December 31, 2010: Retroactive Fornication

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure.
Hebrews 13:4

I don't know a single person who isn't a devout Christian who takes premarital chastity seriously. Not even one. Out of all the wedding ceremonies I have conducted, only one was for a couple that wasn't already living together. Only professing Christians seem to understand that sex is for married people. But even among Christians, I have heard expressed a thought on this matter that, in my mind, is fraught with danger. It goes like this:

"When you get down to it, legal marriage is just a piece of paper. My fiance and I are Christians, and we are fully committed to each other for life. So why not have sex now? We're not committing adultery, we're not sleeping around with other people. Since marriage begins (in the eyes of the Lord) with sexual intercourse, we can't be said to be having pre-marital sex at all. In God's reality, we're married already! There's nothing pre- about it. We just haven't announced it or had the ceremony or 'made it official' in the eyes of the world."

Some of you might be very surprised to know that, in principle, I agree that the marriage ceremony in our culture technically involves just a piece of paper with legal implications. And I also agree that that paper, signed on a certain date and accompanied by ceremony and celebration, is not really what constitutes marriage before God. Marriage involves the union of two people. Different cultures mark that union differently, and things like ceremonies and vows and rings and certificates are man-made additions to the universal reality. Isaac just "took Rebekah to his mother's tent" (Genesis 24:66), and wa-la, buddabing-buddaboom, they were married.

So what's wrong with "taking Rebekah to your mother's tent" tonight, and then having the official ceremony, say, five months from now?

Here's the problem. Such couples are not taking into account the dangers of second thoughts and sudden death.

Despite statements to the effect that "We're as good as married already," the fact is that, for some people, the psychological reality of marital commitment does not settle in until the actual wedding day when rings are exchanged. Till that day, some feel they still have the option of calling it off (whether or not they have informed their partners of this conviction.)

True stories of second thoughts and broken relationships (various sources):

Allen is a gullible soul with an admittedly spotty marital record. He is a Christian now and trying to do the right thing. He confessed to a minister that after he "got involved with" Barbara - the last woman he was engaged to - she sat him down one evening some weeks before their scheduled wedding and said, "I'm not so sure that getting married is a good idea." Oops.

Catherine is a pastor's daughter. She met Donald in college, and they got engaged at a time when both were devoted to Christian service. At first they decided to wait till marriage, but then decided that engagement was really pretty much the same thing. She got pregnant five months before they were to wed. When she approached Donald about moving up their wedding date to accommodate the pregnancy, he said, "I'm having second thoughts about getting married at all."

Ellen's bond with Christian worker Franklin seemed almost mystical, and definitely Holy-Spirit led. She even had a vision that confirmed to her that she and Franklin would be together. So why wait till the marriage was official? They didn't wait - and then, to Ellen's shock and bewilderment, Franklin simply walked away.

But "second thoughts" - or one or both partner's inconstancy - is not the only problem. When I referred earlier to the possibility of sudden death, I meant that literally. One of the reasons I give to engaged Christian couples for refraining from sex has to do with the possibility - however remote and tragic - that one of them could die before the wedding. It happens. I personally know two people whose fiances died suddenly and unexpectedly. And I read about one woman, Greta, who told her pastor,

"Hank and I were so much in love...As we counted down the days to the wedding, we began to feel married...That's why when we slept together that night it didn't feel wrong. A few days later Hank was killed in a car accident. He never knew that I was pregnant, and my child will never know his daddy. Please share my story with other students. I hope it will spare them the pain and shame I live with."

If the fiance with whom you are sleeping dies before you wed, you won't be able to say to your future spouse, "I'm a virgin. I saved my virginity for you, for our wedding night."

When Lisa and I got engaged last year, I explained to her the ground rules from the beginning. "We can't have sex till we're married," I said. Please understand - I'm no prude, and my desires are every bit as intense as any other red-blooded male. And I regard Christian extremists who won't kiss until their wedding day as, well, extremists. But I know what the rules are, and I know why they're there. Among the reasons to refrain from premarital sex is what I call "retroactive fornication". It seemed fine when you did it ("We're going to get married anyway!") - until, out of the blue, your partner changed his or her mind, or died. That's when it occurs to you that, somehow (how did this happen?), you got turned into a fornicator after the fact.