Stanley Hauerwas: Marriage isn’t based on love

America’s most frequently quoted theologian talks with Plough editor Peter Mommsen in 2016 about marriage and the church.
Read the full interview at Plough: www.plough.com...
Subscribe to Plough Quarterly: subscribe.plou...

[@PabloM.-ss6px]

Argument: Marriage isn’t based necessarily on love but in how to build up the holiness of the community, therefore marriage is for sex to have children... (no correlation)

[@nancyrandazzo7777]

Holiness is related to love but it’s not the same as romanticism

[@PabloM.-ss6px]

@@nancyrandazzo7777 so what? every couple knows that after a few years of marriage romanticism will mostly go away, this part of the argument goes well. But which is the relationship with the conclusion? The true NON SEQUITUR

[@nancyrandazzo7777]

@@PabloM.-ss6px “therefore marriage is for sex to have children” what does that mean?

[@PabloM.-ss6px]

​@@nancyrandazzo7777 that does not follow logically from or is not clearly related to what was previously said (holiness of the community). Humanity and culture have enriched the meaning of marriage in myriads and positive ways just to be animals to reproduce. See any of the hundreds prayers for marriage. "I, N., take you, N., to be my XXX. I promise to be faithful to you, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love you and to honor you all the days of my life." This is holier than saying "I, N., take you, N., to be my reproducer forever"

[@nancyrandazzo7777]

@@PabloM.-ss6px I agree; and I know Hauerwas’s work well enough to know that he does not think marriage is for reproducing. What you are saying here is more aligned; how our prayers together, our honor of each other, create the kinds of unity that produces holiness in a community

[@ryr1974]

As much as I respect SH I just don't see the biblical basis for this defining trait since the bible goes to special lengths to note the practice non procreative reasons for marriage-- to not be a lone, to have a help mate, to not burn in your lust. Even his resistance to teh individualistic model of being in love or of non arranged marriage. I think he is awfully quick to dismiss values that grew along side and i would say are outgrowths of christian individualism and the replacement o kinship with membership in teh body of Christ. Christians early on adopted at least some ritual recognition of the importance of each person deciding and commmiting to teh marriage without pressure and coercion. As for his criteria - that would illigitimize many christian male female marriages and offer the possibility to embrace many a male amale or female female relationship.Through marriage to a man I have found the ability to welcome a child who needed a home and even byond that we have made a home that welcomes persons when they cant find a job- are needing a place to rebuild and deal with teh fll out of somme poor decisions, and belongings of those who lost their homes durring and after teh financial crisis. So how have I had less obedience to a call to hospitality than other persons.

[@PabloM.-ss6px]

Really, I do not follow the argument. I do not understand how to build up the holiness of the community you need to necessarily be procreative... I may be true to the memory of a once pastoral nomadic tribe which needed desperately to procreate but to bring it to XXI century has no sense, in mi view. I can think thousands different ways a couple build up the holiness of a community in our times that are not necessary to procreate. Neither religiously not logically...

[@Christmas_93]

Cheer up Brethren church