As human beings, our desire for love is designed and sown into the tapestry of our lives by God Himself. Our need for companionship was first highlighted by God the Creator when He insisted that it was “not good” for Adam to “be alone” (Genesis 2:18) and thus provided Adam with Eve.
It’s important to establish from the outset that God is not “anti-love”. He IS Love (1 John 4:8). He wants us to enjoy love, romance and yes, even sex, within the marriage relationship He has ordained.
Yet with anything in life – money, work, food, friendships, love, romance, sex – there is an enemy of our souls who desires to twist, corrupt and exploit what God has intended for our prosperity, well-being and enjoyment and use it to cause our downfall.
And when it comes to love, the enemy has excelled himself. It seems wrong to give him any credit at all but he really has been ingenious in how he has exploited this beautiful gift from God, which was intended to draw us closer to our Creator, and instead, use love itself as a replacement for Him – or as the Bible puts it, an idol.
So what are the enemy’s tactics? Simply put: he has hijacked culture.
And make no mistake – culture is inescapable and very powerful in how it impacts and moulds our thinking and draws us away from the truth – whether we realise it or not.
We live in a culture where love and romance as themes dominate a large proportion of the media texts we consume. Music videos, TV adverts, magazine articles – they all exploit our desire for love in order to sell us products that we hope will help us fulfil that desire. And this happens from a really young age. I remember, as an eleven or twelve year old, reading girls’ magazines where almost every page was about boys. How to talk to boys. How to understand boys. What boys liked. What boys didn’t like. And woven, oh so cleverly between these articles, were adverts for make-up and clothes and hair products which could all, I was led to believe, help me to become whatever a boy wanted to fall in love with. No matter how heavily regulated the content of these magazines has become, the theme of love and romance has never been challenged or limited. Yet it creates in the minds of its impressionable young readers the belief that finding love and appearing lovable should be their primary desire. In short, it establishes love as an idol because, as God’s children, our primary desire should be for Him alone.
By the time we’re grown-ups, the enemy’s mission is basically complete. Love and marriage, we are led to believe, should be the ultimate target of any “normal” adult. Meeting “the one” is paramount. But just in case we missed it as teenagers, he continues to reinforce the message through grown-up media texts as well. Dating apps make the process oh so simple. A monthly subscription is all that stands between us and true love! Dating TV programmes broadcast during prime time slots on mainstream channels further the illusion that having someone “Take us Out” and give us a “First Date” may indeed lead to a “Big Fat Wedding” where we can say yes to the man and “Yes to the Dress”!
Chick lit and chick flicks help to solidify the enemy’s apparent victory in luring us away from Love Himself and replacing a desire for the Giver with the gift. Chick lit (books written for women about love and romance) are always one of the biggest selling book genres in the UK and Romcoms are always one of the highest grossing film genres at the box office. And the reason is obvious – they continue to reinforce and legitimise our desire for love as paramount. They make it seem normal rather than idolatrous.
As a media and film studies lecturer, I’ve always got a real kick out of analysing media texts to identify the themes within them. So forgive me for this next bit of self-indulgence because a great case study to prove this point can be found in Bridget Jones Diary (2001). The film adaptation of Helen Fielding’s popular novel by the same name was a hugely successful romantic comedy at the box office, grossing over $281,000,000 worldwide.
Bridget is a character that perfectly represents someone who has made an idol of love.
On the one hand, as a single woman in her thirties living alone in London and enjoying exciting jobs in publishing and television, Bridget appears to be the perfect example of a liberated woman who has benefited from the loosened ties of tradition and community that have enabled to her to live independently in the city without a husband or family of her own.
However, within the opening sequence of the film, Bridget is revealed to be extremely unhappy, despite her apparent wealth and freedom. And the source of her unhappiness is simple: she’s alone.
The very first scene opens with Bridget sitting in her flat, listening and miming along to Jamie McNeal’s song All By Myself, worrying about being alone and on the shelf. The setting of the sequence is significant. On the one hand, it reveals the freedom and luxury a post-feminist world has enabled Bridget to experience. As she sits alone on the sofa, we see that Bridget is able to afford to live alone in one of the most expensive cities in the world in relative comfort. Her flat is tastefully decorated with shelves full of CD’s and books, a television and telephone. The red hues of her pyjamas and carpet combined with the low-key lighting emanating from the floor lamp and log fire connote a sense of the comfort she is able to provide for herself. As the scene progresses it can be seen that she can afford to smoke and drink wine and the empty plate of food on the floor next to her sofa anchors the overall impression that Bridget Jones has material security. The 1988 best-selling political travel book Holidays in Hell by P.J. O’Rourke lying next to her symbolises her desire to progress professionally in the publishing world in which she works. Bridget has thrown off the traditional gender roles of the past by possessing a career rather than a family. However, framed in the foreground of the scene lies a piece of technology that highlights the flaw in this cosy image. The phone exposes Bridget’s true lack and the source of all of her fears: she doesn’t want to be alone. The gold heart pendant around her neck and the pink heart ornament on her mantelpiece anchor this deep-seated desire within her to find love. Her freedom, education and independence, whilst providing her with a prosperous physical existence, have also given rise to new anxieties which her voice over, along with the soundtrack, anchors. “Dying fat and alone” and being “all by herself” are fears that her material wealth cannot resolve and for which her independence is to blame. By choosing an independent city-life, she is gradually reducing her chances of finding true love. And that, we are led to believe as we watch her mime along with the song with increasing vigour, is her ultimate fear. Despite her independence, what she really desires is companionship. Regardless of her economic and professional achievements, her deep-seated desire for love seems to prevail.
Thus, the film is able to normalise both Bridget’s anxieties and the anxieties of every single person watching the film regarding the loneliness and fear that arise from the thought of not finding a suitable partner in life.
With this and so many other cultural texts impacting our view of the world, is it any wonder that love had become an idol in our society?
And perhaps the most probing question is this: has love become an idol for us? Do we desire the acceptance, affection and attention of the opposite sex more than that of God?
May the Lord expose the condition of our hearts in order to set us free from its limitations so that we can truly experience the love of the Father.
Linsey Wildsmith