NING MARRIAGE

y Hauerwas, a theologian and Christian ethicist, replied when asked about marriage:

And how do you define marriage? Hauerwas said:

“Well, I don’t define it but I will describe it. Marriage is the lifelong commitment to be faithful to one another, not only in terms of sexual relations but also in terms of being attentive to your first responsibility to the person to whom you have pledged your life. Marriage gives witness to the same kind of faithfulness of Christ to his church. Part of this commitment includes hospitality to new life, which results from sexual relations.

That is the sticking point I have toward gay marriage. Not every marriage between a man and a woman is necessarily procreative. But marriage as an institution of the church of Jesus Christ is only intelligible in terms of the Christian willingness to have a child.”

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Jesus