What is the primary narrative of our time, the theme running through our songs, our literature, our movies, our TV, the story we tell over and over and strive to reenact with our own lives?
Romance.
We might at first be tempted to call it “love,” but it isn’t real love, the kind that cherishes the familiar and hangs on through back labor, mortgage payments, and gastrointestinal illness. No, we in our culture, know that that kind of faithful love is important, necessary for life, like vegetables, but it’s not exciting, it’s not the stuff of fairy tales or the Top 40 countdown. It’s romance that drives us, romance that gives life its meaning for so many millions of real and fictional characters, romance that confirms our worth as human beings. So ubiquitous is our group obsession with romance that we secretly suspect that those who are not wrapped up in its breathless passion are not truly fulfilled, that their lives are lacking in the most fundamental and crucial ways. A single gal may have lots of love, love from friends, love from parents, siblings, church family, but if she doesn’t have strong arms holding her in the night, we feel sorry for her. We may even wonder if there’s something wrong with her. She must certainly be a half-baked, undeveloped, unrealized shell of a person without this necessary and awakening element. Poor dear. (Never mind that Jesus lived the perfect life on this earth and was never “in love” with anybody.)
If we can’t be swept up in the racing heartbeat and warm desire in our own lives, we live them vicariously through romance novels or just the latest yummy chick flick. We feel a sense of entitlement. If falling in love is the ultimate in human experience, shouldn’t we all get a taste?
Until recently, I would have explained all this with platitudes about how it’s in our genetic code to continue the species, and how we naturally have that urge to merge driving us. But then I read a fascinating article, provocatively titled Why Christians Have Lousy Sex Lives. (The title at first made me write the article off because I KNOW it’s not true that all Christians have lousy sex lives. Ahem. But once I read it, I realized that if people were still bound by the lie the article was exposing, they really would have a lousy sex life.)
According to this article, our obsession with romance is not a universal human obsession present with us through all of history. It dates back only to the Middle Ages. Up until then, despite our perfectly functional hormones and the fact that we were able to get married and even procreate, we had other obsessions, other stories we lived. There was a time when people in Europe were actually obsessed with the life of Christ. Fancy that. It is a recent development, this concept of “falling in love,” in which a selfish, at times even destructive, consuming, boiling, hormonal high is elevated to the noblest of all emotions and motivations. “They fell in love,” is used to justify all kinds of evil, impulsive, and foolish behaviors. And our culture has bought it, every bit, and we want to hear about it again, and again, and again.
Once I started thinking about this, I realized that there is almost no mention at all of falling in love in the Bible, except in a few very negative stories in which a man does some pretty stupid things based on lust (Samson and his first wife, David with Bathsheba, and the rapes of Tamar and Dinah come to mind). You could point out that the Song of Solomon is very romantic, but the Song of Solomon is not about falling in love, it’s about feeding a marriage that already exists. It’s about staying in love over the long haul.
The story of our culture, our number one drive, our definition of meaning and purpose, is nearly completely absent from God’s Word. That blew my mind. You could write it off and say, “Eh, it’s just a cultural difference.” But if falling in love is this unimportant to God, why is it SO important to us? Why do we allow singles to be treated like lepers? Why do we allow ourselves to be tempted to affairs, real or mental, when we don’t feel “in love” with our spouse? Why do we surround ourselves with romantic movies, romantic books, romantic music, and feed this ideal that is so completely foreign to God’s Word? Will our minds be steeped in our culture? Will we allow this false God of Twitterpation to have a place on the altar of our hearts, or will we strive to live the culture of the Kingdom?
We need to tell the world a different story, one in which it’s all about God, where He’s the primary passion, drive, motivation, and delight, a story in which we get married (or not) because we want to serve Him, a story in which everyone single, married, in love, or out of love, can all share equally in the adventure of living out the Gospel.
Intrigued? Click on over to Why Christians Have Lousy Sex Lives.
Note: You have to scroll down to read the article. The page is all white at the top and will appear blank at first.
Very interesting post! I agree with you not ALL christian have bad sex life
I think your last paragraph sums it all up so very well.
“We need to tell the world a different story, one in which it’s all about God, where He’s the primary passion, drive, motivation, and delight, a story in which we get married (or not) because we want to serve Him, a story in which everyone single, married, in love, or out of love, can all share equally in the adventure of living out the Gospel.”
Yes! I remember experiencing this same reflection at one point – just realizing that the modern concept of falling in love is nearly absent from previous generations… and then it was seen as going against the standard way of doing things. It’s so sad because today’s young people (and older) are on a wild goose chase, hoping to “fall in love” at first sight (or within a reasonably short season of passionate dating) that they are missing out on the deep, lifelong union of marital love born out of a submission to one another and to God.
This is outstanding writing. My favorite post for sure. Powerful wisdom every Christian needs to read!
Brilliant post! You got it dead on right. I praise God for people like you standing up for the truth of God’s desires for us.
Some (most) people take the ‘they had a different culture’ concept way too far. They assume that culture is god, no matter what. And they know that they had a vastly different culture back then from what we have now. So they logically conclude that most of what is in the Bible was determined merely by their culture back then, and so we need to rewrite and morph the Bible’s implications, commands, and demands on us to ‘fit’ our current culture.
They are committing idolatry (and blasphemy, but we won’t go there… yet).
They are completely upside down and backwards: we do what is right and best (determined by the Bible), period, and if we have an option we coincide with our culture… just to be nice.
Thank you for posting this! People need to hear it (that means I am sharing and re-sharing it
).
Hmmm….first of all, I can’t seem to get the link to that article to work so, I couldn’t read it. (Maybe this makes uninformed as I try to comment)
I’m not sure I agree entirely. I think our culture certainly can be faulted for emphasizing the romantic/falling in love stage but, I’d say the Bible has people in it falling in love…and not just when they’re adulterous disobedient to God’s plans. Jacob fell in love with Rachel, didn’t he? She was beautiful and he was attracted and so in love with her that he was willing to work for a few more years to win the leading lady.
I think God created our bodies, our sexuality, and our magnetic “chemistry” reaction to other people and I consider both to be good. I think Paul’s idea that its better to be single if you really want to serve God makes sense from the kind of perspective you’re putting forth but, I’m not sure it makes sense given how humans were really created. God made us as we are so, its hard for me to demonize anything but a perversion of our functioning. I don’t think it makes sense to say sexual attraction is evil unless you’re just attracted to your spouse once married. And it certainly seems to make even less sense to me to say that emotional attraction, the “chemistry” that makes a great connection is wrong…we even find this in asexual, same gender friendships. Isn’t that one of the things that makes for great relationship of any kind? That kind of same-wavelength, wildfire type connection that makes conversation lively and jokes work and all the other marks of a good match. I don’t know that its wrong to be romantic, have romance, enjoy romance or even be in love. I feel like you’d be pretty hard pressed to prove that such a thing was historically unheard of before the Middle Ages too…but, then like I said, I didn’t read the article. The alternative seems like a pretty fact based, grit-your-teeth and just grind through kind of relationship perspective where love is not only not the point its hardly to be expected and that sounds more than unappealing, it sounds kind of dangerous to me.
Thoughts to ponder.. I’ve never been one to get involved with romance, but it seems that it has been more of an issue as I get older? It’s something too wonderful for me “a way of a man with a maid”.. is is commitment, romance, a desire to please someone else other than yourself? or a combination of the three? We are body, soul and spirit. Clearly, too much of our culture has emphasized the body, but do we as Christians deny the influence of the soulish aspect of this? (i.e. the romance of it). I believe the spirit should be first, but there are times when the soulish nature of the relationship is integral to tie the body to the spirit. As for the importance of this? Still unsure. I know that it is our spirits that have kept us (my husband and I) in good standing with each other and with a healthy physical relationship as well. But not all couples have that. I survived for 19 years with very little romance, and now I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t start adding it in–just as the cherry on the cake? not as the main filling, if you know what I mean..
Eek. I guess I forget that there are some people who think the falling in love type of romance is the pinnacle of human experience. Life must be pretty discouraging if you think that’s where it’s at! I can see how Taylor Swift and Danielle Steele fit that description to a T, but I wonder if it’s really fair to say that romance is THE “story of our culture, our number one drive, our definition of meaning and purpose.”
When our culture plunks down the mega-millions to watch movies, they might watch the occasional TItanic, but most of the time they’re choosing Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, super hero movies, Pirates of the Caribbean. These are all movies about finding your purpose (or better still being “chosen”) and fulfilling some exciting destiny where good triumphs over evil. I think our culture craves purpose and adventure as much as it does romance.
But, yes. I totally agree that we tend to over-emphasizes the falling in love stage. I don’t think romance is evil by any means, but I do think we need to get our heads checked out if we think it’s the meaning of life!
I think I agree with Carleen … somehow I wasn’t too impressed by the article (the link did work for me). The writer does sound a bit as if he’s suggesting a “grit-your-teeth and just grind through kind of relationship perspective” (as Carleen put it!). I wonder if he thinks we should just marry the first godly person who comes along if romance/attraction don’t matter at all??? I’m not too sure about all this yet!
I do agree that our culture … and sometimes even Christians … put too much emphasis on romance. I left a Bible study recently because they were doing a book that basically says God is the great romancer and wants to have a romantic relationship with us. :S
Sorry for the slow responses, everyone. Our power’s been out, and I’ve had limited Internet access–mostly only with my phone, which makes it hard to say more than a few words (and I’m sure you can all imagine how hard it is for me to express myself with only a few words
).
I can’t speak for the author of the original article, but I certainly wasn’t advocating a “grit your teeth and just grind through kind of relationship!” (I didn’t get that impression from the article, myself, and so that certainly wasn’t what impressed me about it.)
I also wasn’t talking about “romance” in the sense of building love and closeness in your marriage, or even in your relationship before marriage. I think Jena’s thought about building “romance” into her marriage of nineteen years is a great idea.
What I WAS talking about was much more the idea of “falling in love,” in the same sense as falling into a hole, almost an accident, something beyond our control, that we are somehow entitled to, and that rescues us from the monotony of life (including the monotony of our hum drum marriages). This is the antithesis of intentionally building love, appreciation, and even chemistry in a committed relationship. If Jena were following the philosophy I was trying to advocate AGAINST, she would have said something like, “I’ve survived without romance in my marriage for nineteen years, and now I deserve to find someone new, someone who makes me feel the way I’m longing to.”
I guess the difference is between the chemistry you strive for and the chemistry that comes for free. I think our culture idolizes the chemistry that comes for free. I don’t think that chemistry is somehow intrinsically bad in any way. And, hey, “free is a very good price” as the commercials used to say. BUT the chemistry that comes for free tends to be fickle and fleeting. And wonderful as it is, it’s not something that everyone is going to have all the time.
Those of us who are in relationships should absolutely work to build and enjoy and revel in their chemistry, both the free chemistry and the chemistry they had to strive for. And none of us should idolize the chemistry that comes for free. If a person is single, we shouldn’t look down on them. If a person is married and experiencing a chemistry dry spell and having to work extra hard for chemistry, we shouldn’t think they deserve a divorce and someone new.
I think Hollywood culture is basically run by men so they make movies in general men want to watch and occasionally something we all want to watch like Titanic, (thankfully fellow kiwi Peter Jackson did put love interests in Lord of the Rings).Shakespeare wrote lots of love-interest plays. Most high school english teachers would agree that Romeo and Juliette was about Love but not love approved by their parents, hence doomed to fail in that day in age.Maybe in our age too?Yes there’s always been love, literature proves that but how love is seen has changed. Romeo and Juliette was a tragedy because they were unwise and immature- things just don’t change, do they?
The first time my husband and I talked about “being in love” was when we were already looking for a place where to have our wedding reception. Whenever I tell this to people, I always get at least one “you’re crazy” response. But the fact is that now, with one baby and another soon on the way, I’m far more deeply in love with my husband than on our wedding day. And yes, there is also more “chemistry”. I suppose we have had very little of what you call “free chemistry”. I think it’s a shame people focus so much on chasing that fleeting thing called romance, often throwing away relationships that aren’t perfect but could eventually lead to a good life together, in favor of those which offer a short period of romantic anguish and later a long period of misery.