The twentieth century has been one long retreat from this God-given permission to love. We are not inviting people to be good. We know well that it is impossible to ‘be good’. We cannot. Salvation is what we are hoping for. What we are saying is that there is a love that is true and real and lasting. There is this real love, and there are many fraudulent copies of it. We are simply telling anyone who will listen that they have no need to content themselves with what is fake. They don’t need to be fake people with fake love, because they can have love that is lasting and real. They are not bound to live with any fraudulent love, always fearful that even that will be withdrawn by anyone who is even less confident than ourselves.
Marriage is our public acknowledgement that lasting love is reciprocal, consensual and productive. Marriage gives us public permission to suffer, to endure and to learn the character by which we can do so. We love truly by passing on the love we have received from God, who is the source of all love, and who is the only guarantor that this love will one day come good.
