Relationships and Marriage

Submission is not Chauvinism

"Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them." -- Collosians 3:18,19 (NET)

These verses are often misunderstood to be chauvinistic. The instruction to husbands is read to be almost an afterthought. But husbands are being admonished to love their wives as Christ loves the Church. This is quite serious, because Christ died on the cross for the Church. Husbands are therefore being instructed to love their wives sacrificially. That is to say, to love their wives unconditionally, and to love them more than themselves, and in faith. We should recall that the opposite of faith is not doubt (cf. Faith). We may always have doubts that a more perfect relationship might be had. This is natural, and a part of loving in faith. The important thing is to not pursue the opposite of faith, which is self will. In the case of a loving relationship, this would be to love one's self above one's wife. -- Wcrowe 2008

Gay Marriage

"Marriage, and other things, like friendship, have a definite shape, definite components. You cannot be my friend if you steal my money. Take the game of baseball. You can play many variations on baseball (shorthanded, pitcher's hands out, right field foul). But you must at least have two pieces of equipment for baseball: 1) a bat and 2) a baseball. Two people throwing baseballs back and forth to each other are "playing catch"--they are not playing baseball! God's will for the male-female marital union was explicitly revealed in Genesis and affirmed by Jesus. There may be other 'couplings,' but they are not and cannot ever be marriage, which is the committed, lifelong, one-flesh union of the two sexes, male and female." -- James Kushiner, Executive Director, Fellowship of St. James, An open response to a submission to Touchstone Magazine of a pro-gay marriage article, 11 July, 2014