Holli Wyett
Contributing Writer
He stands in front of a Religion 102 class carefully selecting a new PowerPoint slide when she enters. He stops his lecture, saunters over to the woman in her early sixties and kisses her on the lips. It is as if the desks, notepads and awe-stricken students are non-existent. The couple exchanges goodbyes and embraces one last time. His eyes linger on the door for a few moments after she passes through it to exit.
“How am I going to get through a week without her?” said Dr. Stuart Love, professor of Religion at Seaver College. His wife of 44 years, D’Esta Love, is going to Europe for a week, and he is going to miss her dearly.
In an era where marital mortality rates now approach fifty percent the Loves’ relationship is growing stronger with time. When talking about his marriage, one word seems to sum up what Love believes is behind its success: equality.
“Our marriage is a full equality of partnership,” Love said. “If we talk of lordship, we talk only of the lordship of Christ.”
Love said he doesn’t know how couples who work with their marriage from the perspective that women are junior partners survive at all. Love believes that many Christians misinterpret the Bible and as a result, wrongfully assume that women are inferior.
“You can’t treat the Bible as a blue print,” Love said. “The Bible is full of domestic codes tied to that time and Paul’s society wouldn’t have known about our new social circumstances.”
Love, a member of the University Church of Christ, admits that a significant minority in the church see the Bible the way he does.
“I think the Bible contains principles that transcend time and culture,” said communication division chairperson and elder of the University Church of Christ Dr. Milt Shatzer. “We need to separate out the transcendent values from the cultural ones, and apply the transcendent ones to our own life situations. The constitution of the United States was not written for people in the 21st Century, however, we seem to do a pretty good job of applying the principles in the constitution to our contemporary lives.”
Love agrees that the themes of the gospel are essential and said he believes there is a way to live by those themes without living by the biblical social circumstances.
Ken Durham, minister of the University Church of Christ agrees with both Love and Shatzer.
“Some of the Bible’s teachings on the roles of women, the most controversial being those regarding worship conduct, seem to me to be shaped by both the first century culture and some unique issues in the Corinth church,” Durham said. “I do agree in principle with approaching the Bible as a blue print, if by that we mean to use it as the primary model for the spirit and message of the church today. Jesus himself is to be the main model we imitate.”
Issues of equality and domestic codes overshadow many of the Scriptures dealing with how to love like Christ, especially Ephesians chapter five, which talks about wives submitting to their husbands, Love said.
“If we are more conservative in terms of biblical authority we think this is the way god has intended things, but in reality we live in a society where those codes are not relevant,” Love said. “Submission is operative, but it is not gender-specific. It is grounded in the new creation in Christ.”
Durham defines submission as a mutual willingness to consider the good of the other above one’s own.
“There is no spiritual inequality between men and women in God’s eyes,” Durham said. “Gender roles in a marriage should be agreed upon by both partners, not dictated by one. However, there are clearly differences and it makes sense to take those differences into account in carrying out roles.”
Shatzer believes that there are simply some things he accomplishes well while there other things that his wife accomplishes well.
“These roles have evolved out of the god-given gifts that each of us have,” Shatzer said. “It is difficult for a ship to have more than one captain, so at times my wife is very happy to let me take the lead on things. That way I get all the criticism and she can shape things from behind the scenes.”
Although Shatzer believes that equality is important, he does not believe it takes precedence over love and honor. Shatzer said he tends to look at love from the Old Testament concept of “hesed,” meaning enduring love.
“Too often in the United States we think love is something we feel, when in fact, the Bible teaches that love is something we do,” Shatzer said. “When we love someone we are kind and compassionate toward them, we care for them, and we look out for their best interests. To be honest, there are times in a marriage when both partners don’t feel in love, but we are to keep on loving each other. That is the cement that holds a marriage together.”
Whether the cement is love, honor or equality, makes little difference to Love as he watches his wife leave the classroom. He knows they are one even when they are physically separated, for as Galatians 3:28 states, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
April 17, 2003