I was reading a post about divorce by Gullible's Travels. It reminded me of what prompted my most recent faith crisis. (Yes, I've had a number in my life!)
I've been a Christian counselor for several years, and have done a lot of marriage counseling. I consider my approach to be very Christian, faith-based. My general tack with marriage has been to do whatever we can to strengthen the relationship and have a good marriage, including strong boundaries and stuff; but if it's still broken or abusive or neglectful, go ahead and divorce. You're not honoring God to stay in a loveless marriage. As I would say, "This marriage is dead. Let's give it a proper burial." Keeping it alive on paper did not seem God-honoring to me.
Then one of my clients challenged me on it. He said, "I'm not sure I can continue with you. Ultimately, we have different views of God's will in this matter."
And so I read the new testament cover to cover in a month. And it couldn't be more clear. ONE exception for divorce; sexual immorality committed by your spouse. THAT'S IT!! It couldn't be more clear by Jesus or Paul. (Some construe porneia to mean lust or pornography or sexual abuse or workaholism or whatever. I'm pretty sure that the people who heard Jesus and Paul understood exactly what they meant. Knocking boots with someone other than your spouse.)
To go even further, if you divorce for ANY other reason, and then get remarried, you're committing adultery. ANDDD... you are causing your spouse to commit adultery if he/she gets remarried... even if he/she had been completely innocent in the original divorce. The only out in those circumstances was if your former spouse died. Then you were released. (Not if they got remarried. Only if they died. Dead. No longer breathing.)
And there was no way I could intellectually chalk this up to being a "cultural" teaching. The reasons given in the bible for this teaching had nothing to do with culture. They had to do with Adam and Eve and Christ and the Church and the overall sanctity of the marriage covenant.
I had to finally admit it. I either had to follow and teach this line of instruction, or ignore it and continue with my "principles," or reinterpret it to be more palatable, or question whether the bible is the inspired/inerrant "word of God."
I couldn't quite come to direct my clients to follow this instruction... it is repulsive to me... especially when there is abuse, neglect, addiction, etc. etc. I still don't see how it honors God for the spouse to stay married in those cases. Unless you're going to say "stay married, but live separate lives?" But again, how does that honor God? And is that a just sentence to impose on an innocent spouse? What if they are "burning with lust?" No wonder the text records Jesus saying, "This is a hard teaching, and not all can accept it."
So, for this reason and a couple other similar New Testament teachings (which I'll address in a future post), I am tapering off my clients, as I really don't know what to tell them anymore, while I reevaluate my faith; to wit, is the bible really the inspired/inerrant word of God; and, if it is, what does it say, and how does one correctly apply it to life today.
I should have that all figured out in a week or so.
Oh, there's this woman that I grew up with. Her husband left her for another woman several years ago. She has hung in there, praying for a turnaround, etc. But New York finally got no-fault divorce, and he is currently divorcing her. (He tried before and she wouldn't let him!) I have been waiting (hoping) for this divorce to happen, cuz I like her! But then I got thinking... He's divorcing her and she was never sexually immoral. He's divorcing for the WRONG REASON! So... she can't get remarried or she'll be committing adultery! And if I marry her I'll be committing adultery as well. Might be enough to abandon my faith for I guess....
Funny thing... 50-100 years ago this was not a difficult teaching to believe/accept by the church. It was par for the course. Divorce was unthinkable, even if there was sexual immorality! And remarriage was clearly only practiced by degenerate Hollywood movie stars. Amazing how dramatically the attitude in the church has changed about such a pivotal topic in such a short time. That in itself should lead one to question whether any and all of our current beliefs/practices aren't 98.3% culturally biased.
Lastly, in my personal situation, after 15 years of a miserable marriage, during which I had lapsed into agnosticism I suggested to my wife that we try an open marriage. We would still try to work on our relationship, but we would also be free to date others, as long as we were up front about it. We did that for about 6 months. (What an interesting experience.) Ultimately, she found someone that she had the feelings for that she never did with me, and is married to him today. Our divorce was mutual and amiable. Several years later I "came back to the Lord," and for the sake of argument, lets say I still am with Him. So, according to scripture, am I free to remarry?? Try to figure out that boondoggle. I remember Jay Adams had a book out about divorce and remarriage that outlined with engineering precision when and if divorce or remarriage were permissible or not. I'll have to look that up and see if it addresses my situation.
Talk amongst yourselves.
I don't envy you trying to work out all these complicated divorce scenarios! These precepts about divorce seem clear enough until you try to apply them to real life situations. This is where I see the Bible and common sense parting ways. Doesn't it sound a little absurd to be required to split hairs like in the case of your friend? Here, her husband committed adultery. So, even though he doesn't divorce her due to adultery, she's not considered free to remarry? Wasn't the point of Jesus that adultery breaks the promise of fidelity just as Isreal repeatedly behaved faithlessly and broke her covenant with God? It sounds like maybe the same could be said of your marriage. Of course, you had the interesting added component of a mutually agreed upon open marriage. What on earth was that like? How strange that would be to know your spouse is out on a date while you're home with the kids!
ReplyDeleteDude of Dude Not
ReplyDeleteIt definitely made it easier, since we didn't have to find sitters! lol
It was actually a huge relief for both of us, and much better than all the tension and secrecy that had gone on behind each others' backs already anyway.
The level of communication went WAY up... We were able to be completely honest with each other in a way we had never felt free to be before.
And to take the pressure off of having to be "all" to your spouse, and they "all" for you... It makes it easier to just be yourself and give what you can authentically, and not worry if it's not enough... or not worry if they're not enough for you. You both have options to supplement as needed.
Needless to say, it was interesting. We would talk to each other about who we're dating, how it's going, problems, etc. We were very good friends to each other about it all.
I suppose the reason it was that way was because we never really had a romantic/passionate relationship in the first place. So we could do the "friend" thing pretty well. I have no idea what it would be like if we had had more of the typical boyfriend/girlfriend romantic interest in each other... that may have made it more difficult to tolerate thoughts of them in the arms of someone else, etc.
Well, after all the grief/drama of the marriage, open relationship, and divorce... I've been single for like 8 year. Still trying to recover! lol
Love the name of your blog.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read enough here to pick up exactly your background or possible satire or whatever, but if you are indeed interested, I think you'd benefit from Divorce and Remarriage in the Church by David Instone-Brewer, which shows that as in most things, this question is much more complex than meets the eye.
Hey bluesboy
ReplyDeleteComplex... yes. Would that it were all simple and easy to understand.
So, why does God make things so difficult? Or do we?? I'm not sure.
The bible seems to talk about mysteries, truth being hidden, seeing through a glass darkly, Jesus speaking in parables, etc. Why???? To torture us??
This speaks to a calvinist view of spirituality/salvation, where only the elect are able to see, believe, and act on the truth. To the rest of us it's gobbleygook. But that seems like a cop-out answer.
As an aside, I've been listening to lectures from a Yale OT professor. Wow, talk about seeing the bible through a very different lens from what I've grown up with (as in, a very HUMAN construction). geez
Do or Do not
ReplyDeleteI would comment on your blog, but I can't find any way to do it anonymously, or with name/url! :(
You should be able to now.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote: "Why does God make things so difficult? Or do we?"
Any field is incredibly difficult the more you get into it. I don't see this as unique to the Christian faith. And I don't think it's about "only the elect are able to see," which I agree is a cop-out answer, but rather just the nature of things, especially the nature of God intervening at a particular time and place far removed from our own time and place.
And I agree with you that for Christians to read and understand the Bible appropriately, they need to do a better job of reading the Bible as a human document, not just a God document.
bluesboy
ReplyDeleteI WAS able to comment on your blog, and did so already.
I was trying to get a message to doordonot from the Like a Child blog.
You are correct in saying that every field gets more difficult and less sensible the deeper you get into it.
Speaking of the bible as a man document/god document... It just came to me this morning... If I look at it as a man document, something that men put together to try and capture something about their experience with God, it is totally believable. But as soon as I start to try and view it as God's document, that he wrote, put together, superintended... geez, he could have done a better job! Do we want to e embarrass with that attribution? More simply, if God set out to make sure we had an understandable, reliable, coherent document it seems like he could have/would have done a better job than what we have.
I feel so heretical saying this. shit.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThese blogs about this divorce teaching make me sad. I'm sorry to read about your dilemma.
My husband had an interesting point which may or may not be helpful, but here goes: Jesus, in the gospels, berates those who stick to "the letter of the law" - remember stuff about healing on the Sabbath...In Mark 7, Jesus talks to his disciples about what makes a person "unclean and clean," and he tells them "are you so dull? don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'?"
The point my husband was making was that Jews were required to follow all of these laws, but didn't get that it isn't the food so much that makes you unclean...So, what Jesus was suggesting is that perhaps our responsibility is to think about the "law" critically, and to make right judgements where necessary. i.e. maybe what's written will not apply exactly the same way in every situation. I tend to think- conjecture, of course, i have nothing else- is that Jesus would be hard pressed to keep a person in a situation where they were being abused - I can't see it. I can't see him making them stay there because of what he said about marriage. I think that as far as the marriage/divorce stuff, - ok, you shouldn't divorce your wife over the fact she spoiled breakfast- the commitment should be more than that. But, where there are serious issues that can't be rectified...
By the way, your last comment on God maybe could have done a better job making things coherent... I agree with your heresy.:-) But that's where Muslims would say that's what Mohammed was up to with the Qu'ran.....Aaarrgghh...
IsToo
ReplyDeleteJesus was a big promoter of the Torah (law), even taking it to a deeper heart level than may have been common.
At times he showed how circumstances overrode the letter of the law. But divorce and remarriage doesn't seem to be one of those situations. To my knowledge it was the only law he made a big deal about, insisting that it should be taken literally/by the letter. That's why he said not all could accept this teaching. It was hard! The disciples said, "If this is the case, it would be better not to get married!" Amen!
That aside, I'm in a 10-week course about the Jewish roots of our faith called HaYesod. I am learning how little able we are to read and understand the new testament for what it meant to those originally writing and reading it, because of the huge Jewish context it was delivered within. We're for the most part ignorant of the back story that helps make sense of it all. There was a huge repository of teaching that had built up in and around scripture, that most Jews would have had saturation in from birth. For the most part, Jesus was cool with it, although he did at times point out how the pharisees had added so many "fences" around the law that they had become a huge burden.
In any case, I have not done the back story on divorce/remarriage, so don't really have a lot to say. However, my original point still stands.
As evangelicals we say we take the bible as the word of god, believe it, and live by it; but in reality we usually don't have a clue what it really says or means, and then we justify our behavior with any number of hermeneutial gymnastics. We almost always start with our behavior and then use scripture to justify it. We almost NEVER start with scripture and modify our behavior to it.
PS I believe the mormons and jehovah's witnesses and christian scientist and many others do the same as the muslims.... add to the christian scriptures more writings intended to clarify. Who can blame them...
Hey,
ReplyDeleteI hope that the course you are taking will be helpful to you. I like to read about Jewish law, then and now... I think that there is an idea out there that as a Jewish rabbi he did subscribe to the stricter interpretation on the Law than other Jewish schools at that time on this particular issue.
I think it's interesting that you say we almost NEVER start with Scripture and modify our behavior? never?
something to consider.
I don't know why you cant comment on my blog. What happens when you try? Let me know and I'll have my IT dept look into it (my husband).
ReplyDeletedoordonot
ReplyDeleteI CAN post on your blog now, since you enabled the name/url option. I just haven't had a chance.
Also, I am going to try to figure out how to create another google ID. I have one now, but it has my picture and name and all that good stuff. Hopefully, I can make a new, more anonymous one with my evangelicallyincorrect@gmail.com address... I hope so, because I run into this problem on a number of sites.