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Reckoning with Divorce
We’ve had a pair of gay marriage posts this week on the Member Feed [Editor’s note: Curious? Join!], and there have been a few comments along the lines that Christians focus all their anger on gays, and similarly comments about the easy forgiveness of heterosexual sexual sins. These comments bothered me, but I don’t want to hijack those threads.
In the 20 years or so since I’ve been an active member of congregational churches (yes, those of you doing the math, I started when I was about 10 years old; being a voting member is a matter of salvation and understanding of the doctrine through baptism, not age), and I’ve seen sexual sins brought up a number of times. Almost always heterosexual, and almost always aimed at fornication and adultery (with the balance being about how married people should have sex more frequently).
I’ve generally attended the closest Southern Baptist Church whose website didn’t trip a heresy alert, but in college I was Assemblies of God, and I’ve also spent some time in Methodist and Presbyterian (evangelical) congregations.
I’ve seen two pastors removed for affairs, both straight. I’ve seen a third pastor step down for the (I still think bad reason) that he made a habit of meeting with women not his wife alone -but still in public. There was agreement it was a problem; the disagreement was whether the problem was scandal or impropriety, and we had to revise the bylaws after that one. Those are the only pastors I’ve ever seen forced to leave a pulpit.
I’ve seen two — maybe three — people disciplined by the church. The pastor spoke to them and asked them to change their behavior or find another church. I only know about it because I knew the people involved — well, through my parents — and in all cases these were people carrying on affairs with other church members (who I presume were also taken aside).
I have had a pastor, not removed, who made it known, in the context of a sermon about marriage, that he will only officiate a wedding ceremony if the couple is living apart. There was, in fact, debate on this point, with some in the congregation arguing that it was far better for the couple to be made honest, and with others arguing that marriage — like communion — can’t be taken while stained with unrepented sin.
The single biggest fight I’ve seen was among the Assemblies of God, on the question of whether a woman who had married young, and foolishly, and then divorced, could hypothetically remarry. The pastor said she could not, and while the congregation wasn’t thrilled with this response, they couldn’t come up with a rebuttal that the congregation could support.
On the other hand, I have had a church whose pastor was divorced and remarried, and — while there was some debate on the matter — few thought it a disqualification (though all agreed his situation was regrettable, the consensus was that his testimony and witness on the topic were good).
Divorce ministries, and questions about how to treat divorcees — whether and under what circumstances they should be encouraged to remarry — are common in the churches I’ve attended. Similarly, the question of whether and how to encourage the youth (from high school up into the late 20s or early 30s) to wait until marriage has been a puzzle. There’s no debate on waiting until marriage, but there is on whether young people should they be encouraged to marry early, within the church, or wait until after college, or something else?
One of the Bible studies I was in actually asked to dissolve and join other classes because they didn’t want to be the “singles, out of college” group, they wanted to be “adults.” And while there wasn’t much debate on the point, the question of how to treat single adults remains. Can they be deacons or elders (in some churches, the answer has been no, in others it has been merely hypothetical)?
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Moreso than most organs of society, churches have been required to reckon with the wreckage of family and divorce over the last 40 years. I don’t know that they’ve always done a great job of it. It really is a hard question: how do you hold people to a high standard, correct sin, and teach righteousness in a society that legally and socially runs in the opposite direction. Divorce is, of course, the hardest one. It’s only allowed in the case of adultery (though we’ve often extended it to abuse and abandonment through some slightly creative hermeneutics), and even then preserving the marriage is considered preferable, and not every congregation agrees on remarriage afterwards. But the courts don’t care about our laws: they just print the divorce certificate, and then the congregants want to know why that isn’t enough. It spreads to everything, though.
Jim Manzi said in his book that “maybe the socons are right, and the wheels really will come off the wagon…” and, having watched the past 20 years, I am bewildered and a little infuriated at his choice of future tense. Rising numbers of frustrated young adults who can’t figure out how to be full adult members of the community that prizes marriage and parenthood, and can’t figure out how to love and marry, and speaking only for myself, unreasonably resent the attempts at help.
I’d feel better about our libertarian contingent’s mad dash to freedom if they spent more than a rhetorical minute facing up to what our society has done to itself for 40 years, and then insulting the people who actually deal with it every week by insinuating all we care about is the gays.
Published in Culture, Religion & Philosophy
The covenant of marriage explicitly requires that a man and wife stay together until separated by death. Divorce is the legal recognition that a couple, so covenanted, will not wait that long to separate. Divorce is not a sin, it is the result of many sins: unforgiveness, adultery, violent anger, greed, addiction, selfishness; one or both parties must own to loving their sin more than they love their spouse.
That sexual sins and divorce are rampant in the church as they are in the larger culture indicates that the timeless truths of our faith have been largely lost, first by the church, then to the culture. Increasingly, it becomes difficult even to go through the motions required of a robust, efficatious faith. Hypocracy is exhausting when no one is applauding.
I was just going to point out that there is quite the clear statement from God on divorce in Malachi 2:16 (“the Lord hates divorce”) and reaffirm the statements made that point out Jesus’ judgement on the matter: It is permitted but it is permitted because we are morally flawed (“your hearts were hard”) , not because it is always a good solution to marital difficulties. It is in fact almost always the worst.
Hartmann,
Why do you call it almost always the worst? In a different sphere is ex-communication the worst thing to happen? Do you really think divorce is worst than the toxic conditions of some marriages? (If you want I will give examples.) (My tone is asking sincere questions.)
A judge once said to me “congratulations, you are single again,” and it was the worst feeling of my life. Worse than the five years she had been gone. That we as a culture celebrate this event (full on champagne and fireworks type celebrations) saddens me more than I can express. Having been the body torn asunder I can testify that it is no joyous day of relief even if it led to the joy I have now with my wife and children. But, the mystery of grace has hardly been understood by me or anyone else really.
KC, what you state as the Catholic view of divorce requires more precision. From the Catechism:
The Catholic view allows that there can be an innocent party to a civil divorce, which speaks to TC’s point in #25:
I could spend time adducing sociological studies showing the long-term effects of divorce on children from families in which divorce was carried out: increased incidence of nearly every psycho-social pathology you can name, such as anxiety disorders, depression, phobias, inability to commit or form emotional bonds with others (that is, a form of attachment disorder), drug abuse, uncontrollable violent rages toward romantic partners, kleptomania, alcoholism, etc., etc. But, needing as I do to get some work done today, I will just note that in marriages I have know where the couple stayed together even when the spouse had an affair, the spouse was a raving nutcase (not kidding I mean ‘raving’- it took years and lots of psychoactive meds for her to get better), the spouse ruined the family’s finances- the children turned out alright, while in the case of a divorce (my parents), the children- even the adults- experienced significant negative impacts. The younger ones- my brother and me- were most adversely affected. I have seen only a few clear cut cases where divorce was definitely the best solution and one of those involved a long string of affairs and also alcoholism. Another involved refusal to have children and years of emotional and financial abuse (of the man). Basically, I think on the basis of evidence that absent very severe wickedness and cruelty on the part of one spouse (or both), marital counseling and reconciliation are the better option by far.
I can report that the news that my divorce was final brought me such indescribable joy that it probably stands as one of my top 5 life events. Such was the misery of my marriage that mere elimination of that weight and pain were enough to cause me to walk on clouds for weeks.
It’s not as if I got married with the intent of “being miserable” or the desire to suffer – I got married with the best of intentions and out of a desire to do the right thing. Some gulfs between people cannot be bridged, however.
I will say that the feeling paled in comparison to my remarriage.
The teachings on marriage are some of the hardest and most strict in Christianity. For an evangelical perspective see this sermon series or this one. When I came to understand the covenant of marriage as a proclamation of the gospel it shook me to the core. It (again) makes me look at every aspect of life and think “oh, but for the Grace of God…”
I agree – but a bad marriage is a canker. The things that one spouse can do to another are akin to murder – and I use that term advisedly, because one partner can literally do things to kill the love that their partner has for them. That act of killing (of the shared organism of the marriage) is not reparable in many cases.
The trouble is that you really don’t know that other person in many situations – and I don’t mean that they can’t load the dishwasher or leave the seat up – but that their deeply ingrained personal habits don’t emerge until well after you’ve seen them in action for a long time. After all, we tend to be on our best behavior early in relationships. We tend to let our guard down a little bit and become more vulnerable and human towards one another after a few months… and what we see at that point is probably going to be more or less permanent.
You have my sincerest sympathy for the death of your first marriage and I am glad to read that the second is healthy. Which is just a way of saying that I think your analysis here is accurate. However, I also think situations like yours and the other cases of irrevocably dead or irredeemably toxic marriages are a minority. More about that later.
This is where the teachings of Christ are the hardest. When Christ explained them to his disciples their response was basically, “Hell no!” More specifically they said, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry” (Matt 19:10). The Christian view is that getting marriage right is not even possible by human will and effort alone. I’d say the truth of this is adequately demonstrated in our society.
Hear, hear.
Well, Joe Kennedy was the Ambassador, Joe Kennedy Jr was his son, the pilot who died in WWII, and so the RFK son (next generation) named Joe would have been III, right? Not sure about the grammar of such names.
I don’t know the price of annulments … I could ask a relative who got one, but she doesn’t like to be reminded of the subject, so you may have to give me some time for that one.
Happy to be precisioned … nice work, Snirtler!
I think it’s worth noting that Christian notions of divorce are quite different from those of Judiasm, in which — I gather — no-fault divorce has long been available and is seen as a lamentable failure and tragedy, but not inherently sinful.
Those more knowledgeable on the matter are encouraged to elaborate and/or correct me as necessary.
Mine was $300, which I am certain was nowhere near the actual cost of the services rendered. The diocese crawled into every nook and cranny there was… they crawled into nooks and crannies I did not know existed. The process was extremely thorough. Some may object to this thoroughness on the grounds of privacy violation, but given that marriage is a public institution, determining marital validity or dissolution should be public as well.
I would like to kindly suggest that proponents of the “too many annulments” position have not considered enough evidence to reach that conclusion. Canon law expert Edward Peters addresses both the “too many” and “too few” arguments. Here’s what he has to say about the proponents of the “too many” position. His reasoning is thorough and logical:
I just had a conversation with a friend who after 20 or so years of marriage is finally calling it quits. Her husband is a chronic drinker and substance abuser, can’t keep a job, and is probably physically abusive of her although she doesn’t say so flat out. (He has served time for assaulting their son once–the son called the police–but she hasn’t flat out said that he hits her.) This is a situation where the divorce is badly needed, although still truly sad.
Amy, thanks for having the courage to say this. You hit the nail on the head.
Sounds like Protestants are gravitating toward Roman Catholic doctrine. ;)
Not sure if this has been said, since I didn’t read all the comments, in the Catholic Church it’s not that divorce on its own is a sin – though if done for purely selfish reasons it would be – it’s that remarriage is a sin, since technically “that which God has joined” cannot be separated by man, and therefore the two on remarriage commit adultery. See Matthew 19:3-9.
Edit: Oops I see it’s been said and discussed. Sorry for the duplication.
Indeed, it was.
Well, if crimes are plummeting & yet the cities are so full of ‘philandering, wasteful or slothful spouses’, what moral improvements do you see? After all, the laws do a lot of the work to keep crime down. A lot of the works is done by prosperity & productivity. Even demographics do a lot of work in keeping crime down.
You mean punitive justice? That’s not morality. It’s certainly a far distant second best to happiness, which is, I take it, what people look for in marriage.