What a Trend We Have in Jesus

Yesterday at work we recieved a new catalogue from Crossway Books, a Wheaton, Illinois, based book publisher. Receiving a full page of hype was an upcoming release from Jerry Jenkins entitled Hedges: Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It. The book is actually a reworked version of a book Jenkins had published back in 1990 called, appropriately enough, Hedges: Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It. In some ways I'm all for it. Anything that will shut evangelical Christians the hell up about gay marriage for five minutes is okay in my book. Still, I've got a bone to pick. The gist of the book is protecting your marriage by guarding it against situations from which adultery could arise. Fair enough. Good advice. But at the end of the day, the overall implication here is that adultery arises from outside the marriage. That's true as far as it goes. Realistically though, marriages bust apart from within. There are reasons people cheat. Usually it's because one (or both) members of the marriage are bored. This marriage thing is hard work (to borrow George Bush's favorite first debate phrase). It's easy to grow aloof, detached and complacent. The root of this thing is from within, not from outside. And no hedge is going to protect you from yourself. What really troubles me, though, is this holy quest in Christendom to be above reproach. In some sense that's what Jenkins' book is really about. That's also part of the reason why homosexuality and abortion are such important sins for so many Christians. Why focus on your own failures when you can focus on the sins you're never going to commit? Why worry about the poor or suffering? Why speak out against a warmongering antichrist like Bush and his fake war? Why bring down sweat shops and corporations who steal from employees and the government alike? Why volunteer to tutor an inner city child? Why fight to make sure that all votes are counted in elections, even those belonging to voters who aren't white? It's so much easier to blame the problems of this American Babylon on others than to deal with our own inaction.