The future of Christian marriage

Dec 28, 2020 by

By John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris, Christian Post:

Ask any random group of ten elderly couples about their marriage, and half of them will probably say something like this: “We were high school sweethearts, tied the knot soon after graduation, worked our way up from nothing, had kids, and here we are. Being married made us who we are today.”

Beneath these stories is a view of marriage as a foundation of life, a starting point for other goals. Today, this view has been replaced by a different one, what some call the “capstone” view of marriage. In the “capstone” view, marriage is a finishing touch to add to a life after individual careers have been achieved, personal goals have been checked off, and we’ve discovered “who we are.”

This massive shift in our ideas about marriage has all kinds of consequences, from delaying weddings (for many people, into their 30’s) to cratering the fertility rate in most developed nations to normalizing premarital sex and cohabitation. Still, the most consequential changes might be occurring within the Church.

University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus tracks these changes in his new book, The Future of Christian Marriage. Regnerus not only described his findings to Shane Morris on the Upstream Podcast, but he also described the dramatic steps that will be required if a culture of marriage is to be restored within the Church.

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