That’s the subject of my short essay over at Relevant Magazine.
I sound a note that will doubtlessly be a familiar one to readers of Mere-O and of Earthen Vessels, but the brouhaha affords evangelicals an opportunity to re-examine our own understanding of the relationship between marriage and bodies.
And so I did.
Marriage requires a covenant in part because loyalty is the lifeblood of love. But the body will decay, and the temple will come to ruins. We may not wear the bottoms of our trousers rolled, to quote T.S. Eliot, but my wife and I will almost certainly grow old. And in the slow corruption of our flesh, the vow takes on a new dimension, making it possible for us to imitate the sacrifice of Christ’s body through the giving of our own. It is the cross that is the shape of love in a broken world, and it is the cross we must carry in order to love broken bodies.