Abstract
Researchers have examined how perceiving marriage as “sacred” or believing God is manifest in marriage is associated with marital functioning and satisfaction, but little is known about how biblical family metaphors (e.g., God is father) inform Christians’ interpretations of family relationships. Few studies explore the perspective of individuals who believe in, interpret and apply these metaphors to their relationships. This study uses Hermeneutic Theory to examine how Evangelicals apply the metaphor of Jesus as husband and the church as bride to their intimate relationships and spirituality. Qualitative interviews with 15 Evangelicals explored the meaning, interpretations, and processes of marital relationships in light of the Christ-groom God image. Participants indicated many ways the metaphor was useful: value partners more; invest more in the relationship; strive to demonstrate love, patience, etc. toward partners; and guidance in relationship structuring. They discussed how their couple relationships opened positive and negative possibilities for relating to God. Gender hierarchy and implication that husbands are the “head” or “Christ” figure in marriage caused incongruence for some participants as did the difficulty of comparing a person or human relationship to a spiritual metaphor. Application, implications, and ideas for future research are discussed.
Highlights
Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord
This study focuses on Evangelicals because they are more likely to emphasize hierarchy and authority via specific biblical metaphors compared to non-Evangelical
Evangelical authors consistently rely on the creation story and Christ-groom/Church-bride metaphor to discuss the meaning of marriage and proscribe behaviors, though interpretations are diverse
Summary
Submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies He who loves his wife loves himself. Analysis of Evangelical family manuals, commentators, and fiction reveal many gender ideologies based on the same scripture passages [10,11,12]. This variety of interpretations was even exemplified by the Promise Keepers, an evangelical men‘s movement popular in the 1990s [13]. One author reviewed books on masculinity and cultural products of the Promise Keepers and found four gender ideologies: traditionalist (hierarchical), psychological archetypes (primarily modifications of Jung), biblical feminist (egalitarian), and practical counseling (do what works) [13]
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