On Divorce

Lately, I have had several conversations with folks about divorce. They want to know what the Christian response is, how we should act towards someone who is going through a divorce, and what the Bible teaches about it. So here are some of my reflections on the subject.

The first thing I will say is that divorce is always regrettable. I don't think anyone should be happy about divorce, no matter who may benefit from it. Sure, divorce may be inevitable should a marriage be irreconcilable, a child's happiness be at stake, etc. But it should not be a joyful occasion that God has "joined together" two persons only for them to be "rent asunder". Even though divorce may be the first step to healing, there was some initial rift that has lead to this brokenness, and that is worth lamenting. In our world today, it seems that divorce is routine. We go to the supermarket checkout every week and see that some 30-year-old starlet has divorced her third husband. 60% of marriages end in divorce (I am including here second marriages, in which that rate increases). I have even been to wedding receptions where groomsmen have set odds and taken bets on the success of a marriage. As a pastor, I despise the sin that has made the rupture of divorce so normal and expected in our world. And I wholeheartedly believe that Christianity has a response.

Scripture indeed takes a hard stance against divorce. Matthew 5 and 19, Mark 10, and Luke 16 all speak out against it (although Matthew adds the stipulation that divorce is acceptable in the case of unchastity). Other texts that speak to divorce include 1 Corinthians 7, Malachi 2, and Deuteronomy 24. Nowhere does the Bible insinuate that brokenness in a marriage is good and that God is OK with us reneging on the covenant vows we have made- mostly because, in parallel, God has not reneged on God's covenants with us. You will also often hear the valid exegetical point that a united marriage is a crucial tool for Christian discipleship and witness to God.

But since you've probably encountered all of that before, here is another crucial theological and pastoral point that I think is often overlooked: marriage is also the church's participation in sin. In our world, we are accustomed to thinking about divorce fundamentally as a rift between two persons. But I think we all know (when we really think about it) that marriage doesn't happen with a couple in a vacuum- it involves families, friends, children, exes, etc. And the New Testament speaks to that. It sees the church as pivotal to the formation and maturity of a marriage. The Gospel writers and Paul were all concerned to create a community in which sin could be combated by the power of the cross made manifest in the body of Christ. The church often stresses that the wedding ceremony as a three-part covenant between the couple, God, and the church. When a married couple joins a new congregation, implicit in that is that the church will help to bear their burdens. So there are important communal components to marriage that frequently go unnoticed. That is because the church is called to be the place where we recognize that and where the couple grows in its discipleship and in unity with God and one another. In today's church, this includes practices like premarital counseling and Sunday Schools and small groups geared towards mutual support in marriages.

And we have admittedly failed, myself included. We have allowed an environment in the church where couples do not feel like they can be open and vulnerable about the issues affecting their marriage- such as sex, money, and deep friendship. Discussing and being open about such things are signs of weakness on the part of the one sharing these things. And if you're like me, you are tempted to roll your eyes and cry "TMI" when someone opens up with such information.

But weakness is what we are all about in the church, because weakness is what the cross was all about. And the sin and brokenness that infects a marriage will easily break our own attempts to be strong. Instead, sin and brokenness in marriage cannot penetrate the weakness and vulnerability shown through the strength of a community shaped by the cross, the cross the overcame all sin and brokenness. It takes a community of disciples devoted to the shaping of not just themselves as followers of Jesus, but also their brothers and sisters in Christ.

I am aware that my perspective may be naive. I have a very healthy marriage, my parents never divorced, and I am thankfully wed to a committed disciple of Jesus, so what do I know? Admittedly and by the grace of God, I don't know much from my own experience. But I have stood by in the church for far too long and watched marriages of good people dissolve, while the folks in the pews gossip and go about their own lives. I do not mean to imply that all Christian communities of faith do a poor job of promoting environments for a healthy marriage- there are many that do a great job of it. But I will not be satisfied to continue to see divorce accepted blithely in the church. I just hope that my fellow Christians and I can work on fostering an environment where marriages can thrive and that, maybe, we can start to take the logs out of our own eyes.