I have often talked about the boogeyman of Gnosticism and its egregious side effects after a workout. Gnosticism is a tendency to minimize the body for more ethereal categories; it turns the act of eating chicken wings into an unspiritual act, and I take umbrage at that remark because chicken wings are a Solomonic meal. But alas, Gnosticism is bad and it turns the beauty of tangible living into an exercise in soul-ciology–you can quote me on that.
But if Gnosticism stayed far away from the church, and only emerged from its cave once every 23rd Spring, like Jeepers Creepers, we would make it a topic of interest in the spring prior in preparation. However, Gnosticism is everywhere in the church. It shows up in praise choruses about wreckless loves and stuff, you know, like cool. But it is also more pervasive than we think, especially when it hits close to home in terrific authors whose name will remain hidden (but it rhymes with Schim Schmeller).
This long-standing grandfather of the Presbyterian Church tweeted thusly recently:”We should be neither overly elated by getting married nor overly disappointed by not being so—because Christ is the only spouse that can truly fulfill us and God’s family the only family that will truly embrace and satisfy us.”
As the Germans would say, “Wat is dis!?” This pile of word garbage has the right-sounding words, but it adds up to a dung-grammar pile. I don’t want to say it walks like Gnosticism, but it sure acts like a Gnostic duck. And because of it, my theological nose is all up its business.
Let’s be fairly graphic about this endeavor: What man is not thrilled to have sex with his new wife on the wedding night? Or, what woman does not feel the elation of being protected by her lover? What single man does not feel elated to give his life to another in sacred communion? If a man in his 30’s is not disappointed in his unmarried state, I’d be concerned. There are singular cases of exception, but Mr. Schmeller spoke nothing of it. He made absolute statements excoriating the over-elation of a husband for the love of his wife.
And then the crème de la crème comes at the end when he adds a heavy dose of spirituality to minimize the elevation of marriage. For the record, yes, Jesus is the all and all of marriage, and yes, the church is the best community; and yes, these things are fulfilling in a different category altogether, but they are not to be placed against the category of marriage. If that is the case, then nothing is relevant or worthy of acting elated over.
Don’t take elation out of the equation by adding Jesus to it! Gnosticism is a freak of a monster and it showed up in that little statement viciously, with no mercy! So, in kindness to Mr. Schmeller, I decided to re-quote him:
“We should be overly elated by getting married (Prov. 5:18) and overly disappointed by not being so unless God has a very particular call in my life—because Christ is the true spouse, he accentuates our marriages and truly fulfills it with gratitude and tremendous joy and beyond that, he puts us in his family to add even more benediction to us.”
There. Fixed it.