BREAKING
THE MARRIAGE

IDOL

RECONSTRUCTING OUR CULTURAL
AND SPIRITUAL NORMS

KUTTER CALLAWAY

Introduction

PART 1: THE CHURCH AND CULTURE AS EASY BEDFELLOWS

1 Disney Princesses, Taylor Swift, and The Bachelor: Pop Culture as Premarital Counselor and Sex Therapist

2 The Internal Narratives of Contemporary Evangelicalism: Waiting on True Love, Kissing Dating Goodbye, and Bringing Up Princes and Princesses

PART 2: RECONSIDERING THE BIBLICAL WITNESS

3 Bone of My Bones and Flesh of My Flesh: The First Testament on Marriage and What It Means to Be Human

4 Like a Virgin: The New Testament on Singleness and What It Means to Be Sexual

PART 3: DEVELOPING A THEOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

5 The Call of Marriage ( or, Why Christians Should Get Married)

6 Desire in Singleness: Ascetics and Eternity ( or, Why Christians Don’t Need to Get Married)—by Joshua Beckett

7 Sex, Saints, and Singleness: Practical ( Re) Considerations

Conclusion: A Family Who Forgives Together . . .

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Notes

General Index

Scripture Index

Praise for Breaking the Marriage Idol

About the Author

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

Copyright

VIGNETTES

1 Sitting at the Grownups’ Table—by Jennifer Graffius

2 Running to Stand Still—by Lindy Williams

3 Battle Fatigue—by Michael Beardslee

4 More Than Just a Label—by Debi Yu

5 About a Christian Divorce—by Sarey Martin

6 Not Whole—by Anonymous

7 Cold Feet—by Claire Crisp

8 Single Not Solitary—by Colton Simmons

9 December—by Joshua Beckett

INTRODUCTION

I HAVE BEEN MARRIED for nearly twenty years. I am also the proud father of three young girls. As such, bedtime routines have taken on a kind of significance I never knew possible. My wife and I cherish these moments with our daughters, in part because we know they are fleeting. It’s all fairly mundane really. We brush teeth, pray for one another, and, more times than not, read books together. But it’s more than that. It is also a time when we get to imagine with them—to envision the world and their place in it not as it currently is, but as it one day could be. Seeing reality through their eyes is an experience in sheer possibility. When we read books together, it seems like every nook and cranny of existence is filled to the brim with potential, expectancy, and wonder. As we dive headlong into these imaginary worlds, nothing is impossible.

It is perhaps for this very reason that I am increasingly haunted by some of the stories we come across, even though my daughters are still unable to see beneath their surface. We recently encountered one such tale in an otherwise whimsical collection of children’s stories written and illustrated by Richard Scarry. The title is innocuous enough: “Is This the House of Mistress Mouse?” But the story is far from innocent, for it paints a picture of the world that is as powerful as it is unsettling. Some may be familiar with this story already, but for those who are not, it chronicles a particularly ...