Claire Claire - Altared: The True Story of a She, a He, and How They Both Got Too Worked Up About We

A beautifully written, searingly honest, and deeply thoughtful exploration of one of the most important topics there is.

E RIC M ETAXAS , New York Times best-selling author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery

Perceptive, personal, and poignantly true, Altared is a must-read for young Christians hungering for a realistic, biblically rich take on love and marriage in the twenty-first century.

K ATELYN B EATY , editor, Christianity Today and Her.meneutics blog

Altared tells us how certain unexamined notions about courtship and marriage (often framed as biblical) play out among young American evangelicals today. Fresh, funny, perceptive, it is animated above all by wonder at the reality of Gods love.

J OHN W ILSON , editor, Books & Culture

Altared is a wise, wry, questioning, affirmative, sober, and deeply encouraging storyand it does something nearly unique: It asks what our thinking about relationships and marriage might look like if it were governed by the biblical account of love. Not just the part about husband and wife, but love, in all its forms. This book is a sweet gift to the Church.

D R . A LAN J ACOBS , Clyde S. Kilby professor of English at Wheaton College

This is the relationship book for a new generation of Christians. Altared gently but forcefully reexamines our Christian love affair with marriage and has the audacity to suggest that real love has little to do with looking for Mr. or Ms. Right.

D R . C HRISTINE G ARDNER , associate professor, Wheaton College, and author of Making Chastity Sexy: The Rhetoric of Evangelical Abstinence Campaigns

A much needed wake-up calla plea for a paradigm shift in the way that we think of love, marriage, and ourselves as followers of Jesus. Eli and Claires story needs to be shared.

D R . L UCY C OLLINS , professor of philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics

A noble and necessary book, Altared does the hard work of mining the Bible and Christian luminaries like Augustine, Calvin, and Bonhoeffer for insights concerning dating, marriage and love, and then delivers that truth in hearty, yet practical ways. A great gift to the reader.

V ITO A IUTO , Welcome Wagon, senior pastor of Resurrection Presbyterian Church

I was challenged, entertained, taught, and inspired. The way the authors intermix biography and good, honest story telling with the more pedagogical sections is really fun and effective. Basically, its dang good.

J AMEY P APPAS , campus director, Campus Crusade, San Luis Obispo

Now heres a strange thing: a well written, immensely thoughtful exploration of the meaning of marriage that challenges our obsession with it without devaluing it. This is a lovely and needed book that I hope everyone reads.

M ATTHEW L EE A NDERSON , author of Earthen Vessels

Altared is a timely warning against making an idol out of marriage. In harmony (not eHarmony) with some of the best advice I ever received, this work tells readers how to pursue love, not marriage. Then see what happens. Highly recommended.

D R . D AVID N AUGLE , chair and professor of philosophy, Dallas Baptist University, author of Reordered Love, Reordered Lives

A real winner here. Very well and creatively written!

D R . J OSEPH H. H ELLERMAN , professor, Talbot School of Theology, author of When the Church Was a Family: Recapturing Jesus Vision for Authentic Christian Community

A LTARED
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Italics in Scripture quotations reflect the authors added emphasis.

Details in some anecdotes and stories have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

eISBN: 978-0-307-73074-9

Copyright 2012 by TYFTW
Illustrations 2012 by Bruce Freeby

Cover design by Kelly Howard

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Claire.
Altared : the true and ordinary story of a she, a he, and how they both got too worked up about we / by Claire and Eli.1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
1. LoveReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. MarriageReligious aspectsChristianity. I. Eli. II. Title.
BV4639.C4845 2012
261.83581dc23
2012013007

v3.1

One didnt have to look far to find a marriage book in my parents house. Neat little tomes of marital wisdom in glossy paperback could be found stacked on shelves or strewn across tables. Usually they included beaming smiles, shining eyes, straight teeth, and two fit bodies, often sweatered, clasping each other.

There were nouns like fulfillment, intimacy, or satisfaction, phrases like finding the marriage youve dreamed of or the marriage youve always wanted, written in cursive, set next to dew-dropped fruit or feet poking out of clean white sheets in sunlit rooms.

In theory, these books belonged to my parents. In practice, I read them. And they turned over in our home in roughly six- to twelve-month cycles. My family would pick a new set of relational tips and terms, flowing down from my parents marriage, talk earnestly about them at the dinner table, put them into use for a season, and then gradually move on.

Most of the books were helpful, I think. And yet as months and years rolled by, I began to feel a certain unease with each new title. I couldnt name it, but something was missing. Not that there was something wrong, per se, but rather that things felt partial, like I had heard only one side of a multisided topic.

The feeling was like a drop of dye in a glass of water, fanning out in wings of color. I jostled the glass, held it up to the light, and examined it. What was it? A hunch, not quite distinguishable, let alone something I could put a name to.

The dye spread. The more I peered at it, the more it stood out. There was something there, but what?

There was marriage and my adult life. There were all the tips I had read in my parents books, all the marriage sermons I had heard from the pulpit, all my eagerness to fall in love, and all the relational quirks in my evangelical communities. In my upbringing I had learned an awful lot about marriageboth its blessings and challengesand yet still something was lacking.