There is always a hot market for books on marriage, even among men. Every husband is aware of his inadequacies and every husband is genuinely eager to find solutions, especially if the solutions are simple and step-by-step (just like laying laminate flooring or changing oil). Writing a good and biblical book on marriage--now there is a challenge. Few have done it with excellence. Stepping into the fray is Justin Buzzard with his new book Date Your Wife. It's a great title, a good idea, and a helpful imperative that is, unfortunately, substantially flawed.

The book’s greatest strength is drawn straight from its title: Buzzard wants men to build dating into their marriage; he wants men to continue to romance their wives throughout marriage. Any man who reads this book will come away with a greater desire to pursue his wife and greater conviction of the inherent goodness of doing so. The book’s foremost application is valid and good, but there is quite a lot of weakness along the way.

The book is fueled by one core conviction: If you want to change a marriage, change the man. Looking first at the sexual relationship and then widening the scope to all of marriage Buzzard says this: "Your wife isn't the problem. You're the problem. I'm the problem. Men are the problem. If you want to change a marriage, change the man. If you want to change your marriage, you must first see that you are the main problem in your marriage." He goes on: "You are the husband. You are the man. And God has given the man the ability to be the best thing or the worst thing that ever happened to a marriage. Before you can be the best thing that ever happened to your marriage, you need to see that you have always been the worst thing that happened to your marriage."

These are strong and near-universal statements for which he allows no meaningful exceptions. To prove them he goes in an unexpected direction: Genesis 2:15. "The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it." He says this:

Fundamental to his manhood, God gave Adam this double calling: work and keep. These Hebrew verbs can be better translated: cultivate and guard. God commissioned the first man to cultivate the garden and guard the garden. God gave the first man immense responsibility, immense power, to cause the garden to flourish or to fade. ... God gave Adam a job before he gave him a wife. So, when God presented Adam with his bride, what did Adam know he was called to do as a husband? If you had to summarize it in a sentence, what was Adam called to do for his marriage and for his wife? Cultivate and guard it. ... After giving Adam a calling, God gave Adam a wife—the crown jewel of his calling. "Cultivate and protect this woman I've given you; cause life to flourish. Take the raw materials of this marriage and develop them—build, invent, create—so that your wife will flourish and thrive in this environment. Develop and protect what I'm entrusting to you," God said to Adam.

This is an unusual interpretation and application of Genesis 2:15. Certainly this is a text that gives man his job description in this world, but it is quite a stretch to take that same description verbatim into the marriage relationship. It would have been far more helpful, I think, to look to Ephesians 5 where a husband is told to nourish and cherish his wife and where he is told to wash her in the water of God’s word. What Buzzard wants the husband to see is that if your wife is not flourishing, it must be because you, the husband, are not cultivating and guarding her. The key to fulfilling your mandate as a husband is an ongoing dating relationship that continues well past the wedding day.

Right there are the top of the New York Times list of nonfiction bestsellers is The Vow by Kim and Krickitt Carpenter. This book was published by B&H Books (a Christian publisher) twelve years ago, so what is it doing at the top of this week’s list? Well, 4 years before that the authors signed a deal for the movie rights to this story and after all these years that movie has finally hit the big screen. A new edition of the book has been published to coincide with the film and it has raced right to the top of the list.

I have not seen the movie and neither do I intend to, so this is a review of only the book. From what I hear, the film is only very loosely based on the broad outline of the story; not only is it a poor movie according to the reviews, but it also ignores the Christian moorings that are so important to the real-life characters.

So what is The Vow all about? Kim and Krickitt Carpenter had been married for just 10 weeks when they were in a serious accident in which Krickitt suffered traumatic head injuries. When she woke from her coma she had no recollection of her husband and no recollection of ever having been married to him. Not only that, but her personality was very different; once a sweet and kind person, she was now often angry and frustrated and cruel. But in his marriage vows Kim had promised to remain with her, and that is exactly what he did, suffering deeply as he cared for the wife who no longer knew him and who no longer wanted him. The Vow tells their tale, from dating to marriage to the accident and back to dating as they try to fall in love a second time. It is a stirring story in many ways—an inspirational one that deserves to be told.

Central to The Vow is the Carpenter’s Christian faith. There is never any doubt that this is a distinctly Christian book, meant to make the reader understand that the vows that held this couple together were made before God and that even in the darkest days these two remained accountable to God. They give all credit and glory to God as the one who held them together despite their unique and trying circumstances.

Yet despite all of that, I found myself wishing that this book was just a little bit more. I wanted it to dive deeper into the realities of marriage, to do more to anchor the story in gospel truths—not just “Jesus” but “Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead,” not just marriage as an institution, but marriage as a display of the gospel. The broad outline of the story is so good, but the execution feels dry and inadequate. Marriage is certainly not less than “the vow,” but it is so much more!

It must be intimidating to write a book on marriage. Store shelves are groaning under the weight of titles that claim to have the key to a happy marriage, or a biblical marriage or a gospel-centered marriage. To rise above such a crowded field a book needs to offer something different, something unique, something that distinguishes it from the pack. Tim and Kathy Keller have jumped into the fray with their new book The Meaning of Marriage and the distinguishing feature of their book is a deep gospel-centeredness. This leads the Kellers to invite the reader deep into the gospel of Jesus Christ and also compels them to show how the gospel extends to every part of marriage.

Though The Meaning of Marriage is written primarily by Tim Keller, his wife Kathy contributes in several ways, and most notably by contributing one of the chapters and by being the wife to whom Tim has been married for almost four decades. Tim explains that the book has three deep roots. The first of these is his marriage to Kathy, the second is his long pastoral ministry, particularly in New York City in a church dominated by singles, and the third and most foundational is the biblical teaching on marriage as found in both the Old and New Testaments. "Nearly four decades ago, as theological students, Kathy and I studied the Biblical teachings on sex, gender, and marriage. Over the next fifteen years, we worked them out in our own marriage. Then, over the last twenty-two years, we have used what we learned from both Scripture and experience to guide, encourage, counsel, and instruct young urban adults with regard to sex and marriage." They speak from the powerful combination of Scriptural grounding and real-world experience.

The book is comprised of eight chapters that flow logically from the biblical basis for marriage all the way to the sexual relationship within marriage. In chapter 1 they offer the very basic biblical teachings on marriage, showing how marriage is God's idea and that it is meant to reflect the saving love of God for us in Jesus Christ. In chapter 2 they show how the work of the Holy Spirit is fundamental to battling the main enemy of marriage: sinful self-centeredness. Chapter 3 is about love, looking at how the feeling of love relates (or doesn't relate) to actions of love. Chapter 4, "The Mission of Marriage," turns to the purpose of marriage and offers a long discussion of spiritual friendship while chapter 5, "Loving the Stranger," teaches three skills that every husband and wife ought to pursue.

Chapter 6, written by Kathy, celebrates the differences between the sexes, looking to the tricky subject of gender roles and complementarity. Singleness and wise thinking about pursuing marriage are the subjects of chapter 7 and the final chapter looks to the sexual relationship, showing why the Bible roots sex in marriage and how this relationship can best be celebrated within marriage.

It must be intimidating to write a book on marriage. Store shelves are groaning under the weight of titles that claim to have the key to a happy marriage, or a biblical marriage or a gospel-centered marriage. To rise above such a crowded field a book needs to offer something different, something unique, something that distinguishes it from the pack. Mark and Grace Driscoll have jumped into the fray with their new book Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, and Life Together and the distinguishing feature of their book is its gut honesty, its sheer vulnerability. The Driscolls invite the reader deep into their own marriage and attempt to answer difficult, intimate questions--what they say are the questions you'd be too embarrassed to ask your pastor.

What Book Is It?

Before I look at the book's content, I feel that I need to speak briefly about the book as a book. What quickly becomes clear is that Real Marriage suffers from a lack of clear identity, a problem that may stem from what appears to be rushed or otherwise ineffective editing. I point these things out not to be petty but because they effect the final product.

In the first place, there is a kind of sloppiness and inconsistency to the book. One example of this is the way the chapters vary so much in style, some being very personal with others being abstract and coldly statistical; even the inline subheadings can vary from chapter-to-chapter (e.g. italics in one chapter, all caps in the next). There are also factual errors, like when the Driscolls state that Solomon was the child born of David and Bathsheba's adultery (when, in fact, that child died and Solomon was born later); there are errors in footnoting, like when a footnote contains no reference to what they have stated; there are errors in punctuation where a statement ends with a question mark, and errors in flow where a chapter references things to come that do not actually come.

Added to the editorial sloppiness is the fact that there is little internal cohesion to the book. Real Marriage reads more like a series of seminars than a cohesive introduction-to-conclusion look at a subject.

I am hoping that this will be my final article on the Driscolls and Real Marriage, at least for the time being. I do not want this subject to dominate my web site, but I do have one more thing to say. Before I say it, I want to review a few things I haven’t said. I have seen several things in the comments and out in the blogosphere attributed to me that I haven’t actually said, so let me take a moment to refocus the conversation.

1. I have not said that any particular sex act is wrong. The purpose of writing this little series is not to point to any single act and say, “That is wrong.”
2. I have not said that Real Marriage is all about sex or sex acts or sexual deviancy or that the book has no value. There are several parts of the book that are actually quite helpful; I will cover these in a review closer to the release date.
3. I don’t hate Mark Driscoll.

The reason I am writing these articles is to (hopefully) show that the grid the Driscolls use to evaluate sex acts that are right or wrong is faulty and that introducing that grid to a marriage could be very harmful. In my last article I showed that the grid does not do an adequate job of evaluating heart motives. Today I want to show that the Driscolls seem to have misunderstood the very passage they use to construct their grid.

By way of review, here is the method they teach to evaluate which sex acts are right and which are wrong. Speaking of 1 Corinthians, they write:

Paul answered their questions, but he also went further. In addition to teaching them what to think, he taught them how to think. In 1 Corinthians 6:12, amid his teaching on sex, Paul said, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any."

This simple taxonomy is brilliantly helpful because it is simultaneously simple enough to remember and broad enough to apply to every sexual question.

From this taxonomy they draw three questions which they apply to a list of specific sexual acts. Is it lawful? seeks to ascertain whether an act violates the laws of government or the laws of God; Is it helpful? seeks to ascertain whether that act draws a couple together as one or pushes them apart as two; and Is it enslaving? seeks to ascertain whether that act could become obsessive, out of control, or addictive.

Yesterday I began a discussion of Real Marriage, the new book by Mark and Grace Driscoll (to be released on January 3). This was not a review as much as an attempt to think through the issues raised in the one chapter that is bound to be the source of the most controversy. I wanted to think about whether certain issues need to be discussed and the manner in which they are discussed. The context is the "Can We ________?" questions that pertain to the marriage bed. Today I want to move to a related discussion and show how the Driscolls attempt to answer such questions.

As the Driscolls answer the common "Can We ________?" questions, they apply a grid they have drawn from 1 Corinthians. The city of Corinth was a city known for its debauchery and sexual excess, and even the Christians there were indulging in all manner of sexual sin. They had apparently written to Paul with some of their questions, and what we call the book of 1 Corinthians is his letter of response.

The Driscolls write:

Paul answered their questions, but he also went further. In addition to teaching them what to think, he taught them how to think. In 1 Corinthians 6:12, amid his teaching on sex, Paul said, "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any."

This simple taxonomy is brilliantly helpful because it is simultaneously simple enough to remember and broad enough to apply to every sexual question.

From this taxonomy they draw three questions which they apply to a list of specific sexual acts. Is it lawful? seeks to ascertain whether an act violates the laws of government or the laws of God; Is it helpful? seeks to ascertain whether that act draws a couple together as one or pushes them apart as two; and Is it enslaving? seeks to ascertain whether that act could become obsessive, out of control, or addictive.

Before they get to questions and answers they make it clear that "we are explaining what a married couple may do, not what they must do. The Bible often gives more freedom than our consciences can accept, and we then choose not to use all our freedoms." While I appreciate that they seek to allow conscience to play a determinative role, for many of us there can be a kind of pressure that comes from an authoritative source saying, "This act is good." I believe many of these questions are best addressed in the context of marriage instead of coming from an outside authority. That relieves the pressure of thinking, "Maybe I need to ignore my conscience or change my conscience because this person says this act is acceptable and good." We need to be very careful anytime we determine what is lawful and acceptable for other people. Our freedom can apply unfair pressure to them which has the potential to cause great difficulties for marriages in which one spouse is scandalized by certain activities and the other one is not.

Mark Driscoll will be all over the news in the new year. Not only is he set to be a participant at the controversial Elephant Room conference on January 25, but January 3 will also mark the release of his newest book--the one that is bound to become his most controversial yet: Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship & Life Together. Co-authored with his wife Grace, the book is being marketed as a down-to-earth and no-holds-barred look at marriage and sex. Especially sex.

Though Real Marriage weighs in at over 200 pages and 11 chapters, there is one chapter that is going to generate the vast majority of the buzz. I plan to write a review of the whole book closer to the release date. For now, though, I want to reflect on that one chapter.

Before I go any farther I need to warn you that the contents of this blog post and any that follow are going to deal with topics that are uncomfortable for many people (myself included!)—particularly in the older generation. They have to. What the Driscolls deal with in this chapter, and what they deem biblical, are not only sex acts, but acts considered sexually deviant by many. If you are young or if you simply do not want to read a discussion of such matters, please just stop reading now; there is no shame in doing so. I would prefer not to write about this at all, but now that the questions are being asked and answered, I believe there needs to be some kind of further response and discussion. Having said that, I will try to be as discreet as I can without sacrificing clarity.

Chapter 10 is titled simply "Can We________?" This is where the Driscolls answer what they say are the sex questions people want to know but are too embarrassed to ask their own pastors. The questions span self-stimulation to the use of sex toys and forms of cybersex. The most provocative of all involves sodomy within marriage. Early in the chapter they provide a grid that they say can be used to answer any question of this nature and then simply pass each act through that grid. They find that each of these, and several others, are legitimate forms of sexual expression within marriage.

This offers many areas we could consider, but I want to focus in on just a couple. The first thing I want to do is look at the Driscolls' rationale for addressing these questions. Should we have such frank and public discussions of even the most intimate and potentially deviant sexual acts? Is the best way of answering these questions to address them head-on with a clear yes or no? In a subsequent article I want to take a look at the grid they use to determine what is right and what is wrong within the sexual relationship.

The Marriage Bed is a helpful little book from Ray Rhodes who has also written several titles dealing with family worship. This book[let], weighing in at just 32 pages, is a biblical guide to sexual intimacy. Responding to the inevitable critique that this topic has been covered enough times, Rhodes offers four defenses for writing about it once more: 1) Misinformation about the topic abounds and there is room for a book that falls in the space between legalism and licentiousness; 2) His experience in pastoral ministry has shown that problems with marital intimacy continue despite all of those other books; 3) He has specifically focused on applying the gospel to marital intimacy; 4) The ministry he serves, Nourished in the Word Ministries, exists in part to strengthen marriages and families through biblical teaching and he has written with that kind of ministry in view.

The summer is drawing to a close. Though I love summer and will be sad to see the days grow shorter and the skies grow colder, fall does bring with it some great benefits, not the least of which is a long list of new books. For that reason I anticipate squeezing in a few more book reviews than usual over the next few weeks. I hope you don’t mind!

Marriage is under attack in our day; there is little doubt about it. We need only look to the divorce rates among professed Christians to see that believers have been far from immune from the spirit of this age. In his new book The Christian Lover: The Sweetness of Love and Marriage in the Letters of Believers, Michael Haykin says that “reading expressions of love from the past can be a helpful way of responding to the frangibility of Christian marriage in our day.” And so he offers a collection, a small anthology, of letters from husbands to wives and wives to husbands—letters that share the beauty of the gift that is marriage.