A few months ago I was talking to one of my girlfriends about a guy she is interested in, and she told me that she was going to date him until she found out that he had been married before and gotten a divorce. At that point she told him they could never be anything more than friends.
I didn't really say much to her about it, but I disagree with the view that this guy can't ever get married again because he made a mistake and got married too young. But if you take what Jesus said about divorce at face value, it looks like that is the case.
What do you think?
DFTBA, Sarah
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Hey there, Sarah, and thanks for writing in!
Divorce is sort of a "last generation" sin, by which I mean it used to be a real hot topic issue until the church really started talking about homosexuality. I do suspect that it will start to rise in importance again as we get used to marriage among non-hetero couples. (I've known a few gay couples who, in their rush to make a court date during a window of legality, later came to regret the rushed decision.)
The problem isn't really about divorce, though, any more than the fire exit is a problem with a burning building. In fact, when the building is burning, a fire exit is literally a lifesaver.
The real problem is our lack of seriousness concerning marriage itself.
I do some pre-marital counseling as a rule before I will marry anyone. It is mildly incredible how much energy couples are willing to put into a wedding, and how hard it is to get them to think at all about the actual marriage. I mean, think about it. The wedding will take an hour or two, TOPS. Some are significantly shorter. Then there is a fun party that the happy couple misses most of and then...
and then...
You have two people looking at each other, trying to figure out what, precisely, life is supposed to look like now. And in some cases, the picture is actually fairly bleak.
If we believe in a God who loves us and wants us to have good lives(which I do, as it happens), AND if we assume that sin is going against the will of that God (again, which I do, more on that in another post) then the sin is not the exit from the relationship that was causing you excessive grief or even actual physical or mental abuse.
The sin was getting INTO that relationship in the first place. And like so many sins that we can commit, the sin is its own punishment. In these cases, getting a divorce to get out of a harmful relationship is, in fact, doing God's will. It is true that maintaining a marriage over decades is hard work, and I will encourage people to do that work, but I will never, ever, tell someone that it is God's will that they stay in an abusive situation. Period. God does NOT want that for you, OR for your abuser. You wouldn't give heroin to a drug abuser. Putting a human being into the reach of an abusive spouse or parent is no better.
This does bring us to the question of subsequent marriage, however.
There are ways to read the Bible that make Marriage a one and done scenario, and they are NOT inherently abusive. I get the mindset, as well... maybe if someone knows they only get one shot, they'll take that shot seriously. I don't think it will work, though. I haven't met many couples who thought they would be anything other than completely happy when they got married.
I prefer to remember that we believe that God exists outside of time, and so does not experience our lives as a step by step process. Going again with the above assumptions... that God wants us to be happy... I think it is safe to say that marrying a person God made partially for you to be happy with is not a sin, even if you got a little confused along the way to meeting them.
That gets wibbly-wobbly Timey-Wimey pretty quickly, and so I don't blame the people who just say "Nope, you're divorced already, so I won't marry you." That is, of course, their decision. But to the divorced guy, or any divorcee who is wondering if they are now required to be alone, I would remind them that the very first thing described as being "not good" in Creation was loneliness.
Be wary about marriage, and do not take it lightly. But, once you have gotten in, if the building is burning, don't worry about the ethics of the fire escape. Get out, and then hopefully take some of that learned wisdom into the forming of your next relationship, should you choose to do so.
What do you think?
DFTBA, Sarah
---------------
Hey there, Sarah, and thanks for writing in!
Divorce is sort of a "last generation" sin, by which I mean it used to be a real hot topic issue until the church really started talking about homosexuality. I do suspect that it will start to rise in importance again as we get used to marriage among non-hetero couples. (I've known a few gay couples who, in their rush to make a court date during a window of legality, later came to regret the rushed decision.)
The problem isn't really about divorce, though, any more than the fire exit is a problem with a burning building. In fact, when the building is burning, a fire exit is literally a lifesaver.
The real problem is our lack of seriousness concerning marriage itself.
I do some pre-marital counseling as a rule before I will marry anyone. It is mildly incredible how much energy couples are willing to put into a wedding, and how hard it is to get them to think at all about the actual marriage. I mean, think about it. The wedding will take an hour or two, TOPS. Some are significantly shorter. Then there is a fun party that the happy couple misses most of and then...
and then...
You have two people looking at each other, trying to figure out what, precisely, life is supposed to look like now. And in some cases, the picture is actually fairly bleak.
If we believe in a God who loves us and wants us to have good lives(which I do, as it happens), AND if we assume that sin is going against the will of that God (again, which I do, more on that in another post) then the sin is not the exit from the relationship that was causing you excessive grief or even actual physical or mental abuse.
The sin was getting INTO that relationship in the first place. And like so many sins that we can commit, the sin is its own punishment. In these cases, getting a divorce to get out of a harmful relationship is, in fact, doing God's will. It is true that maintaining a marriage over decades is hard work, and I will encourage people to do that work, but I will never, ever, tell someone that it is God's will that they stay in an abusive situation. Period. God does NOT want that for you, OR for your abuser. You wouldn't give heroin to a drug abuser. Putting a human being into the reach of an abusive spouse or parent is no better.
This does bring us to the question of subsequent marriage, however.
There are ways to read the Bible that make Marriage a one and done scenario, and they are NOT inherently abusive. I get the mindset, as well... maybe if someone knows they only get one shot, they'll take that shot seriously. I don't think it will work, though. I haven't met many couples who thought they would be anything other than completely happy when they got married.
I prefer to remember that we believe that God exists outside of time, and so does not experience our lives as a step by step process. Going again with the above assumptions... that God wants us to be happy... I think it is safe to say that marrying a person God made partially for you to be happy with is not a sin, even if you got a little confused along the way to meeting them.
That gets wibbly-wobbly Timey-Wimey pretty quickly, and so I don't blame the people who just say "Nope, you're divorced already, so I won't marry you." That is, of course, their decision. But to the divorced guy, or any divorcee who is wondering if they are now required to be alone, I would remind them that the very first thing described as being "not good" in Creation was loneliness.
Be wary about marriage, and do not take it lightly. But, once you have gotten in, if the building is burning, don't worry about the ethics of the fire escape. Get out, and then hopefully take some of that learned wisdom into the forming of your next relationship, should you choose to do so.
I think it's also worth noting that while it takes two to get married, it only takes one to divorce.
ReplyDeleteThis is thoughtfully written, and I appreciate it both as a divorced person and a Doctor Who fan. I have always subscribed to Lewis's theories of God having a more flexible view of time than we do, who are temporarily trapped in a view of time that only goes in one direction and at one speed. I'm also intrigued by the reference to God seeing loneliness as "not good" - that is one verse from Genesis that NEVER gets quoted in discussions about divorce. Thank you for some good thoughts!
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