Tim Keller, Wife to Give 'The Meaning of Marriage' Webinar
A national campaign devoted to strengthening this country's marriages is teaming with pastor and best-selling author Tim Keller and his wife, Kathy, for a free live Webcast Tuesday evening to discuss the couple’s new book, The Meaning of Marriage.
Fully titled, The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God, the book releases on the same day. Let’s Strengthen Marriage, a nearly two-years-old group, is hosting the live streaming event in its continuing effort to raise the issue of marriage to the national agenda.
Keller, who is the founder and pastor of New York’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, wrote the book with his wife of 36 years. His other books include The Reason for God, The Prodigal God, and Counterfeit Gods.
Keller believes marriage was created by God to bring people closer to Him and to bring more joy into their lives.
“We often find out that, especially in our culture today, people have an unrealistic idea of marriage – either unrealistically good or unrealistically bad. They’re actually seeking marriage not very wisely and they’re not making good decisions about who would make a good prospective marriage partner,” said Keller in a video talking about the book, which is based on one of his sermon series.
“[On] the other side, I often heard from people who felt that marriage wasn’t interesting to them. It seemed like nothing but misery. They almost had too pessimistic view of marriage,” he said.
“When we started talking about what marriage could do (in his sermon series on marriage), especially, about what marriage can be like if you are friends, if you share Christ, if you help each other move toward becoming the persons Christ is seeking to and will make you through His word and the Spirit, it gave them a new idea of adventure about what marriage is all about,” Keller explained.
In order to further their cause, Let’s Strengthen Marriage officials say that they seek to build cooperation with churches, businesses, education, the media, government and with parents.
The group states that social science has shown that it is clear that “children are best served when they grow up with both a mother and father. It is critical to strengthen the bonds of marriage to best support children so that they can thrive and flourish.”
Cultural commentator Chuck Colson wrote last week in a BreakPoint column titled “The Meaning of Marriage” that, “Study after study shows the beneficial effects of marriage and the self-inflicted harm that people experience when they ignore this evidence. Marriage is good for us in so many ways.”
Colson, who highly endorses the Kellers’ book, stated in his article: “This is a book Christians need to read. It’s a great resource to equip you to speak with your secular friends; to show them why the Christian understanding of marriage is not only a tremendous blessing, it’s the only one that works.”
Registration for the free Webinar, which begins Tuesday at 7 pm ET, is available by going online at http://www.marriagewebinar.org.