There is an old saying, ” If you want to start an
argument, bring up politics or religion.” Well, I’m
about to bring up both. I know that it is sacrilege to
intermingle the two but there has always been a link
despite modern attempts to sever it.
If one were to look at the state of marriage and the
state of the state, one could see a link in their
similar troubles. In the sixties, cohabitation began a
sharp increase and so did divorce. It is not
coincidental that distrust of government and political
divisiveness also sharply increased during that time.
As marriage has continued its decay and struggle,
political divisiveness has also grown worse over the
ensuing decades. How in the world could I possibly
link these two concurring events? Marriage and
government? The factor that links them is a
fundamental shift in thinking by Americans. It is the
difference between contract and covenant. I’ll
explain.
A contract is an agreement between two parties that
must fulfill a prior agreed upon service or product
for a certain price. It is a mutual “take-take”
relationship. One party takes payment.The other party
takes product or service. Both must feel a level of
equality in the relationship for it to work. As long
as the mutual “taking” is equal then there is peace.
The moment it becomes unequal for either party there
is discord as the one party not receiving as much is
offended and believes they are being shortchanged. The
offended party may then seek to terminate the contract
and may even seek legal action to regain what has been
lost.
A covenant is a mutual ” give-give” relationship
that is sacrificial in nature. Both parties give
everything they have toward the relationship. It is
the source of the biblical scripture, ” It is better
to give than to receive.” This is because it is more
spiritual and less materialistic in nature than a
contract. Its rewards are less tangible than money or
material possessions. A covenant is about relationship
itself. It values the rewards of the relationship
itself rather than the less rewarding or less lasting
things that are material. It does not require equality
of giving to be effective. It just requires complete
dedication to the relationship. It is fexible and the
“giving” may waver back and forth unequally between
the parties over time but since it is the relationship
itself that is the goal, this inequality does not
cause discord.
Marriage is supposed to be a covenant, not a
contract. It is supposed to be a mutual ” give-give”
rather than a “take-take” relationship because it is
supposed to value the relationship itself rather than
what one may get out of the other person. Covenant
marriage is biblical marriage. Contactual marriage is
secular. A contract is how many people regard modern
marriage. The minute they are not getting their “fair
share” out of it they literally get out of it. And
secular no-fault divorce laws are there to facilitate
that. Cohabitation is a contact relationship without
even a contract. I’ll share a male secret with you
ladies. If you are cohabitating with a man, his sole
purpose for doing so is to soothe your insecurities by
giving you the illusion of permanent relationship. His
real goal is steady sexual relations without covenant
or even contract. He has one foot in your bed and the
other out the door. He’s still shopping. So, marriage
has been downgraded from a covenant to a contract.
This why there are so many broken families. This is
why the intangible that marriage seeks, love, is so
hard to find in relationships today. So, what has that
to do with political discord? Plenty.
The relationship between government and its people
was intended as a covenant relationship not a
contractual one. A “marriage” if you will. our
founding fathers understood this with the language
they chose. A government ” of the people, by the
people, and for the people.” The constitution is a
covenant agreement. It starts out, ” We the people in
order to form a more perfect union”. It did not say, ”
We the government”. Our nation’s leaders had not yet
divorced themselves from the common citizen. John F.
Kennedy understood it also, he said, ” Ask not what
your country can do for you, ask what you can do for
your country.” He was speaking of the citizen’s role
in his covenant relationship with his country. As
citizens, we are to give our full loyalty to our
nation. Our government exists solely to serve those it
governs. Both parties are supposed to be in the
“give-give” mode of covenant because the valuable
intagible we seek is freedom. Unfortunately, our
government has concerned itself with too much “taking”
of our taxes and we, as citizens, have concerned
ourselves too much with “taking” services for those
taxes. Our marriage covenant has become degraded to a
contract and so the distrust and hateful discourse
continues unabated. Let’s pray it does not end in
divorce.
If we, as a nation, want to fix our covenant
relationship with our government and heal our wounds
then it begins where all relationships reside…in our
hearts. We must look beyond ourselves and stop
desiring the contract over the covenant. We must
change our thinking. We must get out of the selfish
mode of taking and get back to what God has taught us
about relationship. That it is about giving. We must
start where this problem began,at home. With our
spouses and children. Because our government is ” of
the people, by the people, and for the people.” That
is relationship. Fix our relationships and we fix our
government.