“I believe that marriage is used as a weapon in Western Christianity,” Franklin said. “It says, ‘You are living in sin. You must marry,’ without realizing that marriage does not fix sin.”

“It’s a requirement of identity and values ​​that if you don’t have a husband or children, something is broken within you,” Franklin continued. “Do you understand how dysfunctional these messages are?”

Franklin then quoted the scripture, “He who finds a wife finds 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.’ Well, marriage is a good thing. Paul said, ‘But marriage is a necessary distraction.'”

Unlike Franklin, I am not a Christian. But I have studied Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and believe that Franklin misses some important points.

First, Franklin is correct when he says that Paul taught that it was “a good thing” for unmarried women and widows to “remain as they are.” This was in stark contrast to existing Roman law, which penalized unmarried women with higher taxes (widows were exempted from this obligation for one year, divorced women only for six months).

And the church warmly welcomed single women, unmarried and widowed alike, into the community. Single women could and did play an important role in the church. But only if they remained celibate. “But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry, for it is better to marry than to be burned,” wrote Paul.

The same was true for men. Yes, Franklin is right, Paul wished more Christians could be single and celibate like him. There was no place in the church for single men with baby mamas on the side. But Paul also recognized that most Christians, men and women, could not live honest, celibate lives: “But because of immorality, every man should have his own wife, and every woman her own husband.”

“A woman has no power over her own body, but her husband does,” Paul continued, repeating what was common in ancient times. But then he continued, “And likewise a man has no power over his own body, but his wife does.”

And that’s what made Christianity so revolutionary. Not only did it give the husband authority over his wife, but it also gave the wife authority over her husband. That was definitely not the case in the Roman Empire, where Roman women were not allowed to have sex with anyone other than their husband, but Roman men were allowed to have sex with anyone they wanted (as long as it wasn’t another man’s wife), including concubines, slaves, prostitutes, and young boys.

Christianity used marriage as a weapon against these rich, powerful men who sexually exploited those around them.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Speaking of sexual exploitation, Cam Newton, the man Franklin spoke to, has eight children with three different women he is not married to. What would Paul think of that?

If anything, marriage has not been used sufficiently as a weapon.