Why doesn't my life make sense - part 3

Christians divorce at the same rate as non-Christians because their expectations for marriage are the same as non-Christians.

I'm not saying that finances don't play a role, or that marital infidelity isn't a problem. What I am saying is that there is a deeper, more fundamental issue which underlies the visible problems in modern marriages. There is a set of expectations that our culture provides for us which have no basis in reality. These expectations come from a typical modern "romantic" storyline which we will now examine.

Most people likely believe that the romance story must be at least as old as the Romans, since that's where the name comes from. They would be wrong. The modern romance was invented about two hundred years ago by a woman named Jane Austen. Before that time romance stories were called comedies. Not because they were funny, that's just what they called stories with happy endings.

Those love stories may not have been funny, but they also weren't realistic. Writers who wanted to write love stories with happy endings tended to set the story in make-believe worlds. The extreme version of this is the fairy tale. Love stories didn't have to have fairies and dragons, however, but they almost always had ridiculous characters and even more ridiculous plot twists. When writers set their love stories in a realistic world the stories were usually called tragedies and -- like the name suggests -- they didn't end happily ever after. Romeo and Juliet is a well known example of this. Romeo and Juliet is not romance about two people finding happiness together. It's a tearjerker about two obsessed teenagers and the cultural constraints that keep them apart, ultimately bringing about their deaths.

Ms Austen (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, etc.) changed the rules. She set her books in a very realistic version of England, and had her characters finding happiness together even when the cultural norms of the time should have kept the lovers apart. In her stories love conquered society. Now I'm sure that somewhere, someone had already written a story in a realistic setting where love conquered... something. But Ms Austen was the right person at the right time. She was an extremely talented writer, and her books were published just as something called 'The Enlightenment' was taking hold. The Enlightenment was the first truly widespread materialistic worldview since the ancient Greeks ruled the Mediterranean. The Enlightenment envisioned a world without God, where people lived for this world, not the next. And when God was stripped from people's lives, they began to look for something else to fill the void. Over the next two centuries they would try and fill the longing with everything from money and status, to good deeds and... well... romantic love.

You see, in Ms Austen's books love didn't really conquer all, like I said, just social boundaries. But later romance writers would take this first small step and apply it to everything else. In modern romance stories love conquers hate, love conquers death, love even conquers circumstances that try and keep it apart, almost as if a malevolent creature -- a God or something -- wanted to throw a damp blanket on the lover's happiness.

Today, every time you watch another 'chic flick', or for that matter, another action/drama where the lover fall breathlessly into each others arms at the end, you are being spoon fed a worldview that says that romantic love conquers all opposition. You're seeing, and learning to accept, the idea that true fulfillment can be found in romantic love. It's a lie: a lie that is as widely accepted among Christians as anyone else. A lie that sets up a husband and wife for disappointment and divorce.

Here's a smattering of false beliefs that I've encountered on the subject in Christian circles. All these are based on a worldview that is built around romantic storytelling (some I've heard from conservative teachers and pastors).

1)There is a "special" person that God has set apart as your life partner.

And a few years into the marriage most begin to wonder if they married "the one". But in the Old Testament when a group of Israelite women asked permission to remarry God told them, "They may marry anyone they please as long as they marry within the tribal clan of their father." -- Numbers 36:6. Not "They may marry the special man I've prepared for each of them."

2)The distinguishing feature of the marriage relationship is love.

It better not be. Jesus commanded us to love everyone. Even our enemies. The distinguishing feature of marriage -- the thing that sets it apart -- is the marriage covenant, a contract that basically says, "He meets her needs, she meets his." And that they meet each other's needs before they start trying to meet the needs of anyone else.

3)Your marriage partner is your soulmate.

Jesus is your soulmate. Your soul was created with the expressed purpose that it would one day be united in fellowship with it's creator, not with a single human being.

The fact is, if you are waiting on your spouse to meet your deepest spiritual needs you will be sorely disappointed. Divorce may even begin to seem like a valid option. After all, your spouse is not doing what you expect them to do, and everything you've seen and heard has led you to believe that this is a reasonable expectation. 'But my partner doesn't make me happy'. No one can make you happy. True happiness comes as a byproduct of a life lived for God and God's purposes. Marriage can be wonderful. But it will never take the place of God in your life. Seek God first. The satisfying marriage can be added.


The "romance" story is a story invented by a world that wants desperately to find something to replace the central role of God in their lives. We believe it because we've grown up watching realistic simulations of it on television and in the movie theaters. But it's a lie. A fiction story that builds marriages on a foundation of sand.

And that's how it causes divorce.

Next, we'll finish with some general observations on how modern storytelling can make life seem confusing, and why it's important not to read Revelation through this kind of storytelling.