OUR COUNTRY COULD USE SOME MARRIAGE COUNSELING

When I survey the volatile landscape of America, the divisive verbal vitriol lobbed back and forth, the raucous partisanship, the explosive tension between protestors of different groups, I think of marriage. (I know, right?) Not that the above describes marriage in general, but, that it reminds me of something I always stress in pre-marital counseling. To the dismay of the eager couple, I drain a lot of the mystique of romance from finding the “right one” by telling them whether they have a successful marriage or not comes down to how many compatibilities they share. It’s scientific. It’s mathematic. The more compatibilities they have, the greater the possibility they will have of a successful, lasting marriage. I prophesy that in their marriage they will inevitably have conflict, disagreements, differing opinions but emphasize their marriage can survive all of those if they are compatible. It is then that I point out that there is a hierarchy of compatibilities. After a mutual faith experience, the most important compatibilities are values and beliefs. The two may lack compatibilities of temperament, tastes of food and music, preference of auto vehicles, etc., but however hampering their differences may be, however fierce and frequent their argument over these, they can make marriage work if they are compatible in values and beliefs. Put simply, the couple may have differences of opinion, but their marriage cannot survive if they have differences of values--at least in no wholesome, happy way. There has always been bitter political conflict in America, rancorous, fierce disputes in Congress, disagreement in the market, streets, and homes, rowdy debate in places of learning. But something has changed in America: The argument used to be largely about differences of opinion, not about different values. Both sides shared common values—the values of the Judeo-Christian western world. That does not mean they were all Christians. It does not mean they all went to churches. Some went to synagogues. Some went nowhere. It does not mean they were all a part of the same political party. It means they shared unifying values. Values such as the worth of the individual, the preeminence of freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion, the necessity of private ownership of property and law and order, etc. They shared the values our society had derived from Scriptures, the values enshrined in the constitution, the values that hundreds of thousands died fighting for in the Revolutionary, Civil, World I & II, and subsequent wars. The row over opinions was rowdy, rambunctious, belligerent, and bellicose, but it was a family fight. The blood of values was thicker than the water of opinions. No more. This is no longer a family fight. This is not a husband and wife disagreement. This is a bitter war between two sides that have two completely antithetical sets of values. Though the conflict today is nationally internecine, it is no different from the cold war conflict between then free-market America and communist Russia. With no shared values there are no grounds for possible disagreement of opinions. With no shared values those of opposing camps with differing opinions become like two without a shared language trying to debate. They end up shouting at each other simultaneously louder and louder since neither understands the other. In America where there are no longer shared values, folks are not having debates, they are not discussing the issues at hand, they are just screaming at those they know disagree with them. Those that speak their language hear them and applaud, but they never hear the other side; nor the other side, they. This “marriage” cannot survive. Personally, I think the real danger of implosion in our nation isn’t that the two “sides” now have different values, but that one side now has no true values at all. Not values based on objective, absolute principle, and precept. They have only ever-evolving, capricious contrived causes, faddish relativistic based outrages, and ill-made subjective conclusions drawn from gobbledygook postmodern philosophies. When a married couple has conflict, in counsel, I always take them back to values. Those are found in the Bible. No value can originate in or be derived from the individual. True values are not uniquely discovered values that I have custom created. They exist outside of me. They are mine only in the sense that I choose to make them the values by which I live my life. If we go to a common source for our values, we will have shared values. Having shared values, we can survive the difference in our opinions and preferences. With shared values, a marriage can survive—our country can survive. Our country could use some serious marriage counseling along these lines.