I bumped into a minister friend of mine in the city this morning and we got talking about the Marriage Bill.  He made a great point about the confusion that exists in our society about marriage.  He’s right, what is it that people actually want, is it the wedding ceremony with all the frills or is it the declaration of covenant?

I thought conventional marriage (soon it may be illegal for me to say that) had gone out of vogue; the normal modern process is that a couple meet, fall in love, have lots of sex, move in with each other, buy a house, have children and then get married at the end of the process.  And if you get it wrong you can simply marry multiple times, not all at the same time of course that is still illegal, but now thinking about it that doesn’t seem fair, why can’t I have the right to have more than one wife at a time?

Marriage is a brilliant God idea, but it is not easy.  In all our human frailty we get things wrong and it is incredibly sad when a marriage ends.  I have many friends who have gone through the pain of a broken marriage, but nevertheless it is a serious matter before God.

A blog by Freddy Gray appeared in the Spectator which advocated getting more serious about marriage .. ‘by emphasising the sacred and formal nature of Christian marriage, the words Holy Matrimony – even if they sound fogeyish now – might help steer the conventionally minded towards taking it more seriously”.  I wonder if he is right?

Perhaps the unintended consequence of this ill informed and poor legislation is that the sacred nature of marriage will come to the fore and the church can offer something that God intended to be offered, a life covenant before God between a husband and wife!