Revisiting my old Christians and Divorce Series
Posted by Sappho on October 10th, 2009 filed in Marriage
Of all the restrictions laid on sexuality by the stricter Christian denominations, condemnation of divorce is perhaps the one with the strongest Biblical justification: at several points in the New Testament, this prohibition (either with or without a narrow exception) is attributed to Jesus himself. At the same time, there are times when staying married, in ordinary human terms, looks and feels actually self-destructive to the people involved. How do we reconcile these two things, and where on the spectrum do we fall, in our beliefs about divorce? Back in 2005, I wrote a blog post series summarizing the variety of attitudes that Christian denominations have taken to when divorce is allowed (and including some of my own thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of particular approaches). Since Hector has asked for my opinion on divorce (in a Christian context), I’m linking the posts of this series here. Most of these posts are about how churches advise their own members, but I’m going to start by linking the one I posted last, on how Christian beliefs about divorce should interact with the law.
Christians, Divorce, and the Law: 1 Corinthians 7 revisited: 1 Corinthians 7, a Pauline exemption that allows you to let your non-Christian spouse leave you, figures in one of the Christian arguments for making allowance for divorce, and, as I describe in another post, is sometimes broadened to include certain cases in which both spouses are at least nominally Christian. Here, though, I make an argument that, however you choose to apply the verse in your own marriage, it offers a good reason for not imposing Christian restrictions on divorce as a legal matter in a secular society, that arguments for easier or more difficult legal divorce should be made on secular grounds.
Now, for the various positions that apply within Christian churches, and here I’ll just give my post titles (going in reverse chronological order of when I posted them):
Divorce as the lesser of evils in a fallen world.
Annulment: a Catholic divorce, or something else entirely?
Divorce and Remarriage: Varying Christian Views.
Paul and Divorce: 1 Corinthians 7:10-16 and the “Pauline privilege”.
Jesus and Divorce: the Friendly Bible study questions.
October 10th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I really enjoyed these posts. Thorough and even-handed as always. 🙂
You mentioned in one of the posts that many (most?) streams of Christianity view the Sermon on the Mount as an ideal, not a practical prescription — is that true? If so, I find that really confusing. How could Jesus’ most direct, detailed instructions be nonbinding to followers of Jesus? How could anything else be more binding than Jesus’ own pronouncements? Obviously the Sermon on the Mount is idealistic, but should religion shy away from idealism, from really challenging people?
I apologize in advance if I’ve missed something obvious here — as you know, I’m not a Christian. I could easily be misunderstanding.
October 10th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Hi Lynn,
I looked at some of your posts….really interesting! I’m not married, of course, so I have no experience with this, which in a way makes it harder to know what I think.
I liked your point about how if Jesus had been speaking to women, he would have included an exception for abuse as well. I think though that there’s even an easier way to arrive at an abuse exception. If we accept that Jesus made an excuse for adultery (which is debated- Catholics and conservative Anglicans like the great Bp. Charles Gore argue that the passage in Matthew is a spurious interpolation and not an actual saying from Jesus) then we can assume that, by implication, he also allowed an exception for anything that was _worse than_ adultery (and maybe as bad as well). Physical abuse is worse than adultery inasmuch as it can threaten life and limb- so if there is an excuse for adultery we can be confident there’s also an implicit, unstated one for abuse (e.g. it would make no sense to allow it for A, but not for another act B which is worse).
Beyond that, things get trickier. One of the more sophisticated arguments for limited exceptions, made by the Eastern churches, revolves (I think) around Romans 7:2 where Paul allows remarriage to a woman after her husband dies. The Eastern theologicans argue, as I understand it, that certain kinds of serious wrongdoing (physical abuse, felony, neglect, conversion away from the faith) constitute ‘spiritual death’ on the part of one’s spouse, in which the marriage becomes like marriage to a living corpse, i.e. null. This is quite a stretch from the Bible of course (though it has a certain mystical appeal), and the aforementioned Charles Gore argued that it was cooked up because the Orthodox theologians were under intense political pressure from the Empire to allow divorce. That argument seems weak though because the Armenians and Assyrians, who were never under Byzantine control, also arrived at a similar theology of remarriage.
Remarriage is, of course the big issue (more than divorce per se). The Catholic argument almost makes sense if you buy the Catholic argument on _sex_ in general (i.e. that the _default_ is that all people should be celibate, and only on certain conditions- married, open to procreation, not divorced) does one gain the right to have licit sex. Needless to say I don’t accept the argument though I don’t think it’s entirely foolish. The Catholic position on remarried people is also more liberal than i thought- in essence you’re allowed to participate in the life of the church _except_ for taking communion and sponsoring someone for confirmation/baptism. Some of the more liberal Catholic pastors, as I understand it, talk about how the suffering of being denied communion can, in a way, expiate the sin of the “adulterous” sex itself, and that this is punishment enough that it washes away the guilt of the sin.
My own view. like I said….I don’t know, but I incline to something like the Church of England’s policy prior to 2002. They officially disapproved of divorce, and would not under any circumstances perform remarriages, but they welcomed remarried people into the church, allowed them access to the sacrament, and blessed their relationships. I would incline to something like that, maybe a bit more conservative- encouraging divorced people to consider chastity, granting them access to the sacraments not automatically but on a case-by-case basis at the priest’s discretion, but ultimately being accepting of remarried people in the end. I just don’t see the point of demanding that all remarried people stay celibate forever or reunite with a spouse they don’t love or who abused them, and who may be long since departed. On the other hand I’d prefer my church not, itself, be in the business of remarriage.
Again, I really liked the posts (and your Mada ones as well). Peace!
October 10th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
@Bond: Well, I’ve read the argument that the Sermon on the Mount’s an ideal rather than a practical prescription, so I presented it as something a fair number of Christians believe, but I’m the wrong one to explain and justify that one. Actually, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, for pretty much the reasons you give. The best I can make of it is that it’s coming from a place where the world’s a very imperfect place, and we’re going to fall way short of any ideal that gets set forward, but, still, it seems to me that Jesus’ direct words would at least be an ideal you’d be trying to live, even if you fail at it.
@Hector: Thanks for your thoughts. I didn’t know about the Eastern church arguments. And, yes, I think where I have difficulty with the Catholic position is that I tend to see celibacy as more of a rare exceptional calling than a default.
October 10th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Ah, alright — thanks for the clarification. My main confusion is just the problem you mention in your last sentence: even if you know most people, including yourself, are going to fail to achieve the ideal, mustn’t we try, anyway? To say otherwise seems like a spectacular kind of cynicism.
October 10th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
The biblical marriage and divorce position is simpler than people would want to believe because people do want constraints. They would like to do whatever pleases them or whatever they imagine is right at any given time.
You must remain married as long as your spouse is faithful. If your spouse is physically unfaithful, that is, commits physical adultery, you may divorce him/her or not. It’s your choice. The adulterer may not remarry but the faithful spouse may. The adulterer should not be stoned to death, as he or she deserves, but neither can he/she be rewarded with the privilege of marrying someone else. The adulterer, though Jesus spares his/her life, forfeits any right to marriage. The adulterer, by utterly violating what God has joined together and made holy demonstrates to God and society his/her unwillingness to meet the demands and responsibilities of marriage. The violation of such a sacred relationship affords no second chance. The adulterer must seek forgiveness from his/her spouse and the innocent party decides whether to forgive and remain married to the adulterer or forgive and divorce.
Divorce means nothing if it does not free you to remarry. It is merely a separation. The Bible takes adultery much more seriously than physical abuse. Hard to believe these days. You may separate from a physically abusive spouse and even have him/her arrested for everyone’s good. But a divorce is not permissible.
The notion of divorcing your spouse because you “do not love” him/her is unacceptable from a biblical perspective. You must love even your enemies. If you do not love your spouse it’s your problem and you must correct yourself. You must seek forgiveness and God’s help for your transformation into a totally loving person.
This of course is not easy and that’s why so many people refuse to do it. The easy path is divorce and family fragmentation and that’s why it’s increasingly common.
The Sermon on the Mount is not idealistic. It is the most down to earth and pragmatic teaching for bringing about an harmonious and loving society. But it is not self-centered and that’s why nobody wishes to follow it and everyone rationalizes justifications for not obeying the simple and clear teaching of Jesus, which Jesus and all of his disciples demonstrated through their lives.
There you have it. No time for citing chapters and verses. You check it out thoroughly through your New Testament studies.
Peace.
October 10th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
Jose Solano,
Re: If your spouse is physically unfaithful, that is, commits physical adultery, you may divorce him/her or not.
Well, I could argue that this creates an invalid separation between the physical and the spiritual, and that there are things (felony, abuse, abandonment etc.) that damage a marriage spiritually just as badly as adultery does physically. I think if you do make an exception for adultery then the reasonable thing to do is also to make an exception for things that are _worse than_ adultery. WHich, in fact, the Orthodox and Oriental churches do. E.g. the Assyrian text “Marganitha” from AD 1298 allows divorce for sexual immorality, witchcraft, murder, and heresy.
Now some would _not_ make an exception for adultery (e.g. the Church of Rome and some Anglo-Catholics) and that is certainly a valid argument and perhaps even the better one. But then my question becomes, how to deal with separated spouses. Must they be celibate all their lives? Because this creates other problems in terms of loneliness, bitterness, etc. I would fully agree that I think Jesus calls separated spouses to chastity. But He was perfect mercy as well as perfect justice, and I think that he would have mercy on those people who are unable to live by his hard teaching. Remarriage after divorce is certainly an evil, and not something churches should perform, but I think sometimes it can be the lesser of two evils- i.e. less than the bitterness, loneliness, and spiritual corrosion that can result from imposed (as opposed to voluntary) celibacy.
I am not saying remarriage after divorce is a good thing, and I agree that divorced people should not have church marriages.
October 10th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Lynn,
When you have some time I’d appreciate your thoughts on some Christian-themed (long) blog posts at my blog.
on Hell: http://patriabolivariana2008.blogspot.com/2009/09/if-thine-eye-offend-thee-reflections-on.html
on WWII anniversary: http://patriabolivariana2008.blogspot.com/2009/09/reflections-on-anniversary-of-world-war.html
on miracles: http://patriabolivariana2008.blogspot.com/2009/07/talitha-cumi-reflection-on-healing-of.html
on Mary: http://patriabolivariana2008.blogspot.com/2009/08/lily-among-thorns-assumption-of-mother.html
October 11th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Thanks, José and Hector. Hector, I’ll take a look at your blog posts, and probably write on one or more of them, but it may be a couple of weeks before I do that, since I’ll be leaving for a vacation in Hawaii on Wednesday morning (condo and pet care already arranged, and any burglars reading this should know that the place won’t be empty).
October 11th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
(Big typo. In my first sent I wrote “people want constraints.” That should be “people do NOT want constraints.”)
Hi Hector,
You may think that there are things that damage marriage more than adultery. That may be. But that’s besides my point which refers only to the biblical understanding of marriage and divorce. What I might find reasonable could be at a polar opposite from biblical teaching.
Many churches have confounded the meaning of divorce and separation and as a result they are also confused about remarriage. By 1298 AD all sorts of confusions have come into being. To obtain some understanding of what Jesus might have taught it’s important to rely on the earliest sources, as close to primary sources as possible. That’s of course the New Testament canon. Everything else is significantly remote. Though it should still be taken into consideration, Even the Tradition gets somewhat distorted over time and through different cultures.
The Catholic Church may not make an exception for adultery but Jesus does. It’s the only exception. The Orthodox on the other hand make too many exceptions.
You say, “I think that he would have mercy on those people who are unable to live by his hard teaching.” Of course, God is merciful and if he weren’t none of us would make it. But this is also beside the point. We cannot simply justify sinning because God might be merciful. And we don’t want to get into the expectation of “cheap grace” being bestowed because we must remember that there is a terribly wrathful side to God. So the important thing is to recognize God’s teaching and make every effort to follow it, praying for his help in doing so.
I can’t recall anywhere in the Bible where God’s teaching is called “hard.” There are “hard,” difficult to understand sayings. Jesus speaks of our hardness of heart and actually tells us, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. . . . For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” It is our resistance that makes it hard.
Now, as you know, there are minor sins and there are major sins. For the adulterer to remarry while his/her spouse is alive is to be “living in sin” and declaring to the world that this “living in sin” is just fine. Sins that you’re “living in” cannot be repented like other sins that may be committed periodically. Your life is continually justifying the sin you are living in. That is very bad. You must stop living in sin if you have really repented of such a sin.
So, “it’s better to marry than to burn” and it’s better to be faithful in marriage than to BURN or be blotted out.
Peace.
October 11th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Jose Solano,
Thanks for your response. The reference to “hard sayings” is from John 6:60, “Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?” In reference, of course, to Christ’s teaching about the Eucharist.
Jesus makes an exception for ‘porneia’. As you know, ‘porneia’ is used as a metaphor for all kinds of sin in the New Testament, e.g. Revelation 7:2 “With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication”. How do you know that Jesus didn’t intend an exception for spiritual adultery as whell as physical adultery?
But leave aside the adultery exception, as I think those are weak arguments anyway. I agree that remarriage after divorce is an evil, no question. My question is, what if the alternatives are even greater evils? Not everyone is called to celibacy, and without doubt many divorced people cannot return to their previous spouses. What if remarrying allows a divorced person to be a better, healthier person better equipped to serve God and their neighbor. And what if for some people, imposed celibacy would make them simply bitter and spiritually withered.
We live in a fallen world, under the domination of evil, and in this world often we have a choice between a lesser evil and a greater one. I am not denying that remarriage after divorce is an evil, but I am arguing that sometimes it may be a lesser evil that in pastoral guidance we should countenance in order to avoid greater ones.
As for ‘reasonable’, as Pope Benedict said in his Regensburg address, it is of the nature of God to be reasonable. That means if we find a saying utterly foreign to reason, it may be that we’ve misunderstood the saying.
October 12th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Continuing our conversation Hector, you ask, “How do you know that Jesus didn’t intend an exception for spiritual adultery as whell as physical adultery?”
By “spiritual adultery” I presume you mean adulterous thoughts. The answer to your question is in the word that you provide: porneia.
Biblical words must be understood in context as the different texts are written by different people in different times and places. The context in which we encounter the word porneia, (Mt. 5:32 and 19:9) with reference to what we are talking about, marriage and divorce, unambiguously demonstrates that Jesus is speaking about a carnal sexual experience outside of marriage that does not need to be tolerated. It is the ultimate violation of the marriage commitment before spouse and God. It was a capital offense until Jesus eliminated capital punishment.
To be sure, it is true that by merely looking at a person lustfully one commits adultery in one’s heart. But nowhere is it mentioned that this can be grounds for divorce. Such a thought seems quite absurd as in that case there would be hardly any marriages at all. I don’t know of any church that has made such an interpretation. Cleansing one’s mind, one’s soul, is the great Work process of life. It is the arena of checks and balances, of self-observation and examination so that one does not act on one’s fantasies. To think of murdering someone is very different from murdering that person. Both are sinful but there are, as we know, degrees of sinfulness.
Regarding “imposed celibacy,” there are more unmarried people than there are married. Sexual abstinence is “imposed” on all of these. That’s the biblical teaching. For the adulterer celibacy is imposed: “. . . Whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery.”
It appears that God wishes us to develop self-control and sexual abstinence for unmarried people is one of the means to do this. God apparently recognizes that the person-to-person bond, inner and outer, that is ideally created through the sexual experience, is so intense and sacred that it is must be both not perverted by cheap thrills and inviolable once consecrated. It is the supreme encounter between a man and a woman and is indissoluble, except when violated by adultery.
(Perhaps later I’ll touch upon when premarital sex is tolerated but nor advised for those “engaged” to be married.)
I thoroughly agree with your quote of Pope Benedict. It is in the nature of God to be reasonable. It is not necessarily in ours. God is consistent with his reasoning. We are a bundle of confusions, negative complexes and irrational actions that we must struggle through to arrive at some reasonable thoughts and decisions. We may have faith in God’s reasoning abilities, not in ours. We take God on his Word even when we do not understand why he asks us to do certain things.
Blessings.
October 12th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Hi Hector,
I have a comment “awaiting moderation.”
October 13th, 2009 at 6:29 am
Jose Solano,
Thanks for your response. I actually find the “Divorce is always forbidden, no exceptions” stance of the Roman Catholic church to be more convincing then your “Divorce is forbidden EXCEPT FOR adultery”. I think there are strong reasons to believe (internal scriptural evidence, comparison with the rest of the NT, early church tradition, and reason) that Jesus didn’t actually say “Except for adultery”, and that the author of St. Matthew’s Gospel interpolated it spuriously.
I don’t, actually, think that premarital sex or for that matter gay sex is always wrong, so I don’t agree with you that all unmarried people are called to abstain from sex. I _do_ think that divorced people are called to, ideally, abstain from sex, precisely because they’re _not_ truly ‘unmarried’. And that’s why I say ‘remarriage after divorce is evil’. However, sometimes staying celibate would lead to many other spiritual evils in its turn. We live in a fallen world and sometimes the choice is not between evil and good, but between a lesser evil and a greater evil. So yes, it’s an evil but sometimes, I think, a pardonable evil, and sometimes one that can be tolerated to avoid other evils.
October 13th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
You may make up whatever you wish Hector but you will have no Scriptural foundation for what you invent. To support your invention you must resort to calling what Jesus says in Matthew “spurious.”
You prefer what the Catholic Church teaches with regard to no divorce exceptions, and I would pray that you at least hold to just that disagreement, but then you go on to fabricate a legitimacy for homosexual relationships, premarital sex and declare that unmarried people are not called to sexual abstention and that such abstentions could “lead to many other spiritual evils.”
This all comes thoroughly from your head, which you imagine to be reasoning. Abstention leads to many other spiritual evils? Where on earth did you get that from?
It is so common today for people to simply fabricate their religion and morality so that ultimately each one becomes an Oracle of “truth” at worst, and an agnostic relativist at best, my “truth,” your “truth,” his “truth” with a most convenient situational ethics.
Everything is reduced to a belief in what one imagines to be reasonable, lacking any form of real faith in something revealed by God through Scripture. Clearly that’s a form of idolatrous self-centeredness. Everything from God must be filtered through my reasoning to see if God got it right. It is the vogue and conforms to what Juan Manuel de Prado is referring to when he speaks of “la nueva tiranía;” the new tyranny of contemporary self-worship. A fascinating understanding that I’ve just begun to examine.
You espouse a doctrine that tolerates evil rather than condemning evil and confessing one’s sinfulness. That’s today’s great spiritual trap. Justify sins rather than confess them.
One last point. You talk about a “pardonable evil.” All evils are pardonable but the pardon is meaningless if there is no acknowledgement of the evil and no repentance.
I have not given you what I would like to believe but rather what the Scriptures actually teach. And these divinely inspired writings you may accept or reject. You may respect them or call them “spurious.” You may find the harmony in the teaching and work to follow it or pick and choose what you like and discard the rest.
Peace.