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If you haven’t heard, Mark Driscoll and his wife have come out with another book entitled Real Marriage*. If you haven’t heard about it yet, then turn on the TV and you will probably see them. 
The book is getting a lot of press because of the graphic questions answered in Chapter 10 entitled, “Can we _______?” These topics will obviously not be discussed here, but you can easily find ones that did by a short Google search. Yet…
As a pastor, I’m going to be cleaning up this “Real Marriage” mess. Here’s why in a simply scenario…
- Male Christian college student reads book including chapter 10
- College student smiles and says to himself, “I can’t wait to get married!”
- Man graduates from college and meets Christian girlfriend
- Couple gets married
- Husband expects wife to do all that is in Real Marriage chapter 10 that is “okay,” or at least try it
- Results:
- Wife says no, is greatly offended
- Husband is then forced to use the classic “the Bible says it is okay” to persuade wife
- Wife agrees and feels guilty, dirty and gross. This will lead to a life of accepting this as a new normal, while husband fist bumps his buddies.
- Wife did not see this coming and gets out of marriage because she is fearful of what this will lead to in the future.
- Couple winds up in my office getting marriage counseling.
- Wife says no, is greatly offended
I would rather this not happen to a Christian couple. It will hurt marriage rather than be a “real marriage.” Please stop the shenanigans to sell books. The Gospel of Christ is worth more. Please don’t sleep on the roof of the church to sell books on sex. Please don’t write antinomian books about sex in Christian marriage. Who cares about the money, it’s not worth the marriage counseling we will need to fix this in the years to come. Christ is enough. His Word is enough. In the meantime, I’ll be preparing for the flood of counselees in the coming years if nothing changes.
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*In full disclosure, I have not read the book and do not plan to. I did pick it up in a LifeWay and begin to read chapter 10. I wanted to at least try it before I knocked it. I could not get that far. I felt icky and put it down after about a page. Didn’t even get to the “good parts”
