Sarah Palin - VP or Possible Prez

Sarah Palin is a fresh breeze blowing over the political meadow. While I admire her many accomplishments and many of her views, I cannot endorse her for office, on the grounds of principle. As one who believes strongly in patriarchy as God's standard for society, I cannot elect a matriarch to what may amount to be the highest office of our country. While she may be an admirable person, she is a matriarch none the less. How can she function as wife and mother and still function as governor or VP or possibly as president? If she isn't then we must investigate the views of her husband, because he would be the power behind the "throne". I am not diminishing Mrs. Palin or her ability. I am however, lamenting that there isn't a patriarch in America that could step up to the plate and do an equal job. This lack of real men is the downfall and destruction of our country.

Where to get married? MM #1

"A Marriage made in Heaven", is a phrase that most people would desire to have describe their marriage. A lofty goal indeed, but one fraught with disappointment. Marriages are not made in heaven, but in the day to day experiences of life. Some feel that if only they were married in Church or a religious ceremony they would have better success in their home. Experiences of thousands of couples over my 40+ years of observation, show me that there is no correlation between where or what kind wedding ceremony and marital success. I have searched the Bible intently, for a wedding ceremony that I could use in modern times and found, -- NONE--, ZERO! What I did find is a large body of information revealing how one becomes a husband or wife, how we are to treat one another and what our responsibilities are to each other and to God.

In Gods design for marriage there is no ceremony required, no government approval required, no licence or registration required and no certificate required.

What is required is honesty, committment, kindness and obedience to Gods law of how we treat our fellow man.

Bottom line is this, a man and woman that is married, (recognizing the above requirements) on the beach or in the woods, by a Justice of the peace or a Judge or even solemn vows of commitment to each other are just as married in the sight of God and have just as great potential for success as anyone else and in some cases, greater.

Love? That's another MM#

Move out!

In my opinion (does that exempt me from being thought of as a know-it-all ?), one of the major problems affecting marriage today is the concept of "oneness" between husbnand and wife. Among my recent discoveries, I noticed that many marriages suffer a lack of satisfaction because of unrealistic expectations of what it means to be one with your spouse or spouses. Many of us have been taught to expect that when we marry, our relationship with our spouse will take on a magical or spiritual essense (like in the movies)where we unite on a level of "oneness" that excludes everyone else and in "oneness" we will eventually find wedded bliss. It sounds real good, only one problem, it isn't true!! The kind of "oneness" that is being sought can only be attained over a period of many years together. For many spouses, it is never attained. For them and all others in the intervening years between starting out and finally surviving to old age together (assuming you make it) what really happens? After the passion of youthful vitality wanes and the bloom of romance fades into daily reality, what we are left with is the stuff that lasting relationships are made of, love, committment, compromise, patience, making mistakes, learning from mistakes, forgiveness, etc. These are the things that make a marriage successful. They have made arranged marriages work and polygynous marriages work over thousands of years and they are essential to the ever popular monogamous marriages as well.

Where does the concept of oneness come in? From Genesis 2:24 "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." We are not certain if these were specifically the words of the Creator, of Adam or later Moses. I suspect, God through Moses, but nevertheless it says "one flesh" not one spirit or one person or any other level of "oneness". Some conservative scholars tell us that the "oneness" mentioned is sexual oneness, copulation. While that may well apply, I think there is a more obvious answer that has long been over looked by spiritualizing God's Word. Look at the context, "leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife = one flesh, the establishing of a new family unit. There are reasons bird parents push their young out of the nest. Our generation of people are missing that. When a young man and woman marry, they should move out of the parental home and take on the responsibility of their own home and family unit.

In this diagram, I hope to show how our concept of oneness has robbed people of their unique identity and damaged their relationship with God.

In section "A" the double lines show relationship, responsibility and desire to please our spouses as the primary function in our relationship and the red broken lines show a secondary relationship to God that doesn't have the priority and strength that the first do, leaving God in the perimeter of our lives as an emergency source of help.

In section "B" we see the double lines show relationship to God as being the chief priority, trusting, pleasing and finding our source of strength and purpose in Him. The single line between spouses indicates a level of relationship that does not depend upon the spouse for our happiness, thereby relieving them of the awesome responsibility to be what we need. Spouse is then freed to be who and what he/she is and we can then appreciate them for their reality rather than the role of our emotional supporter. Each can contribute to the relationship, characteristics and commodities that make for a lasting relationship without draining the resources of the other. No spouse can make us happy when we are not happy with God and ourselves. There is no degree of mystical, romantic "oneness" that can make it happen. Because of this, I believe most marriages that fail have arrived at the tragedy of broken hearts.

Finally! (sigh)

I have been absent from the blog for a while due to the laborious task of moving. The last load was taken to a storage unit today. Now the more difficult task of finding a place for everything and then finding it again when needed begins. I hope to be responding to recent comments in a couple of days. Another entry is simmering on the back burner of my mind and I hope to serve it up piping hot soon. Thanks for your patience.

Polygamy and Patriarchy

I designed this chart to illustrate how the culture that God designed for His people will dictate the acceptable styles of marriage that will work in that culture. Conversely, the styles of marriage that are acceptable in our current culture will reveal whether we are operating according to His design. While you may not be aware at this time, I do support the civil right of responsible, mature adults to practice any style of marriage acceptable between God and themselves, I will limit my discussion to the styles and cultures represented on this chart.

This is how Polygamy fits into a New Look At Marriage. God designed marriage, with specific guidelines and He designed a culture, with specific structure.

Any culture that does not allow the style of marriage acceptable to God as shown by His acceptance (without rebuke) of OT saints is not the culture designed by God.

Any style of marriage that doesn't fit the culture designed by God and implemented by His OT saints is not an acceptable style of marriage to God.

Without listing a long file of references, let me conclude this way (I welcome your comments), God designed a patriarchal culture with established leadership. The only styles of marriage that fits this culture is polygamy (by choice) and monogamy (by choice). Monogamy only does not fit the culture designed by God. For our society, civil or ecclesiastical, to promote a style of marriage that is not acceptable to God shows that we have deviated from His plan. If we have deviated there, where else may we be off base?

Are we slaves today?

Anon, "So am I to understand that slavery should be accepted as polgamy should be accepted today? After all slavery was not condemnd in the bible, and just like the many men of God that had multiple wives, also had slaves. Slavery/Polgamy tradition or Truth?"
June 23, 2008 8:52 PM

Thanks for the question! That is a good observation. Both polygamy and slavery were political issues in the U.S.A. during the mid 1800's. Both were linked as evils by politicians to further their careers, much like politicians do today. Slavery was primarily directed toward southern farmers and polygamy was primarily directed toward the LDS church. The civil war was the result of the tirade on slavery and the LDS repealed their position on polygamy, with statehood for Utah as the result. People benefited in both cases. However, as you point out polygamy and slavery were both practiced by Godly men in the Bible. Do we also see that both were practiced by ungodly men and heathen as well?

Both polygamy and slavery, as allowed and regulated by God were much different than what resides in the consciousness of today's western world. We tend to think of both of these cases as being against the will of the individual. That is not the case in the Biblical, blessed sense. To properly understand what The Bible says about these issues, we must think outside our little boxes of smug convenience. Keep the character of God in view as we look into this matter at a future time.

Response To Disciple

"1) It is true that there is no direct commandment to polygyny. We do, however, have the commandment to be fruitful and multiply and further, if one will read Paul's letters carefully, I think one will see that marriage is "expected of" women. (I am hesitant to say marriage is "commanded"; I wish to consider that in some more depth.)"
Disciple,
I like your observation that marriage is "expected of" women. I think that this is the correct view for the NT times when there were few, if any options for widows or single Mom's (God bless them both), but now, I feel that it is permissible to say that marriage is not obligatory, because there are more opportunities for social or financial assistance available. This helps eliminate the necessity for marriage and opens the door for marriage by desire (physical, emotional or social; all acceptable reasons). I would like to suggest a modification for your consideration as you investigate the issue. Let's say that marriage is "available for" women in the Christian setting (with some modification to our way of thinking). Let me know what you think.