I’m Not in Love and Proud of It

“I think I should go ahead and tell you; I’m not in love with your mom. Actually I never have been. It’s high time you know the truth.“

In my insatiable curiosity, I chanced upon this piece of “theologically correctness” about a week ago. I shall not reveal this paragon of dour and clueless. The prurient know exactly how to sate their mongering curiosity.

There has been need to rebuff the temptation to deliver sizzling riposte. But disdain and disgust eases into pity, first for the exquisitely gorgeous looking wife, then for the kiddies, and finally for him. Well begrudgingly the latter. Excruciatingly embarrassing memories, you know,  the ones which spawn eternal self-loathing, have habit of humbling pompous scorn.

The New Romanism of New Calvinism

Having to periodically engage with New Calvinists, as unpleasant as that is, it does foist enlightenment as to their fundamental ethos. And this realization, or rather the fullness of this realization fills me with alarm, despair, and trepidation for the souls of their congregation.

I am currently reading Matt Chandler’s “The Mingling of Souls,” which as Chandler himself admits, is highly adapted from the 1991 sermons by Tommy Nelson on the Song of Solomon. I have listened to a few of Nelson’s sermons myself, and they have worth. However, as I recollect, Nelson is too coy and even too esoterically Christianese in an era, which has suffered such a dramatic decline of the mind and culture. (The only historical equivalent that comes to mind is the period from the death of Marcus Aurelius (180 AD) to that of the assassination of Severus Alexander (235 AD), after which began the Roman Empire’s Crisis of the Third Century, with one military overlord after another jostling for the Purple.)

Furthermore, the formal six point pattern that Nelson contrives bumps up against what many Puritans considered to be the most romantic couple of Scriptures; that being Isaac and Rebekeh.

Red State v Blue State Philosophical Sectarianism

It has been a working hypothesis since the late 1980s, and a firm assertion since the mid 2000s; that, to paraphrase Lord Chesterfield’s assessment of the French

In short, all the symptoms which I have ever met with in History, previous to great Civic Conflagrations and Wars, now exist and daily increase in America.1

This certainly comes to mind in recent talk of state nullification of Federal Government edicts and decrees by its executive branch, but more so from its judiciary. Nullification reaches back to Vice President John C. Calhoun (1825-32) who spearheaded use of this principle for South Carolina in the North-South tariff wars; one of the causes of the American Civil War, which has largely been forgotten. As the writer states:

But if some states can pick and choose laws, others will surely do the same—and in such a polarized national landscape, they’ll start picking and choosing increasingly contradictory options. Liberals states will start refusing to enforce laws they don’t like. (This happened with the Fugitive Slave Act, in fact; Wisconsin ruled the law unconstitutional; southerners who otherwise championed states’ rights objected; and the Supreme Court overruled it.) It’s a ticket to dissolving the union, all in the name of preventing same-sex unions.

The Varied Enemies of Marriage

Perusing the news nowadays becomes a masochistic exercise as we face a quickening accumulation of human folly and travesty. It is little wonder that many prefer to stick their heads in sand to safeguard their very psychological equilibrium.
So while this nation heaves a wearied sigh of relief from an electoral rebuke of the more blatant forms of petty-minded nativist bigotries in Quebec, along comes a broadside against the Estate of Marriage and by extension civil society. But from the ‘Conservative’ Party of Canada!

52. (1) Subsection 4(2) of the Canada

Evidence Act is replaced by the following:

(2) No person is incompetent, or uncompellable, to testify for the prosecution by reason only that they are married to the accused.

It was always my expectation that the bit-by-bit weakening of the spousal immunity laws over the years would invariably lead to a total blanket overthrow of this legal protection from the creeping tyranny of statism. But it was not to be expected from the ‘Conservative’ Party of Canada in this Amendment to the Canada Evidence Act as part of the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights.

The whole point of spousal immunity is to provide one corner in this gotcha dog-eat-dog social jungle, where a person can be psychologically naked, open and vulnerable and without inhibition, that is intimated in the very metaphor of sex. Having at least one venue of protected confidentiality is a primary contributor of mental health. Having at least one person, one can trust, can act as check against one’s own folly and even criminality.

However, it is not only a matter of psychological well-being. This yet another intrusion into the bedrooms of the nation, enervates the cohesion, unity and strength of the nation’s marriages, and by extension families. It attacks trust, which is the fundamental foundation to all social relationships. Indeed, emotive and erotic passion, is, in large part, a function of such trust. Spouses must now be courageous enough to suffer judicial penalties to protect the sanctity of their marriages.

By extension, it further diminishes the distinction between all-consuming, fierce loyalties of committed and united lovers from the mindset behind atomistic hook-up sex culture. It undermines its very raison d’être for getting married.

It extends that late Roman Empire policy of pitting every man to spy on their neighbour and every man to distrust his neighbour into the very midst of erotic union. It brings to mind the state exploitation of the Hitler Youth, to report on their parents. It furnishes yet another statist assault on the private civic entities, which can provide checks against this encroaching totalitarian Leviathan.

Yes. I know that there exists this half-wit, self-righteous form of conservatism of the Vic Toews and Britain’s William Hague who pontificate that “the law-abiding citizen has nothing to be worried about”. However, this obtuse form of conservatism is ignorant of history. Even cursory perusal of Quebec politics should disabuse such a notion. It presumes the virtue of the judicio-political authorities. But why should anyone think that the propensity to folly and foible in humanity becomes transformed upon entrance into public service or that the governors will not use such overriding of immunities for less than noble ends?

The ‘Conservative’ Party of Canada has sought to radically reduce judicial discretion in sentencing because of radically widespread inconsistencies, which undermine the moral authority of justice. Does it now wish to sic these judges on married couples; giving judicial discretion as to what constitutes a valid and acceptable violation of marital confidentiality? Does the notion of rational consistency ever creep into their caucus meetings?

This type of policy emanates from the simple-mindedness of single-issue morons, who cannot balance in their mind, more than one consideration at a time.

First of all, it is the last vestiges of a very antiquated area of the law.

Peter Mackay, Justice Minister, April 7, 2014

What a curious and sophomoric argument from a ‘conservative’. The agedness or newness of a principle or attitude surely has little correlation to its virtue. Should we also abrogate democracy, rule of law, chain of command, principles of justice and due process and other concepts and practices that gave rise to Western civilization, because of their antiquarian pedigree?
Such “first of all” modernist arguments can only emanate from the arrogant stupidity of a pampered child of hardier ancestors who fought to extract such restraints on statist overreach. In what way exactly has human nature or the sociopolitical dynamics of societies changed over the last couple hundreds of years, to justify such a sophomoric sophistry?

♦     ♦      ♦      ♦      ♦

I, as committed Evangelical, cultural conservative, and small-r republican, social contract libertarian, find it difficult to comprehend any silence from the Conservative Party’s religious supporters. It is too important an issue to disregard and comply with. Any professed Christian, Jewish or Muslim adherent, who fails to remonstrate against this spousal immunity provision, is unfaithful to a primary concept of marriage within their own Holy Writ; namely of the one-flesh oneness of spouses, which this abrogation undermines.

I, as committed Evangelical, cultural conservative, and small-r republican, social contract libertarian, will defy this law, if called upon; in the name of a Christian, even universal (i.e. pagan Roman, Babylonian) understanding of the ingredients, necessary to marriage.

I cannot conceive how this abrogation represents any normalized and healthy form of conservatism? Conservatism has traditionally sought to strengthen the civil intermediaries between state and individual as a bulwark against statism; whereas Rousseauian liberalism reduces all civic intermediaries to become adjuncts and executors of the public will. And the 20th Century is full of examples of the atrocities of this latter mindset.

This provision is every bit statist sentiment as those of their liberal statist counterparts, which conservatives rail about. It is not conservative in any sense. Those, who have true conservative and/or theist sentiments, should at minimum, sit on their hands and let this monstrosity of a conservative party pass into the ash heap of history.

 

Ruminations on Same-Sex Marriage

In 1986, after taking a few courses on computer programming and having created a payroll app on a Commodore 64, which cut ten to fifteen hours from my payroll job, I was given opportunity to work on a hopelessly buggy customized accounting application in some now obscure language. After a week or two of perusing the endless spaghetti code without any modularization into subroutines, I realized that the easiest and least costly way of fixing the thing was to throw it out (eventually) and start from scratch.

The nature of the arguments made against same-sex marriage is much like that. It is not that the position is wrong. It is that the basis of the opposition is rationally incoherent and unsound, and perhaps even unscriptural. Most of the reasonings derive, as best as I can determine, from Roman Republican morality and a Roman version of Stoicism.

The problem lies in the accumulation of theological claptrap and traditions of men that have obscured a solid and sound rational argument. To fix the mess first requires a dressing down of many of these theological innovations. However, one will then need to contend against opposition from the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and the informal magisteriums of the various Protestant/Evangelical sects. One must scathingly tear down the existing straw supports buttressing marriage in order to build a solid brick argument.

This is not to suggest that any degree of pristine and near-perfect reasonings will convince one’s interlocutors or adversaries. As the song says; “We hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest”¹. As Christ demonstrated, perhaps our first query with those, who challenge the orthodox Biblical position, ought to deal with their heart motivations. The evidence is overwhelming in these last generations, that intellectual and ethical/legal arguments and empirical evidence are mere tools of self-interest, easily disposed of when they get in the way, by a population that doubts or does not care about the Truth or the Good. And in observing the quality of moral reasoning by those in my online Stanford University course on Justice, I am terrified for my children’s and grandchildren’s future.

However, in perusing the transcripts of the Proposition 9 trial; even though the liberal argument, advocated by the presiding judge Vaughn Walker (with little need of lawyers), was empty and superficial; the pro-Amendment argument was just too full of holes and easy to shoot down as well.

I visited a self-professed Evangelical’s take on the issue, and like the accounting package, I found attempting to debug his arguments would be so overwhelming, that is best to start from fundamentals and work up. This is a work in progress, perhaps deliverable next year. However, these considerations might help others in constructing a valid framework of argument.

If a universal natural law, as it pertains to human nature, exists; then violating that law will have natural consequences, independent of civic, ecclesiastical or divine penalties; independent of the ability to notice those consequences. (The Roman Empire was shocked when Rome was sacked in 410 A.D., although hindsight makes obvious this eventuality.)

The existence of this natural law is independent of the ability to subjectively appropriate it. (I repudiate the long-standing Christian nostrum, whose derivation is more Stoic than Biblical, that natural law (moral law) is innately known. We do have an unavoidable subjective faculty of judgment between good and evil. However, the Scriptural basis for this faculty to be loaded with content is unwarranted and leads to all kinds of inconsistencies and absurdities. The rational arguments and empirical historical and sociological evidence simply defies any correspondence to this theological innovation of moral nativism.

The incompetence or disingenuity of humanity may not even be able to subjectively appropriate a detrimental natural consequence.

Except for a few states in ancient Greece (i.e. Sparta), marriage was considered a private estate with minimal civic regulation until the high Middle Ages. The Roman paterfamilias was up in arms over Augustus’ attempt to interfere with the Estate with his Julian Laws, which fell largely to disuse. Marriage came increasingly under ecclesiastic governance until the Reformation and Enlightenment (16^th-18^th Centuries).

Calling it an institution, implying a primacy of its social and civic role and thereby justifying extensive and intrusive social and civic regulation, is contrary to Scriptures and reason; since marriage existed before both ecclesiastical and civic institutions. When Isaac ‘married’ Rebecca in his mother’s tent, we can be sure that the tent didn’t have sufficient room for a presiding rabbi and bureaucrat. The God of Scriptures called that marriage. And  unless the God of Scriptures is mutable after all, church and state are not required for true marriage.

The idea of procreation as the primary purpose of marriage largely derives from a functionalist and austere Roman Republican morality. The logic of marriage as vehicle for procreation is so full of inconsistencies and incoherence that non-Christians are correct to contemptuously scorn those ‘Christians’ who attempt to justify opposite-sex marriages on those grounds. We need to utterly and scathingly destroy any pretensions that procreation is the primary purpose of marriage.

I would suggest that marriage’s purpose is for the benefit of its spouses; which in its pristine state, is the best relationship between two conscious beings possibly conceived; and is a shadow copy of the Trinity’s interrelationship and that being sought between Christ and His Church.

Making the Estate of Marriage subservient to purposes beyond itself (family lineage, ecclesiastical concerns and pathologies, civil agendas) grievously interferes and  intrudes on the Estate and invariably weakens the marriage and the raison d’être to be married. History has demonstrates a proportionate correlation between external control and internal health of this relationship. 

Western history demonstrates, as shown in the Proposition 9 trial, that state definition and regulation has caused unceasing travesty and atrocity to the private super-friendship relationship.

Any singular definition and understanding, imposed by the civil authorities, are usually wrongheaded, and invariably provokes considerable civic agitation. The question becomes: are the questionable benefits worth the civic discord and contribution to potential conflagration.

The argument against same-sex marriage will be found in the radical differences in natural and endemic proclivities of each sex. This is an assertion well challenged today, even though the scientific and historical anecdotal evidence overwhelmingly supports the idea.

Secondly, the complementarianism that is bandied about by the CBMW, a complementarianism of roles is Biblically and rational insupportable. Rather, men and women represent a complementarianism of intrinsic natural proclivities. These proclivities are not rigid absolutes or immutable.

Each gender has a psychological insufficiency in itself that requires the complement of the other. Therefore, the opposite sex spouses need to discover, accept, embrace, mitigate against the excesses of the other and incorporate unto themselves that of the other in order to become the fullness of humanity (or Christ).

In that same-sex couples are not intimate with those qualities found in the other sex; they have less ability to detect, let alone incorporate those qualities into themselves. Indeed, historical and sociological record indicates a general disdain by homosexuals for the attributes of the other (i.e. ancient aristocratic Greeks, modern feminist lesbians). Same-sex coupling is prone to exaggerate the excesses of the same gender, rather than mitigating them.

The sociological record in Europe (i.e. liberal Scandinavia/Norway) demonstrates that same sex couplings are less stable. Divorce rates with gay males are 50% higher than opposite sex couplings. Lesbians are 167% higher. (These are state-wide statistics.) (Apparently, the Netherlands is showing the same outcomes). Instability for same-sex relationships are a common historical constant. The relational problems are endemic.

Same-sex relationships, at least amongst males for certain, invariably become polyamorous. Boredom is one constant complaint (i.e. Dan Savage). Polyamory has its own set of psychological deficiencies and grievous social consequences.

Even so, neither society nor the state should forbid same-sex relationships; nor give undue additional financial support to such couples (that which is above that given to opposite-sex) for reasons of liberty of conscience and civic peace. Nor should society or the state give legal and social sanction to same-sex relationships (or any marital relationships) for reasons of liberty of conscience and civic peace.

NOTES

1. Simon and Garfunkel, The Boxer, 1968.

The Horrid Sin of Moralism

There is great distinction to be made between being highly moral and being moralistic. The former does not necessarily entail the latter. Nor, ironically enough, does the latter entail the former. It is quite the marvel how often one finds that those most moralistic are obtuse to their own ethical failings. They denounce sexual vice, while lasciviously engaging in mendacity or cruelty. Within the hour that they apply a moral principle in one set of circumstances, they violate that same principle in regard to another. And when reproached for inconsistency, they wave it off as being different without being able to substantiate the distinction.

Moralism cuts short the ability to deeply understanding the dynamics of the human heart and society. It labels without giving assistance. It stops from further investigation and thereby prevents the ability to counsel and encourage a person from their vice towards a better way.

I snapped into exasperated anger at an interlocutor after watching the movie “Unfaithful”. While I waxed about the civilization-level difference between the ideological, ethical and cultural mores between America and continental Europe; or the relationship between underlying ideology and cosmological perspective and ethics; my obtuse interlocutor (again) reduced a movie to the simplism of a morality play and felt it incumbent to emphasize that point.

It is probably pretty safe to say that historically, moralism afflicts the female species more so than the male. And moralism is not the monopoly of the religious only. Any standard, secular or sacred, upon which one castigates another ad nauseum, constitutes moralism. The Cult of Tolerance presently constitutes the worst moralists.

Regardless, moralism is the great Shiva of marital relationships. For, in the vulnerable, intimate confidentiality of the conjugal bed, where we are advised to confess faults and failures to each other (James 5:16), let alone fears, anxieties, fantasies and dreams; the porcupine quills of judgmentalism are certain to naturally send the turtle to withdraw into its shell.

It is perverse folly to expect otherwise. What person does not seek to hide their physical blemishes and deformities if oft remarked about? What person, who delights not in sadomasochism, subjects their privates to being kicked at will? Yet the obtuse self-righteousness of moralism blinds itself to this self-evident truism; expecting their spouse or any interlocutor to suffer their righteous slings from this self-anointed guardian of virtue.

In an outside world, where we dwell in a goldfish bowl, where all failures are potential means by which our competitors and enemies exploit to their advantage; the conjugal bed is supposed to be the one locale where one can be at ease; “a haven in a heartless world”.  However, there exists many a person who works long hours; not because of ambition, but because of avoidance.

If a person fails to acknowledge their failings, there is place for reproach. However, if that person acknowledges their shortcomings, continued moral fulminations are akin to stabbing a corpse. It alienates. The recipient of such outrage reconstructs the very fortifications that marital intimacy was supposed to level. It is a gateway to divorce or to a cold toleration of each other in the autumn and winter of the marital relationship.

Adultery and Law: The Confused and Inconsistent Theology of Albert Mohler

RE: Adultery – When Law and Morality (used to) Agree

On March 4, 2013, SBC icon, Albert Mohler, complains about Colorado’s drive to decriminalize adultery and sexual immorality. And he yearns for that golden yesteryear when sociopolitical laws were consistent ethical principles concerning marriage and adultery. From his blog entry…

Throughout most of human history, morality and law were united and in agreement when it came to the reality of adultery and the larger context of sexual immorality. Laws criminalizing adultery were adopted because the society believed that marriage was central to its own existence and flourishing, and that adultery represented a dagger struck at the heart of the society, as well as the heart of marriage.

As a student of history, I would claim that the statement is factually suspect. Socially and politically, such laws have proven impossible to enforce on most occasions, which gives rise to rational incoherence. However, most pertinent from a Christian, and not a moralist perspective, Mohler’s argument is irrelevant.

New Testament Arguments for Marriage Licenses

(Excerpt from upcoming book "In Defense of Christian Marriage" 
Chapter on "What Marriage Is Not")

A more credible argument given by Christians regarding the necessity for legal papers in order to be married concerns their New Testament duty to civil authorities, obliging Christians to obedience as long as civic provisions do not violate explicit commandments of God or faithful and credible deductions from what Scriptures infer.¹

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.²

But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God.³

Since, according to some Christians, civil society through its governing organs has presumed to extend its jurisdiction to include marital affairs, Christians must comply. Several questions and issues arise from this contention. Is a “couple [only] married in the eyes of God when the couple is legally married”? ⁴ This is the (pre-determined) conclusion expressed by a not atypical perspective in Christian circles. However, even the state does not demand that couples sign legal papers in order to be couples. Licenses only determine that they are legally married; recognized by the state on behalf of society, conferring certain legal protections and financial privileges upon the couple as well state-defined obligations. But is marriage in the eyes of the state the same as marriage in the eyes of God? Are the eyes of God beholden to the dictates of men?

Evidently not! For those, subscribing to this logic, become inconsistent when they repudiate same-sex marriages. That is the couple is not married in the eyes of God when the couple is legally married. Their reasoning breaks down. And if certain couples are not married just because the civic authorities say so, it is just as applicable that certain couples are married even when the civic authorities say not; as was the case in a bygone era, when interracial couples were barred from legal recognition (and even informal coupling). The eyes of God are not so beholden and bound.

What is perceived as true or untrue in the eyes of the state; of the community; of neighbours and family; or even of self; may not correspond with the eyes of God or of objective reality. Does a friend stop being a friend if state and society fail to recognize one’s friendship? Or a cousin? It requires muddleheaded thinking to perceive that natural social phenomena require sociopolitical opinion for their existence. No Presidential executive order or parliamentary vote can arrest the laws of gravity.

It was not that long ago that states and societies failed to recognize committed mixed-racial relationships as marriages.  Did that make those relationships any less marriage because state and society are frequent fools? Was there not a time not so long ago when a woman was deemed a nonperson? One must be willing to differentiate between objective reality and the many legal fictions, intellectual abstractions, and virtual realities that flutter and prevail in any age. To do otherwise, engenders a considerable degree of insanity; if insanity is to be measured by the divergence between objective reality and personal and societal perception of that reality.

Giving civil authorities default jurisdiction over conjugal matters leaves the legal onus on the individual to prove violations to conscience. Existing laws, subversive to Christian understandings and conscience are many, subtle, pervasive and insidious. The lack of hue and cry concerning these violations is largely a function of an ignorance, apathy, cowardice or rejection by modern-day ‘Christians’ of the historical Christian understandings of and practices within marriage.

There exists another Scriptural maxim that is more applicable. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”⁵ The state must not intrude into areas, reserved as God’s alone. But what exactly belongs to Caesar and what to God? If marriage and family pre-existed the existence of state and civil polities, they must have belonged to God. If marriage and family pre-existed the existence of the church and ecclesiastical authorities, they must have belonged to God directly; and not through some mediating ecclesiastical agency. Neither civic nor ecclesiastic authorities have legitimate claims as gatekeeper or on regulating the purposes, nature, mechanics, dynamics and principles by which a couple operates. It is a private covenant/contract between individual parties and their God.

To paraphrase the aforementioned quote from Luther (“The Babylonian Captivity of the Church”, (1520), Marriage 6.3) concerning the rational absurdity of requiring ecclesiastical sanction of marriage, the same is true of civic permission and license.

Furthermore, since marriage existed from the beginning of the world and is still found among foreigners and those dwelling in locales without any and/or universally recognized civic authorities, it cannot possibly be called a civic institution and the subjectively defined possession of the State. The marriages of the ancients were no less legally valid than are ours, nor are those of foreigners less true marriages than those of citizens.

What if Christians were denied legal sanction and social recognition of their marriages? This scenario is not all that far-fetched; having happened to various other individuals and cultural groups in recent past. Would it be morally proper in the eyes of God, for the betrothed to abide by state regulations and not be joined? Would we not be dusting our Bibles and pointing to “Marriage is honourable in all”⁶, repudiating and ignoring any authority who deny Scriptures? How would we deal with such passages “But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion”⁷ or “If anyone thinks he is acting improperly toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if she is getting along in years and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married”.⁸ If the state denied legal sanction, Christians would feel conscience bound to obey God’s clear instructions than civic authority. When Christ reiterated the ancient decree, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh”⁹; there was no understanding that one must obtain a ‘by your leave’ from civil authorities.

If legal requirements for marriage would mean nothing, in terms of Christian conscience, in that scenario, why does it mean anything now?

Like circumcision, civil and legal marriage is nothing in the eyes of the Christian God. One may become legally married, for extraneous reasons; just as Paul had Timothy circumcised. However, the civic legality of the union does not define the union unless the state leviathan is one’s god.

Footnotes:

1. Two points here. Those willing to disobey civil authorities must be willing to accept their punishments. Secondly, intellectual integrity is called for in determining if a civic injunction violates Scriptures. It is very easy to enlist Scriptural interpretation to support personal preferences.
2. 1 Peter 2:13-14
3. Acts 4:19
4. Mary Fairchild, “What is the Biblical Definition of Marriage?” http://christianity.about.com/od/whatdoesthebiblesay/a/marriagecovenan.htm
5. Matthew 22:21
6. Hebrew 13:5 (AKJV)
7. 1 Corinthians 7:9
8. 1 Corinthians 7:36
9. Matthew 19:5

“Deep Character Change Through Deep Friendship” – Tim Keller’s Mission for Marriage

Among the rationales for marriage, usually by those with this overzealous ‘give glory to God’ sentiment, is for personal sanctification (pursuit of virtue or righteousness). “God’s primary purpose for marriage is to use it to help shape us into the image of His Son”. Tim Keller (“The Meaning of Marriage”), who has a more intelligible grip on marriage and speaks and writes in the vernacular rather than Christianese, would suggest a primary mission is “deep character change through deep friendship”.

Marriage as conduit for righteousness emits of a Stoic odour, whereby virtue primarily exists for its own sake and as ultimate goal. With spouse and relationship becoming vehicles to exploit for personal ends, even noble ends; that very dynamic becomes unethical in a ‘noble’ cause.

The onus is wrongly reversed. That which ought to be esteemed is denigrated under that which is esteemed. Although optimally, regardless of which element is stressed, character change or friendship, the same level of virtue should theoretically be produced; in prizing character change over relationship and spouse, in altering ultimate telos (purpose), the latter suffer from lacking primacy of regard, concern and love. The spouse will sense that denigration as consequence, even if virtue is of the highest caliber. In placing the ‘god’ of virtue over the ‘god’ of love, the spouse will duly suffer neglect, especially as humanity falls short of attaining the highest caliber.

Christ’s preaching concentrated upon the Kingdom; whereby virtues are means to accomplishing those ends and outcomes. The good society ultimately is one populated with self-governing, virtuous people, who even Karl Marx noted, might not even have need of an external governance. The outsider will be prone to first observe the quality of the outcome and only later inquire as to the means by which it was brought about.

Marriage is the end mission and purpose. A good marriage always brings glory to God because it requires the practicing of His principles in order to achieve it. Deep character change is conducive to the quality of deep friendship. The desire for deep friendship ought to motivate deep character change. Those who stress ‘glory to God’ in its various manifestations, have proclivity to short circuit His counsel for their own manufactured ‘traditions of men’.

Marriage’s main mission and telos ought to be to foster deep friendship through deep character change.