The climate of the 21st century is not one that lends itself well to the concept of marital commitment and fidelity. The hook-up and shack-up culture of the United States is the clearest indicator of the prevailing mood of non-commitment that exists in our culture. The numbers of cohabitates has risen dramatically over the past thirty years and is even celebrated in the media.[1] Cohabitating creates a great situation for those who want to play house with no strings attached. The problem with cohabitation, aside from the social ills that are regularly noted,[2] is that it is unbiblical to the core. Though contemporary culture has grown increasingly tolerant of this practice, the Christian worldview must be especially vigilant in this area. God’s design for sexual relationships is characterized by commitment and fidelity in biblical marriage.
Easy sex with no expectation of obligation or faithfulness on the part of millions of single people in the United States has become a huge obstacle to commitment. This obstacle will not be overcome with more attention to social science and pop psychology. Only the power of the gospel working in the hearts and minds of believers will bring about changed attitudes toward commitment in relationships. If hooking up and shacking up cause issues with commitment, other temptations in our culture create problems just as strong.
Match.com, a popular dating site, once had as its slogan, “It’s okay to look.” This same slogan has created a huge obstacle to commitment within marriage relationships. Somehow our culture has embraced pornography as normal and acceptable; even within many marriages, husbands and wives have decided that it is OK to look as long as you don’t touch. This is not a biblical concept, and it is a huge hindrance to total commitment within marriage. It was Jesus, after all, who said that lusting is equal to committing adultery. Looking at naked or near-naked images of someone other than your husband or wife destroys commitment within the marriage. Watching others perform sex acts for personal gratification erodes trust and intimacy within marriage. Run from the wisdom of the world on this issue. Pornography is cancer to commitment.
But of course, lust does not happen only through looking at visual pornography. Pornography can be read on the printed page of filthy romance novels as well. Women are especially susceptible to this temptation. The preponderance of e-readers has made the consumption of literary smut nearly as private as online porn because no one knows what you’re reading on that Kindle. Rather than finding contentment in the arms of their husbands through committed relationships, some women fulfill their fantasies vicariously through the pages of romance novels just as some husbands do through the clicks of their mouse on porn websites. As Christians, we must stand against pornography and other lustful addictions that are cancerous to commitment within marriage.
As an aside, one huge obstacle to commitment in marriages often comes on the night before the wedding day. If you are reading this before you get married, please pay attention. Bachelor and bachelorette parties, though thought of as the last hoorah for a friend before the big day, often slide headfirst into sin and shame. Strip clubs, drunken romps at night clubs, and who-knows-what else can plant the seed of non-commitment just hours before the couple-to-be says their “I-do’s.” If you plan to be committed to one person for all your life, then do not put yourself in a situation that may compromise that commitment. Engagement and eventual marriage carries with it a commitment to ONE person. Any situation into which you enter willingly that causes you to be tempted to focus your sexual attention toward a person other than your fiancé or spouse is dangerous and inconsistent with a Christian understanding of commitment and marriage.
Russian roulette is a bad idea. Sure, you spin the barrel and you have a five in six chance of living, but you also have a one in six chance of dying. Sowing your wild oats for just one last night with “the guys” or “the girls” may have a chance of being raunchy fun without any lasting damage, but why would you throw the dice on your marriage? Why put your marriage at risk by indulging in porn or strip clubs or raunchy romance novels or embarrassingly distasteful bachelorette parties? The way of Christ is better. Christians must flee from the cultural norms that allow and even encourage these obstacles to commitment.
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[1] A USA Today article from 2008 shows that the number of cohabitating couples has risen dramatically in the past thirty years and that the opinion of the American culture as it relates to this practice has gone from negative to positive. Interestingly, though the polling date from USA Today shows that people do not believe that cohabitation leads to higher divorce rates, the article did not support a single study to add weight to this point. The article can be accessed at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2008-07-28-cohabitation-census_N.htm
[2] For example, see article by Virginia Wing, The Truth About Domestic Violence in Marital Verses Cohabitational Relationships at http://www.citizenlink.org/FOSI/marriage/cohabitation/A000000890.cfm
