Do you want to know the truth about sex, friendship and married life? Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll and his wife, Grace, are getting more than a litle real in their just-released book, Real Marriage.
In Real Marriage, the Driscolls promise to leave the platitudes and self-help fluff at the door. Based on the synopsis and table of contents alone, it’s clear that Real Marriage is not just another book on marriage.
The Driscolls confront issues like submission, finances and sex, including the “Can we do that?” sex questions couples are too embarrassed to ask their pastor. Chapter titles include, “New Marriage, Same Spouse,” “Sex: God, Gross or Gift?,” “Selfish Lovers and Servant Lovers,” and “The Porn Path.”
“My wife, Grace, and I have taken the biggest risk of our ministry life together and written what may be the most brutally honest, controversial and—we pray by God’s grace—helpful marriage book on the market. You can be the judge,” Driscoll wrote in a blog post.
Driscoll says he read all or part of 187 books on marriage while writing Real Marriage. In his view, most were way too tame, written to answer the questions of previous generations with very different questions, written mainly for women in a way that would be off-putting for most husbands, inaccessible for singles who are now the majority of adults in the U.S., and lacking nearly any real honesty from the author about the sinful painful parts of his or her own life, as if marriage were a picnic without any ants.
Real Marriage spends significant space exploring Scripture, statistics, culture and the rarely discussed topic of friendship in marriage. The couple also shares highly personal details about their own pasts and relationship. Additional topics include everything from finances to date nights, dealing with family, overcoming bitterness, forgiveness, abuse, anger and reverse-engineering your marriage.
“We knew the project would be a hard and challenging time as we recalled some of our hardest times, but by God’s grace, it was a unifying and life-changing experience that has made us better friends and lovers,” Driscoll says.
A major, nationwide Real Marriage church campaign launches today, as well, with an 11-week sermon series from Driscoll, a 10-city tour and a major mobilization of the 500-church Acts 29 Network.
