Christians have ‘weaponized marriage’ against single people – Kirk Franklin

Kirk Franklin, a proud Christian, recently expressed his disagreement with some beliefs held by fellow Christians. In a recent appearance on Cam Newton’s Funky Friday show, the 54-year-old gospel artist called out Western Christianity for “weaponizing” marriage, giving, and sexuality. He specifically emphasized that marriage has been used as a weapon against single people in Western Christianity.

“I believe that marriage has been weaponized in Western Christianity,” he said. “It’s very much like, ‘You’re living in sin, you need to get married,’ without realizing that marriage doesn’t fix sin.” He referenced his own marriage, saying, “[Tammy Collins] and I have had to walk through deep waters of a lot of the bad beginnings of religious dogma.”

“That’s why it is very important for people to understand the fullness of faith and to not allow the culture of Christianity to dictate what God wants for them,” Kirk Franklin continued. He gave the example of a single woman attending a family reunion, saying, “Don’t be a 30-35-year-old single Black woman and go to the family reunion.”

“All the older women are gonna do nothing but they gonna look at you and wonder and question you and challenge you. ‘Why you not married?’” Newton added some more hypothetical questions: “‘Where your man at? Where your kids at?’” Franklin continued his rant by discussing how marriage, or lack thereof, is used as a broader assessment of one’s overall being.

“It’s a prerequisite for identity and value that if you don’t have a man or you don’t have kids, that something about you is broken,” he said. “Do you understand how dysfunctional these messages are?” He hit his biggest point when he combined that perspective with its relevance to carrying out God’s work.

“How we superspiritualise these messages: ‘He that findeth a wife, findeth a good thing.’ But Paul also said, ‘I wish some of you were like me. I wish some of you could be single because some of you could be even more useful in the kingdom if you were single.’ Now marriage is a good thing. Paul said, ‘But marriage is a necessary distraction.’”

Kirk Franklin shared that he knew people who were told they couldn’t be involved in ministry if they were single. He explained that some individuals rushed into marriage because they believed it was God’s will, but in reality, it was based on man-made rules rather than God’s purpose. Franklin emphasized that being single doesn’t prevent God from using someone or having a purpose.

He also pointed out that marriage is not a requirement for God’s involvement in one’s life, but unfortunately, it has been turned into a weapon in some situations.

The “Looking For You” artist closed his moving rant by also bringing up how those same people who rush to get married get crucified when their marriages fail and they get divorced. Franklin has been married to Tammy Collins since 1996. They each brought one child into the marriage and conceived two children together.

Source: Vibe.com