Now, since when is thinking of, wanting, desiring, pursuing a specific, compatible person, idolatry? Idolatry is the building of false, lifeless icons that represent the Living God. Desiring a mate for earthly matrimony (though I will discuss its all important similarity to Christ and the Church) is not even in the same ball field as building a lifeless icon to receive the acclaim of Almightiness!
On the other hand, the Living God often relates to us in terms of--what do you know? The marriage relationship. He spends plenty of Scripture building this analogy. See Song of Solomon. If the Song is an analogy for relationship to God, don't forget an analogy can speak to both sides of the analogy. In other words, for those more familiar with the God-church side of the equation (Note, God-church, not God-individual relationship), they might do well to look at the man/woman side.
Now, for those thinking this elevates man to God-like status, think again. Thinking one's man is omnipotent, omnipresent, the Redeemer of mankind, that would be elevating man to godlike status, and it probably should be classified as idolatry. I don't know one single Christian woman who thinks that of men.
One problem: people equating marriage with the God~individual person relationship. That would immediately give men a wrongfully elevated status, but the God~individual relationship is represented as Father-child!
Regarding God~Church, look at the romance in Scripture! God takes care of Israel, He loves her, He woos her, He gets angry when she cheats on Him, He forgives her even after it's gone so far they had to be separated! And then it is written, "Men, love your wives even as Christ loved the church."
...Do you think this can't be what it's saying because it's license for a spouse to cheat? think again (it's Scripture, for those fervently submitting their love lives to The Word). Rather than a license to cheat, it's a call to reconcile. And to seek each other, serve each other, love each other so passionately they would die to be with each other!
"But I'm not God!"
"Well, nor am I the Church!"
...remember in that sense we both happen to be members of the church, like a lung and a kidney! Both halves of the analogy need brought into earthly terms. Both members of the earthly picture have to acknowledge their humanity, while leaning on Christ to go beyond their natural strength for each other!
It's an analogy. Of course the man doesn't have God's omni powers. Just as importantly and overlooked, of course the woman doesn't have all the church's powers and abilities!
Another way to see it is this. Would a devoted Christian man dare say, "I am the fulness of God?" No. In fact it's become a common complaint, from men, taking one terrified look at romantic commitment and sprinting the other way, saying "Aaaa! I'm not God! I'm not your savior!"
Well, duh. We women know that.
On the other hand, women tend to suffer in silence the expectation that, while man fails to be God, they are expected to be the church in their relationship to a husband. But women would be just a much in their rights to take one terrified look at commitment, and what is expected of them, sprint the other way, and scream "Help! I'm not your church! I don't have the sum of the abilities of the church to dedicate to you! I don't have the sum of the wisdom, the stability, or the strength to serve you like the church serves God!"
But bring both sides of the analogy to earth, and in the marriage picture is the closest to a license, or even command, to "worship" one other than God. (I heard a line once, "with this ring I thee worship," and the problem there was that, while shamelessly mocking his call to honor God in faithfully loving her, he still expected her to be the church.)
Only God is worthy of being called God. Only the Church can fulfill her duties and roles of the as the Church. But when did this rather obvious truth confuse mankind into thinking passionately loving and desiring to enter that similar (not identical) relationship, was idolatry?
(I think it was when people started looking at the God-to-individual relationship as a romance, which it is only as far as a Father-child relationship has an element of romance. Romance-romance in Biblical religion is Christ loving the Church.)
If men, running from commitment, think women see them as The Redeemer, they are simply blinded by their arrogance, failing entirely to know her heart and all the things she graciously overlooks in him (which he thinks he has hidden? lol. Meanwhile she also lets him see her flaws, and he assumes those flaws to be just the tip of the iceberg!). She graciously overlooks the ways he fails at the personal-protector side of the relationship, because it's in her nurturing nature to do so, to fill in the gaps in relationship.
Men need to stop decrying the protector role on the basis of not being The Almighty Protector. It's one thing to admit, "I think only God can do this particular thing, but perhaps in His strength I can..." compared to, "Expect nothing of me!! I'm not God!" Men need to give women a chance to accompany them in that role. And if men won't listen to (and seek out and pursue madly unto death!) women's heart-thoughts, they'll continue to run around thinking a woman's church-like, nurturing behavior is proof that she elevates him to the status of God!
And what about women who seem not to exhibit so much 'churchish' nurturing behavior anymore? They are of practicality being their own interim earthly protector. ...And that is not defemanization, it's exactly what women adapt to, have always done, naturally, when they are the pastor/head of their house. Let someone become the unto-death pastor/head of her house, and she will make a lower-case c 'church' for him. This is not idolatry of a spouse, it's the irreducibly complex center of community, created by God, for His own glory and worship.
