Saving Marriage

I have found myself fascinated  by the World Congress of Families that is going on in Salt Lake City this week.  I've read reports and can confidently say that it is shaping up to be a motherlode of precious gems .  The speakers are working their way all around and through the issues that both strengthen and threaten family.  They have been compelling in their defense of God's views on men and women, masculine and feminine, husbands and wives, marriages and child-rearing. In the opening remarks of this Congress, Elder Ballard encouraged people, "We must rally all the support we can to strengthen and protect our...families."  With that call to action in mind, I would like to stand on my little "blog-soap box" for a bit.

The World Congress of Families is an "international, interfaith conference designed to support life, traditional marriage, and the "natural family," made up of a husband, a wife and children." (1)  I am grateful for this gathering because it re focuses our efforts to stand FOR something.  This strikes me as a more powerful place to be than either standing passive, or opposing something else.  So much of late has been said about saving traditional marriage from it's imitations. But, I am stirred up today thinking that perhaps in all of that non-traditional marital chaos, we are being distracted. 

Yes.  Distracted.

I mean, I'm wondering if we have been so worried about defending God's marriage from it's counterfeits, that maybe we have collectively forgotten that traditional marriage has been in awful peril for several decades, and not wholly in freefall from it's impersonators.

Stick with me.

All this thinking started with a read and re-read of Bruce C Hafen's  “Marriage, Family Law, and the Temple,” which was a speech re-published in the August 2015 Ensign.  (2)

In legal brilliance, Mr. Hafen shows how a series of Court rulings starting in the 1960's and 70's have progressively taken marriage from a "relatively permanent social institution" that is the "key to a stable continuing society" to a "temporary, private relationship, terminable at will".

"US Courts began to interpret family laws in ways that gave individual interests a much higher priority than the social interests (of married parents raising their ...children together)."  Which means to me that society, in an attempt to be "fair" to individualism, has progressively and probably inadvertently given individuals permission to be all-out selfish.  Bruce Hafen asserted that these rulings "spawned new legal theories about equality, individual rights and liberation" and have "knocked the legal and social system off of balance".

Off balance?  You bet. 

In the US today, 50% of first marriages end in divorce, and 60% of second marriages. 40% of children are born out of wedlock and single parent homes have increased 4X since 1960. (3) And these marriage statistics don't even account for the saturation of co-habitation and it's commitment-less, promise-less, covenant-less instability. Dragging along after those staggering numbers is the collateral damage, like child depression having increased 1000%. (3)  And adults are not unscathed. This is totally unscientific, but my observation is that those divorced and divorcing are racked.

Elder D Todd Christofferson cited such a compelling essay by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian born in 1906. (4)  It trumpets out so clearly that marriage is not wholly about an individual and his happiness.  It is not even exclusive to two individuals and their love for one another. Listen:

“Marriage is more than your love for each other. … In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to his glory... In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. … So love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God.” (5)

So what does that mean?   

It says, in my book, that the World Congress has legitimate permission to plead with humanity to save traditional marriage.  And that starts with the 99% of men and women who have entered into marriage already, clinging to that promise that they made in front of witnesses.  They without, compulsion, promised that they would love and cherish.  They took on that "responsibility to the world and mankind" to perpetuate stability in our societies.  They agreed that the union was more than "personal" or self-serving, nor only for "your own happiness", but instead an "office" to create a union that was concerned about others (a spouse, children, a community, a world) above personal-autonomy.  It was a promise that with life's bumps and skids, or even a partner or children who disappoint, that the promise holds. 

How is that possible?  Because the marriage is God's, and He is everlastingly a partner, which adds peace, healing, forgiveness, long-suffering, mercy and joy to the union.

Marriage partners need the long view.  Statistics from americanvalues.org say that 50% of divorced people wish that they had never ended their marriage. That figure ought to haunt us.  Also, "...among those who had rated their marriages as “very unhappy,” nearly 80% said they were happily married five years later. These were not bored or dissatisfied whiners. They had endured serious problems, including alcoholism, infidelity, verbal abuse, emotional neglect, depression, illness, and work and money troubles." (6)

Divorce splices you as your conflicted psyche tries to reconcile times of happy history and great love, with present hurt and hate.  It leaves you wounded.  It leaves a spouse damaged.  It leaves children confused, stripped of security, and bisected.  Hurting, injured families equals impaired, unsound societies. 

Now, this is where I insert deep compassion and love.  While I think that it needs to be possible to talk about the ideal with great passion, we also have to acknowledge that there are always exceptions.  There is no judgement here.  I know that I am ill-qualified to jump inside and understand any relationship but my own.  It is most important that we care about each other in our pains and disappointments. Family relationships are work.

Marriage is intentional exertion. It is chivalrous and benevolent. It is like Prince Charming and Cinderella whose polestar is building in each other worth and happiness. It must be full of forgiveness and mercy. Marriage is a daily vow to loyalty.  It is offering your spouse the boundlessly empowering security that oozes out of a commitment to stay--- no matter what.

Recently, Richard and Linda Eyre wrote an article in the Deseret News saying that, in marriage, commitment, in and of itself, is a powerful ally. That there is “magic in synergy” where the determination of longevity makes the marriage greater than it’s parts-- meaning the day to day.

“We knew of a very successful coach who seemed to be able, every season, to create a winning team out of mediocre talent. When asked how he did it, he said, “It’s all about the commitment.” Commitment, in his mind, meant loyalty, teamwork and unwavering determination. Total commitment, he said, was much more rare than talent. Commitment meant you never gave up, no matter what the score, no matter how long the odds. Commitment meant you cared more about the team than about yourself. To that coach, courage, risk, devotion and determination were all manifest in the concept of commitment. It was what got you through tough situations. It was what freed you from doubt and from second-guessing. …It can be the same in marriage.”

The power of commitment?  Wow.  Yes.  Loyalty. Unwavering determination. No matter the score or the odds. Caring more for the team than for yourself.  Devotion. 

What the World needs is to recommit to marriage.  It needs millions of two-determined-partners willing to be true no matter what obstacles arise.  It needs couples that believe that together, they have the ability and the responsibility to bring stability to our society. 

Saving marriage is the heart of humanity.


(1) http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2015/October/World-Congress-Backs-Traditional-Marriage-Natural-Family/
(2) Bruce C Hafen's  “Marriage, Family Law, and the Temple,” which was a speech originally delivered at the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Annual Fireside January 31, 2014
(3) as cited by Bruce C Hafen's  “Marriage, Family Law, and the Temple,” which was a speech originally delivered at the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Annual Fireside January 31, 2014
(4) as quoted by D Todd Christofferson, "Why Marriage, Why Family", General Conference, April 2015
(5) Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. Eberhard Bethge (1953), 42–43.
(6) http://winteryknight.com/2014/08/20/new-study-50-percent-of-divorced-people-wish-they-had-never-ended-their-marriage/
(7)  Richard and Linda Eyre, September 15, 2015,  http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865636842/The-magic-of-total-commitment.html

Courts of Love

My newsfeed on Facebook is all lit up by news of a North Logan man's excommunication from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. News like this gives me a heavy feeling in my chest. Even though I don't know the guy, I miss him.  I feel an "empty chair".

ugh.

One of the discussions that I remember from my youth, was a lesson on Church Discipline where I was taught that the process was a "Court of Love".  That phrase has stuck with me for all these years and, especially on a morning like this one, I believe it is the absolute truth.

Let me explain.

I was teaching the kids in Senior Primary last Sunday and we took a few minutes to understand the words that they sang out so powerfully, "I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I know who I am.  I know God's Plan.  I'll follow Him in Faith."

I drew a picture for them on the board that looked like this:

To become a member of this Church, one must present himself to a Bishop, who is a Judge in Israel.  You declare testimony, you witness to your worthiness and you state your intention to walk in obedience to God for the rest of your life. The Bishop judges your worthiness and sincerity and signs his name next to yours on a recommend witnessing that he believes that you intend to keep your promise.  Then you are able to be baptized, which is an outward sign of your inward commitment.   This same process is repeated when making all of the covenants of the Gospel.

At this point, one is now responsible for submitting and following and keeping the promise that was made.  One is also responsible to halt or turn or backtrack, and ask for forgiveness when he falls short.  It is a true gift from Christ to be able to repent, become clean through the Atonement, and then continue on the covenant path.

So back to that phrase, why is the cancellation of that covenant through Church Discipline called a "Court of Love"?

A person who has violated their covenants through serious sin or apostasy meets with a Judge in Israel and the person is invited to repent.  A Bishop or a Stake President will remind the person of promises made and will help set a path of return.  They will meet with you, counsel you, cry with you, rejoice with you.  I'm told that it is usually an unparalleled outpouring of strength, unity, patience, love and compassion as the Atonement of Jesus Christ is applied.

But, over time, if the person is unrepentant, willful, and rebellious, then the next kind and loving thing to do is to release him from the covenants.  The ordinances that the person performed to seal the deal on promises he made with God and in front of witnesses, are cancelled.  It's called "excommunication", which sounds scary, but it has compassion and mercy at it's very core.  No longer is the person responsible for the covenants he made.  It is as if he never made them.

The option for repenting is still there.  The hand of the Lord is still outstretched.  A repentant, humble person can be re-baptized-- making a new covenant.  But until he is ready, it serves him best to be released from his promises and thus, his accountability to God for what he is not willing to keep. 

Now while he is free of obligation, it is also true that he no longer qualifies for priceless blessings.  That blessing-part is why I feel so sick to my stomach this morning.  To me, it sounds awful to be cut off.

But, ultimately, if a person chooses that path, it is best to release him from his covenant.  There's no element of surprise.  It doesn't come out of the blue. The person is not left wondering why. And, the way back is clearly marked.  I hope that that becomes the desire for Mr Dehlin and for ALL those who choose this diversion.  I hope that they get homesick and return.

It is also good to remember that there is no trophy for the Judge.  The process for the priesthood holder presiding is heart-wrenching.  I don't know him either, but I have a prayer in my heart today for President King of that North Logan Stake and all who surround him.

In the hub bub of news and the spirited debate on social media, I feel the desire to state that Church discipline equals love.