The Christian Marriage Dilemma

Marrying a Christian woman won’t necessarily give you a Christian marriage.

Readership: All; Christian Men;
Length: 2,900 words
Reading Time: 10 minutes

Running the Gauntlet

Earlier in my life, as I was struggling with my choices in the marriage marketplace, a married, Christian lady who knew me rather well gave me some very wise advice, but it was also very confusing advice.

“You need a Christian marriage more than you need a Christian wife.”

At the time, I had no idea why she made a distinction between the two.  I struggled with this conflicting dichotomy for years, trying to make sense of it.

I had made a commitment to myself that I would only “date” women who were Christians with the intentions of marriage. I attended a Christian college which I thought would increase my chances of meeting someone appropriate. Although I must have “dated” close to 200 women during my college years — most all of them professing Christians — again and again, I found that these women had no Christian mental concept of purpose in dating and marriage. Instead, they had an unspoken assumption that sexual relations should commence within the first few “dates”, and some of them showed little restraint in this expectation. Over the years, I met several women who posed a significant temptation to engage in sexual relations. Since I was hesitant to go forward outside of marriage, I was invariably rejected.

For years, I endured this cycle of temptation and rejection, never getting anywhere closer to marriage. To say I was “tempted sore” (as the Bible describes) is a severe understatement. To make matters worse, my parents divorced while I was in college, and this made me more confused about what kind of woman would be right for me. By the time I reached my late 20s, I had become rather cynical about “dating” and angry at God.

Yes, I was Blue Pilled, as was every guy in my generation (Xers) at that time. Yes, I had my own set of problems and hang-ups, including generational curses and anger towards my mother for divorcing my dad. But I couldn’t understand why I should be excluded from the grace of God and the blessings of obedience and believing in God. I always had a creeping feeling that something wasn’t right, but I could never put my finger on exactly what it was.  I didn’t recognize how postmodernism had infiltrated the church and had morphed into Christianality.  I never realized that Christian women were entirely subsumed by the wider Western sex culture.  Actually, no one was cognitively aware of this back then.

Non-Christians who behave like Christians?

A few years later, I came to Taiwan and I met many women here who actually ACTED like what I had always envisioned a Christian woman to be like – soft-spoken, humble, demure, kindhearted, and honorable. They were community oriented, looking to help and serve others.  They were respectful to men and dutiful to the elderly.  They held a high regard for marriage and viewed sexual relations seriously.  They were also thin, attractive, and well dressed. I was astonished to discover that these women were not actually Christians!  They were Buddhists, Daoists, and some were agnostic.  What a shocker!*

In a controversial post, Why do Christian women have the reputation of being wh0res? (2019 February 23), I briefly described this strange phenomenon I had learned through my personal experience living in Taiwan – how the typical Asian Buddhist woman might make a better wife than the typical Western Christian woman.

“Even here in Asia, if a western guy wants to get laid, scoping out the local single women at the nearest Christian church will yield a better lay ratio than hitting up a bar. Many women go to Church for the sole purpose of meeting and slaking foreigners. If a man wants to have a “Christian marriage”, he’s wiser to marry a thin, mature, submissive, respectful, Buddhist woman, and lead her to Christ in the process. That’s no joke!  They are more likely to be loyal for life, because they take their wedding vows seriously.”

For the first time in my life, I was able to get a glimpse of what my friend was talking about – that I needed a Christian marriage more than I needed a Christian wife.  For a long time after I discovered this, I thought long and hard about how this could be true and how I might best implement this truth in my life.  Is it really “God’s will” for me to marry a non-Christian woman?  How could I share my Christian faith inside a marriage with a non-Christian wife?  Wouldn’t our children be confused?  I was still in a quandary.

* From this, it is apparent that cultural expectations and upbringing have a much stronger influence on women’s behavior than religious affiliation or devoutness.  I presume that genetics also plays a significant role.

Christians who behave like Non-Christians?

Deti said something that helps make sense of this.  In The Feminist Life Script (2020 December 17), he described why Christian women of the West are fundamentally less than Christian.

“All women, and I mean ALL women, born after about 1960 are marinated in feminism and are feminists.  All women in the US over the age of 25 are feminists, and I don’t care what anyone says to the contrary because it’s not true.  EVERY man who has gotten married in the last 40 years married a feminist.”

I think the answer to my quandary is contained in this paradox.  The Buddhist women I met in Taiwan were taught filial piety, which conditioned them to be obedient to God’s created order, whereas the (nominal) Christian women of the west were steeped in feminism and were thoroughly disobedient to God’s created order.  I have met a significant number of Muslim exchange students over the years, and from what I can see, they are also more obedient to God’s created order than Western “Churchians”, especially in the area of Headship.

In summary, whatever religion a woman claims to believe in doesn’t really mean as much as whether she is actually obedient to God in her daily living.  The way we’ve heard this truth expressed in Red Pill parlance is “Don’t listen to what women say.  Watch what they actually do.”  Likewise, women who claim to be Christians, and who may even quote scripture and attend church, but who also believe in Feminist ideology and/or follow the Feminist Life Script, fit under this bill.  They “talk the talk”, but they don’t “walk the walk”.  They may have an appearance of godliness, but they deny the power of conforming to God’s intended ideal of them being submissive wives and feminine mothers.

Nikole Mitchell, former church leader and OnlyFans celebrity.

How does Christianity Apply to the Current SMP/MMP?

In NovaSeeker’s previous post, The Sexual Market IS the Marriage Market (2021 February 22), it was concluded that, in the Western feminist culture, young people must run the gauntlet of the SMP before being eligible for the MMP. This is true even among Christians and within the church. When this social melee is compared to other cultures, as vividly exemplified by my own life experiences written above, we come to a very uncomfortable truth concerning both the Churchian social culture and Western culture (which are basically converged).

Marrying a Christian woman won’t necessarily give you a Christian marriage.

Several questions arise at this point.

1. What actually makes a person a Christian?
2. What motivates a person to be obedient (or disobedient)?
3. Is having a Christian Marriage (i.e. Headship) really more important than having a Christian spouse?

The remainder of this post will explore these questions.

What actually makes a person a Christian?

Last year, I wrote a series of posts on the Purity Movement.  I was sad to see that, other than two posts in particular, these posts were not very popular.  In one post, The Elimination of the Church (2020 May 29), I wrote,

“Among those who were marginal or cultural Christians, it became fashionable to be more or less spiritually “preoccupied” with various Idols of the Tribe.  For example, those with a relatively high SMV were busy worshipping the fruits of the sexual revolution, and low SMV duds and snits were busy worshipping chivalry and feminism, respectively.”

There was a diffuse, unnamed fear that was prevalent within the Purity Movement.

“This fear caused a trifurcation of moral realism.  One group took abstinence to the prudish puritanical extreme and shot themselves in the foot in regards to their MMV.  Another group dabbled in sexual relations without “going all the way”, and used their technical virginity as a false psychological justification for remaining pure.  A third group was comprised of those who engaged in clandestine fornication and dealt with the stigma by either keeping it a secret, or else putting social distance between themselves and others in the Purity culture, all done in order to reduce the risk of possible exposure and the resulting shame.

Of course, some had already decided that they were going to explore their sexuality, and they could not handle the denial or duplicity of the second or third group respectively.  These individuals chose to leave the church altogether.”

What we are seeing here is the failure of the Church to provide a functional social context in which young people can move towards marriage.  As a result, it became relatively impossible for the mating process to fit the traditional Christian mold of courtship. So because there was no framework set in place to mold the growth of their faith, they chased after their personal desires, in some form or fashion. All in all, young people within the church lost sight of what it means to be a Christian.

If we answered the question of what actually makes a person a Christian? strictly on the basis of who is obedient to God’s ordained order, then virtually no one in the West would qualify. Everyone has compromised in some form or fashion. It is impossible not to do so, because the entire western culture is built on an amalgamation of Greco-Roman-Gothic values that have been whitewashed with a veneer of Christian values. Only recently, have we seen the bitter fruit of this society revealed in the decay and decline of Western morality and the now obvious corruption of “Christianality”.  As things stand now, there are exceedingly few people, even among Christians, who really know what it means to be obedient.

Joshua Harris, former pastor and author of “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”.

What motivates a person to be obedient (or disobedient)?

The purpose of being obedient is to partake in the beauty and blessings of God’s ordained order and His divine plans for one’s life.  In order to be obedient, we must recognize and appreciate God’s creation, His order, and His plans. If a person doesn’t taste the flavor of this through the family of origin or church involvement, then it is easy to miss in the mess of secular cultural influences.

If a person has no joy in partaking in the beauty of God’s ordained order through being obedient… if a person doesn’t understand the purposes of being obedient in accordance with His divine plans for one’s life… nor possess any hope to obtain the blessings of obedience… if there is no glorious sense of identity in Christ, then obedience becomes little more than rigamarole rule keeping — a legalistic exercise in fruitless futility. The willpower alone may not be enough to restrain one from joining in the ways of this world.

On the other hand, the wider secular culture is blaring a loud message that meticulously lays out all the adventures and alluring ecstasies of being disobedient, complete with a beautiful life plan and purpose.

• Liberal and profuse justifications of various deviations from morality abound (e.g. “single mothers need love too”; relaxed dress codes being the norm; the belief that love justifies immoral intimacy; etc.).
• The immediate satisfactions of profligacy appear to outweigh the arduous task of denying the fleshly nature.
• The value of exercising self-control has been replaced by the moxie of “Finding Yourself™”.
• Delaying gratification with respect to a larger sense of purpose is regarded as prudish.
• Drawing healthy boundaries has been suspended in favor of dissipation and lawlessness.
• Propriety has waned and has been transformed into the “Fear of Missing Out™” (FOMO).
• Any long term benefits of obedience become obscured and difficult, if not impossible to achieve.
• Any rewards of obedience are summarily ignored, or otherwise presented as naïve abstractions which carry little guarantee of fulfillment.

All of these influences call us to worship the god of sexual identity by partaking in the freedom of fleshly pleasures and the soul numbing satisfactions of corruption.  Thus, the path of obedience has become exactingly legalistic and detached while barely promising infinitesimal benefits, while the path of disobedience is the ostensible working “solution”, portrayed as prevalent in the wider culture, and well justified.  Those who try to straddle the fence in an effort to obtain the best of both worlds have to swallow an assortium of lies to do so.

It stands to reason that the true Christian is the one who lives a life that is uniquely distinct from the world – in spite of the sacrifices. Yet, even this is commonly confused with Rousseau’s individualistic approach to life when God is totally omitted.

Is having a Christian Marriage (i.e. Headship) really more important than having a Christian spouse?

Going back to my story in the beginning of this post, it is clear that I was faced with a difficult choice of compromises with no clear answer.

1. A nominally “christian” woman who has been steeped in the doctrines of feminism and materialism since her childhood, who is deeply entrenched in worldly values and lifestyles, and who, at some level, is at war against men and God’s ordained order of Patriarchy.
2. A non-Christian woman who embraces Christian practices, such as Headship, and is already familiar with living a life in obedience to God’s created order.  Such a woman may or may not be willing to convert to Christianity.
3. There is a third choice, even more uncomfortable than either of the first two.  Continue waiting for a Christian woman who has the mind and habits necessary to build a Christian marriage. In my case, I waited for nearly two decades without finding anyone to my liking.  Eventually, I buckled under the temptation and ran the gauntlet properly. I also had a failed first marriage.

Granted, this may be painting a false dichotomy with a broad brush, but the overall differences should now be clear to my readers. 

When men are faced with the question, “Which kind of mate would you prefer?”, the answers come down to something like this.

1. A Christian woman from a feminist culture, who has the mind of an arrogant 16-year-old girl, and acts like a slore?
2. A (insert other religion here) woman from a patriarchal culture, who talks like a lady, and acts like a Christian?*
3. Marry your fist, and forego having a wife altogether.

Choice 1 is the wide road leading to destruction which many western men have walked.
Choice 2 is difficult to find, and tortuously arduous in the adjustment.
Choice 3 is basically MGTOW, 30+ years of masturbation, and no family nor children when you are older.

Which one would you choose?  Any choice you make requires some type of sacrifice.

* There are Christian alternatives, such as joining the Amish or starting your own commune, but implementing this type of option is just as difficult as searching for a wife abroad.

Image Source: Schwartz and Sweet: 10 Things That Happen When You’re a Non-Amish Woman Married to an Ex-Amish Man (2019 January 7)

Conclusion

In his post, On the ethics of teenage marriage (2020 December 18), NovaSeeker answered the fundamental question of how to navigate this dilemma.

“It comes down to how much we are of the world, how compromised we are with it, how different we are willing to be from it.  Each of us makes our own decisions in these areas. I say that not to point fingers — I am personally no sort of “ultra” in these regards, not at all. But I do think we need to realize that we are all compromised by the culture, and we should resist the temptation to baptize or otherwise bless/sanctify our own reasoned compromises with the culture in which we live, rather than seeing them as just that — personal compromises that we personally judge as being appropriate, based on the culture in which we live and its broader standards.  How that fits into our own personal approach to living in the world, but not of it, is necessarily ensconced within the particular time and place of our culture, including all of the norms of said culture.”

As NovaSeeker wrote, under the present circumstances, it is a matter of how much (or how little) one is willing to compromise with the culture in which we live.

Readers might be disappointed with this conclusion if they try to correlate any compromise at all with a lack of true faith. Whether this is true depends on the context. The reality is that there is no perfect solution. Some type of compromise is inevitable as a cost of opportunity.  In fact, God intended life to be this way so that we would break free from the logical contraptions of our minds and realize faith.

If you’re struggling with the unsatisfactory choices described in this post, and the degree of compromise is your biggest concern, then your faith is not fully formed. You’ll always suffer from the regret of making one choice over another, and the bitterness of being forced to choose will eat away at your soul. You’ll be double minded, and you’ll miss the grace of God.

Instead of focusing on how much or how little we compromise, we need to get in touch with the Spirit of God, because there is no way to justify ourselves in this mess through our own logic, good choices, and self-discipline. The practical application comes down to your individual convictions about the issues in question and what you believe is God’s purpose for your life.

When making a choice, what does your heart tell you (your heart, not your mind) will glorify God and lead to your inner peace with God, your redemption, and sanctification in this present life?

If you are unfamiliar with this Heart-Led approach to faith, then I strongly suggest that you read Ed Hurst’s posts at Do What’s Right.  And pray!

Related

• Do What’s Right: Recognizing the Need for Redemption (2018 November 2)
• Σ Frame: The Elimination of the Church (2020 May 29)
• Do What’s Right: Peace in This World Not Possible (2020 July 7)
• Do What’s Right: Untrustworthy Logic (2021 January 20)
• Roosh Valizadeh: 3 Spiritual Types Of Women (2021 March 1)