This is somewhat repetitive of a previous post but the obvious aspects of the events in recent weeks makes it worth repeating.
I had a roommate in college who was a very liberal rationalist and loved to talk about it. He would often confront us more conservative types with something he thought was difficult for us to answer. On one particular occasion he confronted me with the "old-fashioned" view in the Bible that you can be (in fact, must be) happy with one person for the rest of your life. In response, I asked him about the people who had been married for 50 or 60 years and his answer was that they had obviously cheated on each other and were just okay with that or they hadn't told the other one that they were cheating. I asked him how long he thought people could stay happy with one person and his answer was, "Three to four years, tops." (Notably he thought women may be able to go a little longer, as I recall.)
Now, I have been married for 12 years and I am pretty sure my wife has been faithful to me, but my old roommate would just laugh and say that she is lying so I'll use the proof I am sure of which is myself. I say this in front of God and everyone else and I would challenge anyone to find a skeleton in my closet that disproves it because I know that they do not exist. So I say that I have not held or kissed, much less had sex with, another woman (or man, to those thinking of Ted Haggard and trying to find holes in my logic) other than my wife for all of these years. I have not flirted with any person (in real life or on the net or on the phone or by any other communication mechanism that exists) other than my wife and I have not ever discussed flirting with any person other than my wife. I go on a lot of business trips and in all of them I spend my nights in a hotel alone and it has never been any different in all the years I have traveled places without my wife.
I titled this post The Hollywood Proof of Christianity because our culture believes what my roommate believed, and our culture believes it to be self-evident. That is, our culture believes it to be self-evident and an absolute truth that beautiful people should have sex with each other and that they should have a lot of money and that this will make them happy. No other source passes this message along in so pure a form as Hollywood does. And yet in this past week we have had two proofs straight out of Hollywood itself that this does not bring happiness. You can say many things about Anna Nicole Smith (and all of them have been said this past week) but you cannot say that she was happy. You can say many of the same things about Britney Spears, but with her recent head-shaving and tattooing escapade nobody who had to deal with her (at the tattoo parlor they said she was a "nightmare") would say she was happy. But these are "beautiful" women (I use the Hollywood definition here - in all honesty Anna Nicole Smith did nothing for me and lest anyone think I am not being honest I'll point out that I think Britney is an attractive woman) and they live(d) Hollywood lives. They had lots of money and went to all the right parties with all the right people. It is abundantly clear that Anna Nicole Smith had lots of sex with lots of different people but she was quoted by those who were close to her as saying that she felt unloved. How is such a thing possible? Both women are following all of the rules as laid down by Hollywood and pop culture in general and yet they are so remarkably unhappy. Maybe, just maybe, it is time for us to apply a little rationalism of our own and suggest, ever so gently, that Hollywood itself has proven that having lots of money and lots of sex with lots of different people doesn't bring happiness (or love or even feelings of being loved).
I don't say this to give the reader too much information but rather to go along with what we are discussing here. In the Bible we read:
Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well. Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets? Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you. Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love. (Proverbs 5:15-19)
I have to say that I have found this to be absolutely true. Even as I get older and as our marriage goes on to 3 times the length that my roommate ever thought I could get to without cheating I have found that all aspects of my marriage continue to get better. This is why I called this post the Hollywood Proof of Christianity, because you will not find the notion that one woman can sexually satisfy a man for 12 years (and more) outside of the Bible. You will in fact find that people scoff and mock at such a suggestion but in fact the Bible anticipates this, too and the continuation of the passage above is as pure a truth and as good advice today as you will ever find:
Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths. The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray. (Proverbs 5:20-23)
Remember the sadness and pain in Hollywood as it lives the wisdom of those who think that Bible is full of nonsense and realize that they are in fact living out the words in Proverbs: "The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin. He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray."
