Marriage. Have I Not Paid Attention?

There is a series of articles on a blog I regularly read about the myth of the ideal marriage more or less. His contention is that evangelicals promote an idealized form of marriage that looks very little like real life marriages. That these "real" marriages have problems. Real and not simply petty disagreements. Real marriages don't look like a '50's television sitcom (NOTE: He did not actually say that, but it's a reasonable statement based on the gist of the articles).

The frustrating thing for this man is that there is no teaching about marriage at the real, nitty gritty, not always a picnic level. There is plenty about submission and male headship and the Ephesians 5 marriage, but in practice we're too stained with indwelling sin still to look just like that. He says much more than all this, but this is enough to make my point.

Where is he going for his "evangelical marriage teaching." I've heard few, including several mega-church pastors that one would think would be the 1st to stylize marriage, actually do so. Most I've ever heard were open about the facts. Marriages aren't perfect. They're sometimes messy. We sometimes fight. We don't always make up right away, and sadly sometimes not at all. Every pastor I've been exposed to handled this with remarkable honesty. They were all frank about the less the perfect marriages they are a part of. There was no straw man telling me that if "You will lead, your wife will submit, then marriage will always work just right."

So the question I have in all this is; Has he constructed a straw evangelical preacher man to knock down. The straw preacher who isn't transparent. The straw preacher who preaches about victory NOW in Jesus in you marriage. The straw preacher who says "Leadership, Submission, and a Good Bible" will be all you need to keep you from wandering through your marriage. I think the straw preacher man is less common in reality these days. Maybe he still preaches in many pulpits, and maybe I just haven't paid attention.

Sidenote: There is much more to this article than I had time to include. But if half the body is a straw man, what's the other half?