Why Christians Leave Out God in the Marriage Debate

NEW YORK – As the marriage debate rages across the country, some are wondering why they so often hear, “one man and one woman,” as the correct model, but leave out God.

A national marriage expert, the president of a regional marriage protection ministry, and a publicist and lay leader – all Christians – suggest a few reasons, but all agreed that Christians should not leave God out because He is integral to every successful marriage.

Christian publicist and a regular churchgoer Mike Paul has worked with Christian groups both large and small, and to his dismay found that when up on a podium, leaders “from Billy Graham’s daughter to Chuck Colson” failed to mention God when addressing crowds about the correct model for marriage.

“It is not one man and one woman, but it’s a triangle with God at the top,” said Paul.

But “when everyone brings that message up, we hear, ‘Oh, that’s an important message,’ but then they don’t change it,” he added.

Paul believes the reasons that national Christian figureheads are not telling the whole story may be linked to fear – a fear of secular reprisal.

“I think some of us are trying to be politically correct in an area where you have to be politically incorrect for the Lord, and that is a major problem,” he said.

Len Deo, president of New Jersey Family Policy Council would agree with Paul. He told The Christian Post in a Dec. 8 interview that the truth is that marriage is a covenantal relationship between God and humans. However, oftentimes in the secular and civil realms, “you’re fighting for God to be [even] recognized.”

“When you’re fighting for the tradition view of marriage, as the union of one man and one woman in the secular realm, oftentimes, the secular realm does not recognize God as sovereign over all of creation,” said Deo. “So therefore, the marriage movement has embraced the definition of marriage as being the union of one man and one woman when it comes to civil law.”

But “God should be at the center of every marriage,” according to Focus on the Family’s Bill Maier, host of the ministry’s weekend radio show and a specialist on marriage issues.

He said the reason why Christian leaders don’t mention that God is an integral part of the correct model for marriage is because their focus was probably not so much on theology as it was on keeping liberals and gay activists out of the courts.

“My guess is they’re addressing the public policy aspect of marriage as it relates to society with the threat of gay activists in liberal courts,” he said. “They were probably not focusing on theological positions,” but rather “They were probably focusing on the public policy aspect, given the current crisis.”

“Focus on the Family would say that God should be at the center of every marriage,” he said. “We believe very strongly that the foundation of every marriage would be a commitment to Jesus Christ, to his commandments to how we should live our lives and conduct our relationships.”

“Absent that, it’s difficult to make a marriage succeed in this day and age.”

Quoting C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, he said, “The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ’s words that a man and a wife is to be regarded as one organism.”

“Just as one is stating a fact that a lock and key are one mechanism, and the violin and bow are one instrument, the inventor of the human machine was telling us that its two halves were made to be combined together in pairs – not simply on a sexual level, but on every level.”

Maier believes that having a proper marriage is so important that one must look at all aspects of marriage, whether “theological,” “sociological,” or “political.”