Life's Greatest Mystery: Romance from the Christian's Perspective

 

Life's Greatest Mystery: Romance from the Christian's Perspective

By Alaina E. White

"You have bewitched me body and soul. And I love... I love... I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on."

~Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

All of us have read books where romance drives the plot along–perhaps it even is the main plot of the story. Almost every novel that you pick up will have some semblance of romance in it: from cute childhood crushes to love triangles or obsessions, the human desire to love and be loved is echoed throughout the pages of time. 

But why is this? Why are our hearts drawn to this common theme of love? And, maybe even more important, what is true love?

I want to explore why we love romance, some traps to avoid, and ways to execute it in a godly way. 

The Greatest Mystery

As women especially, we’re drawn to the romantic. Whether Jane Austen’s innocent romance or the Bronte sisters’ Gothic style, we all find ourselves caught up. Men also enjoy romance, but in a different way. Instead of sighing at starry-eyed lovers, they are inspired to pursue the woman they love (whether they are married or just starting a relationship) and enjoy the complexity it adds to the plot. 

Why exactly do we love this common trope? Why do we sigh when Darcy and Elizabeth finally marry? Is there a deeper reason to the heartache that we feel for Pip in Great Expectations when his love for Estella is not returned?

The simple answer is this: we, as human beings, are created to love. We’re created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and the biggest part of that is to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths. Secondly, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. 

The world has lost the first commandment and has instead latched onto the second, twisting it to mean that the greatest pleasure in life is to be loved by someone and enjoy them for as long as is convenient for us. This is the antithesis of what is truly spoken of in Scripture. Instead of the love of a God for His creatures and of the creature for his Maker, we have simply taken the love of men as a substitute. 

This is, in short, the greatest substitute that the world has for the greatest pleasure known to man: to fully love and be loved by our Creator. Instead of loving God and seeing the love of a husband and wife as a picture of Christ and His church, we have glorified the shadow instead of the substance. 

Now, does this mean that romance is wrong? No, not at all. The biggest human desire (after God) is, arguably, to be fully known and loved by another individual for a lifetime. Even secularists recognize that a marriage that lasts a lifetime is a special, sacred thing, and when we see it, something in us stirs. It reminds us of the future joy we will see when we are face to face with our Lord Jesus Christ, our true Bridegroom.

Traps to Avoid

Now, in knowing what romance is meant to portray, how can we avoid the traps that we commonly fall into when portraying this sacred mystery? There are several that I want to explore. 

First off, we need to avoid any portrayal of sexual immorality explicitly on the page. God has commanded us that such things are not to be tolerated and that we are to flee from sexual immorality. This seems rather straightforward, but you have to make sure that you draw a hard line of what sexual immorality is. 

Sexual immorality is anything that causes us to break our vow or purity to God and our spouse (future spouse). Before we’re married, we are pledged to God, and after, we are pledged to our spouse. The marriage bed is to be kept undefiled, which means that certain tropes are especially to be avoided. I can think of The Great Gatsby as one example of this. The entire book revolves around sexual immorality, obsession, and lust. As this is portrayed in somewhat of a bad light, many people have accepted it as okay. However, when this becomes normalized and we can read it with no qualms whatsoever, this is not an appropriate thing for a Christian to be writing. 

As believers, we need to hold marriage in high regard. We need to assure our readers that anything outside of marriage is a sin, and that in our pure romance, the end goal is always marriage (whether we have time to get to that or not). 

To move into the category of romance that is simply bad writing, we need to avoid common stereotypes that are used over and over again. Every trope can be used, but we need to know how to use them. 

For example, if I wrote a story about a princess who was trapped in a castle and a knight came, slew a dragon, and married the girl, we would likely be bored with this. It’s a stereotype and one that we are easily able to throw aside as a meaningless book. However, if we can switch the stereotype around, it can be a great story.

A great example of this is the Phantom of the Opera (book) by Gaston Leroux. In the book, Christine Daae is the damsel in distress, being hypnotized by a terrible monster. The Vicomte Raoul de Chagny is the knight in shining armor, but he also struggles with jealousy and entitlement. It combines the damsel in distress trope with the love triangle trope to create a whole new, action-packed novel full of twists and turns. When Christine’s Angel of Music becomes the Phantom of the Opera, she’s faced with the choice to either marry the evil Phantom and save the lives of thousands or refuse him and condemn them all to death. 

This throws a whole new light on the common trope and creates a story that’s both unique and interesting while being built on the bones of an old trope. It’s similar to taking a human skeleton and using it as a base to draw a whole living human being based on it. People can draw thousands of models based on that one skeleton, but each would be unique. 

Avoiding cliches in Christian romance is necessary because, for the Christian, romance is sacred and complex. There are genuine stakes, as the person we marry will be our spouse for the rest of our lives. We need to portray true, genuine love based on commitment, sacrifice, and humility. 

True Love

As I mentioned above, as Christians we need to portray true, genuine love based on commitment, sacrifice, and humility. Let’s tackle some key ways that we can portray a reasonable and godly romance in our writing. 

First, we need to keep Christ at the forefront of our romances. Even if our novel is not explicitly Christian, we need to portray romance as the love between Christ and His church. True love is not focused on taking from another, but on giving of oneself for the betterment of another. 

Humility is the biggest aspect of love that is often overlooked. Humility is seeing ourselves as less and others as greater. Jesus washed the disciples’ feet even though He was the King of the World! Even more so should our characters be willing to lower themselves for the sake of those they love. 

Sacrifice is another aspect that we need to focus in on. As I said before, true love is not focused on taking from another, but giving of oneself for the betterment of another. This can be shown in small ways, such as a husband taking out the trash before his wife asks, even though there’s a football game on that he likes. It also can also be shown in greater ways, such as a man who throws himself in front of a bullet to protect his girlfriend/wife/loved one. All of these point toward the greatest sacrifice of all: Jesus taking our sins on the cross. 

Finally, commitment. In today’s world of starry-eyed Hollywood actresses and actors, where everyone looks perfect and sleeps with everyone else, commitment is lacking greatly. A “happily ever after” years ago meant that they got married, had kids, and died happy. Today, a happily ever after means that we keep chasing after that happiness until eventually we have nothing left but sadness. 

True, biblical commitment lasts a lifetime. It’s the fifty-year-old man who still dances with his wife in the kitchen. It’s the tired mom who takes the time to wash the clothes or cook dinner for her husband when he comes home. It’s the twenty-something man who turns away from the flirtations of other women (either on screen or in person). It’s the woman who gives up her dreams of the perfect man to find that the man she loves is all she ever needed. 

Romance is so much more than simply a feeling that we get when our boyfriend or girlfriend slips an arm around our shoulder. It’s the constant pursuit of the one we love until the day we die.

Closing

We’ve seen why we love romance, some common traps that people fall into when writing romances, and how to portray true, godly romance. We’ve seen that true, godly love is a love that lasts a lifetime, and it’s the act of giving, not taking. 

As you write your story, I pray that you will give careful thought to the romance that you write. As yourself if it’s glorifying to God and a picture of Christ and His church. 

Go write for His glory!

~Alaina E. White