A Marriage and Sex Idolatry Checklist
How to Make it Easy to Idolize Marriage and Sex
Here is a collection of ways to make it exceptionally easy for folks to idolize marriage and sex, all the while convincing them that it is really just respect. Of course, these strategies are cumulatively effective, so if you really want to cultivate idolatry, be sure to do as many of the following as possible!
Describe marriage as a necessary stage in spiritual maturity, not a very good gift that God gives to some people, but not everyone.
Cast doubt on the maturity of unmarried people after a certain age.
Publicly celebrate decades of married fidelity and commitment to a spouse, but not decades of undivided devotion to Christ in celibacy.
Depict all same-sex attraction as rooted in idolatry, but all opposite-sex attraction as an indication of a calling to marriage.
Teach frequently about “biblical masculinity and femininity,” rooting them in the relationship between a husband and a wife or parents and children.
Have resources and scripts and sermon or homily applications for married people already worked out, but leave the practicalities of the celibate life for unmarried people to figure out on their own.
Only use homily or sermon illustrations about marriage and romance to talk about commitment, fidelity, love, and passion.
Use the phrase “the gift of singleness” to refer exclusively to the lack of any strong sexual feelings or desire for romantic relationship.
Offer only premarital and marital counseling at your church.
Devote a whole sermon series to marriage, but only use the last five minutes of the last sermon to talking about celibacy.
Publicly pray that unmarried people in your church would find spouses, not that they would feel content with the life God gives them.
Connect any desire for caring for children with a calling to marriage.
Condense the entire spectrum of experiences of singleness and celibacy (gay, straight, younger, older, temporary, lifelong) into one.
Claim “I can relate to the struggles of celibate folks” because you spent roughly five years being single before you met your spouse.
Highlight passages like Ephesians 5 as “God’s design for marriage,” and downplay 1 Corinthians 7 as “Paul’s opinion on celibacy.”
Teach young people to ask themselves, “Who is God calling me to marry?” rather than “Is God calling me to marry or not?”
Imply, through phrases like “only friends” and “more than friends”, that friendship cannot be central or foundational like marriage.
Divide Sunday School or adult education classes into “married” and “single”; use the single class as a way to get people married.
Joke frequently about children being a “ladies’ man” or “heartbreaker”, or about them eventually marrying one another.
Speak about the discipleship of younger unmarried believers in terms of “preparing you for your future spouse.”
Consistently over-sexualize all physical intimacy, claiming everything is either foreplay or a stepping stone on the way to sex.
Actively distrust anything that asexual folks say about their experience; say things like, “all red-blooded human beings want sex"!”
Refuse to acknowledge different aspects of attraction (aesthetic, emotional, etc.), and use “attraction” only to talk about sexual desire.
Never discuss what it might mean to “make yourself a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (see Matthew 19:12).
Interpret all critiques of the “nuclear family” as attacks, rather than invitations to expand our limited cultural idea of family.
Any other strategies I am missing? Any of these strategies you might quibble with or modify? Any strategies you would add to this list?
Great list! I’m a privately vowed celibate Catholic man, and I would add four to the list that I’ve personally experienced:
1.) Offer nothing in your diocese for single people between ages 18 and 45 except for a young adults group which is quietly really a matchmaking club for single Catholics.
2.) Pray for “priests, religious, deacons, holy marriages and holy families” during every Mass, but never pray for single people, not even in the petitions. I actually know of someone who, sadly, left the Catholic Church after attending this parish because she didn’t see a place in the Church for single people.
3.) In your men’s group, use a curriculum that is not relatable at all to the experiences of celibate men.
4.) Recognize anniversaries during the petitions but the special prayer offered for those people during anniversaries is written so that it only applies to wedding anniversaries and doesn’t include consecrated virgins or privately vowed celibate laypeople (or religious or priests, for that matter).
Great list, Grant. I would add one: Depicting marriage and having children as basically without suffering, and treating each family as if they can survive in isolation from one another.
This is a kind of marriage and family idolatry that comes back to bite people who are married with families, once they realize that, especially having children, but also working on one’s marriage relationship, is quite difficult.
Recognizing the difficulty and trials of marriage and family opens up space for those who are single and celibate and those who are married to see their need of one another. It also counters the vision of marriage as a kind of temporal salvation.