with them in the Bible; then go find a prostitute and talk to her. Listen to her, not the movie. Being entertained by sin does not increase compassion for sinners.

There are, perhaps, a few extraordinary men who can watch action-packed, suspenseful, sexually explicit films and come away more godly. But there are not many. And I am certainly not one of them.

I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father."

Lori and I have made the choice to not have cable television in our house. We have TVs and utilize over-the-air broadcast but we don't spend a lot of time flipping through channels looking for what is on. If there is a network program on that we want to watch, we watch it. But we don't feel compelled to always have the television on. We find other things to do (like board games, video games, sports, etc.) in order to spend time together. But we also watch TV shows and movies together as a family.

The questions we have to ask ourselves are:

1. Does this movie or television show draw me closer to God and the ones I love?
2. Does it lead me into temptation or into sin?
3. Is there a better way that I can be spending my time right now?

There is no cut and dried answer about whether Christians should watch TV or go to the movies. But, for most of us, we probably need to examine how we spend our time and consider if we're wasting hours away on things that won't last for eternity. When we look towards the end of our lives I doubt any of us will wish we would have watched more TV. But many of us will have regrets concerning our failure to invest our time in the eternal.

Driscoll on the Election

Here are some good thoughts from Mark Driscoll on the election. A few highlights:

"The bottom line is obvious to those with gospel eyes. People are longing for Jesus, and tragically left voting for mere presidential candidates. For those whose candidate wins today there will be some months of groundless euphoric faith in that candidate and the atoning salvation that their kingdom will bring. But, in time, their supporters will see that no matter who wins the presidency, they are mere mortals prone to sin, folly, and self-interest just like all the other sons of Adam and daughters of Eve.
To help extend naïve false hope as long as possible, a great enemy will be named and demonized as the one who is hindering all of the progress to atone for our sins and usher in our kingdom. If the Democrats win it will be the rich, and if the Republicans win it will be the terrorists. This diversionary trick is as old as Eve who blamed her sin on Satan rather than repenting. The lie is that it’s always someone else’s fault and we’re always the victim of sinners and never the sinner.
Speaking of repentance, sadly, no matter who wins there will be no call to personal repentance of our own personal sins which contributes to cultural suffering and decline such as our pride, gluttony, covetousness, greed, indebtedness, self-righteousness, perversion, and laziness. And, in four years we’ll do it all again and pretend that this time things will be different. Four years after that, we’ll do it yet again. And, we’ll continue driving around this cul de sac until Jesus returns, sets up his throne, and puts an end to folly once and for all."