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February 12, 2025What does it mean for a man to love his wife as Christ loves the Church? I have certainly wrestled with this question, even as I have wrestled with my marriage and my ministry over a lifetime. Looking back over mistakes and sorrows too many to count and joys and triumphs so undeserved, I have seen the true nature of how my relationship to my bride connects to the covenant bond between Christ and his Church. In him, that great sign of love has become so much more for me than theology or daily Christian living.
Recently I had the opportunity to revisit the 2008 Christian movie, Fireproof (Samuel Goldwyn Films and Affirm Films), a fictional film starring Kirk Cameron and Erin Bethea as Caleb and Catherine Holt. The movie is a heartwarming story of this young couple’s struggles with faith and marriage, and how the power of Christ’s love brings restoration and renewal to their lives. While the movie was given low marks by secular critics who treated the film as overly-sentimental and somewhat mundane, Fireproof nonetheless won the hearts of millions of moviegoers and believers throughout the world for its realistic portrayal of an all-too-common problem facing so many men and women today who take on the challenges of marriage without Jesus at the center of their lives.
Synopsis of the Movie
The story of Caleb and Catherine shows clearly how so many non-believing couples approach their marriage – as a contract to be renegotiated when expectations and personal needs go unmet. Caleb and Catherine have drifted apart, physically and emotionally. Caleb is the Fire Chief at the Albany, Georgia Fire Department where he commands respect and devotes himself to his work. At home, however, he feels disregarded and neglected as a man, and spends his free time filling the void in his life by viewing Internet pornography and obsessing over a boat he wants to buy.
Catherine too feels the pain of her husband’s lack of care for her needs. She is angry that Caleb is saving money for a boat when her parents need to purchase a hospital bed and motorized wheel chair for her mother who has suffered a stroke. At the hospital where she works as an administrator, she begins a flirtatious relationship with a young doctor who makes her feel important and valued.
Eventually, the marital struggle comes to a head, with Caleb lashing out verbally at Catherine and the two saying they want a divorce. Caleb contacts his father, a believer in Christ, to share the news. Caleb’s father asks his son to hold off talking about the divorce, and to take the “Love Dare,” a 40-day challenge where Caleb is asked to complete a new act of kindness toward his wife each day. At first, Caleb treats the Love Dare like a series of tasks to check off on a list. Catherine rejects these gestures as insincere, frustrating Caleb, who eventually wants to give up and go forward with the divorce.
Caleb speaks once more with his father and tells him that he cannot continue to love someone who constantly rejects him and ignores his acts of love. It is here that his father finally helps Caleb to see that he cannot love Catherine until learns to accept the love of the One who has shown him kindness, the Savior Caleb has been rejecting over and over. Caleb commits his life to Christ, and in this new strength, is able to complete the Love Dare, this time, performing the acts of kindness with true sacrificial love. He even destroys his computer to keep himself from viewing pornography any longer, and begins to cook and clean and take care of the house simply because it is the right thing to do.
Catherine learns at this time that a mysterious donor has purchased the bed and wheelchair for her mother. She believes it to be the doctor, and this draws her closer to him. Caleb learns of the emotional affair when he is injured fighting a fire and ends up at the hospital where his wife and the doctor work. He discreetly confronts the doctor and tells him that he will fight to win back his wife. The doctor then backs away from his relationship with Catherine, and we learn that he himself is married but has been concealing this from Catherine.
Caleb comes home one day to find Catherine in bed with a cold. He brings her food and medicine, and when Catherine asks him why he is treating her like this, Caleb tells her about the Love Dare. Catherine tells Caleb that she found the Love Dare book and asks him what day he is on. Caleb tells her that he is on day 43 and explains that during the challenge, he learned from God what true love really is. Caleb then gets down on his knees and offers Catherine a heartfelt and tear-filled apology, asking for her forgiveness. He tells her that whether or not she ever forgives him, he wants her to know how sorry he is for the way he has trampled on her with his words and actions, these many years.
The movie reaches its climax when Catherine learns that the mysterious donor who had purchased the bed and wheelchair for her mother was not the doctor, but her husband Caleb. He had taken the money he had saved for his boat and bought the bed and wheelchair in secret. Catherine realizes that Caleb had done this even when she had told him she was still thinking of getting the divorce. She repents of her sin, puts on her prettiest clothes and rushes to the fire station where she says to Caleb –
“If I haven’t told you that you are a good man – you are. If I haven’t told you that I’ve forgive you – I have. And if I haven’t told you, that I love you – I do! Something has changed in you, Caleb. And I want what happened to you to happen to me…Is it too late to ask you to grow old with me?”
The story concludes with Caleb and Catherine renewing their marriage vows, this time as a covenant before Christ, in the sight of their family and friends. They have finally fireproofed their marriage, and they can now move forward in faith together, as a sign of Christ’s love for his Church.
Application for Men
This brief summary of Fireproof is important to hear because the movie speaks so powerfully of the casual way so many of us, even as believing men, have so often neglected and even abused the wives given to us by Christ. In this insane modern world, where we are enticed by the bigger, better deal, and where the struggles of daily living can often beat us down, we may come to the conclusion that we deserve better than what our marriages have to offer us. We may drown out the voice of the Holy Spirit calling us to love our spouses as Christ loves his Bride, and seek the momentary pleasures of possessions or position, and pursue our addictions and our lusts in a vain attempt to satisfy the void we create for ourselves by our own sinful choices.
Perhaps the most powerful part of the movie was the scene where Caleb was ranting about trying to love someone who constantly neglects and rejects him. Caleb was not a believer and needed to make the choice to come to Christ before he could love his wife as she deserved. Where are we as Catholic believers in that scenario? Have we just been going through the motions of faith? Have we rejected our baptism and the One who has saved us and who calls us to repentance and renewal day by day? Are we flirting with temptation, medicating our pain, and turning to our addictions rather than drawing strength from our Savior so that we can love our wives as he has loved his beloved Bride, the Church? Like Caleb in the story, we too are called to place Christ in the center of our lives before we can take on the “Love Dare” he offers us when he calls us to marriage.
Sentimental and Mundane?
Perhaps the reason the critics originally had so many negative things to say about Fireproof was because the movie was not worldly enough – too slow-paced, not filled with enough action or intrigue, or too simple a story for modern audiences. Or perhaps, these people had forgotten that the real dramas of life, the day-to-day struggles men face in this corrupt and chaotic world, are truly what hits home the hardest. We often go to see the big blockbusters to avoid facing the daily skirmishes and big battles that the challenge of marriage brings. But eventually the pain and the reality of our own unhappiness catches up with us. It is there that we face the challenge of the Love Dare Christ offers us – to stand up as men and learn to love our wives as he has loved us.
In my own life, I confess that I have walked this road of marriage at times with the same mindset as Caleb. I have expected – sometimes even demanded – too much from my bride, without realizing Paul’s call in Ephesians chapter 5 to see my marriage as the sacrament – the holy sign – it truly is. I have forgotten that my duty to my wife is to treat her with unconditional, sacrificial, love, in order to help her to become who she is meant to be – part of the pure, spotless Bride of Christ. I have been called to lay down my life for her; and yet, how many other “mistresses” – pleasures, possessions, hobbies, lusts, goals, and selfish desires – have I put ahead of her? It is a sobering question indeed.
The True Love Dare
Thank God for the love of Christ that has moved in my heart over the years and taught me to embrace the Love Dare that Christ has called me to fulfill. I am grateful for Paul, and for movies like Fireproof for teaching me that the real challenge as a husband is to give my beautiful bride the very best of myself, to honor and cherish her with all my heart, and to put her needs ahead of my own, even when it means giving up on dreams that are really vapors compared with the love she is owed. This doesn’t mean I have to neglect my needs or to never have godly goals or desires; for my wife is called to submit to me – which really means to devote herself to helping me to be the best man I can be. As Catherine told Caleb that she wanted what happened to him to happen to her, so must we desire for our spouses and ourselves that the love of Christ manifests itself fully in our lives as the holy challenge – the Love Dare – that washes us clean, that leads us home, and that turns our relationships into the sacrament marriage is meant to be.
There, in that place where Christ makes our marriages fireproof, we can honor his call on our lives to be the true sign of his love for the Church, and ultimately for the world. This is what we as believers were created to be – people who love each other perfectly, sacrificially, and completely, so that all people will know the love of Jesus, the One who gave himself up to death so that we could have life with him as his holy Bride, forever in heaven.
May your love for your wives be a true Love Dare lived out, for the One who dared to give his life for you!
