The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage

As you can see in my signature, I’ve written a book on this subject and would enjoy a discussion with you all about this topic. Of course, it’s not a revolutionary as UR, but again I find myself at odds with the prevailing doctrine of tradition. The “traditional” doctrine is that marriage is 1) a sacrament, 2) under ecclesial authority, and 3) indissoluble (once sanctioned by a priest). Most Protestants only hold tightly to the doctrine of indissolubility, broaden it to include marriages performed by anyone licensed by the government, and think of it as holy to the Lord but not necessarily a “sacrament”. I’ve come to believe that marriage is not a sacrament, but is a covenant. It’s not even a “Divine covenant”, but is a human covenant. MDR (marriage, divorce, and remarriage) is NOT under church/ecclesial authority, but is under civil authority. And marriage is certainly NOT indissoluble, whether preformed by Pope, priest, judge, or notary; rather, marriage is very breakable and needs to be treated as such!

The traditional doctrine is based upon a complete misunderstanding of what Jesus said concerning marriage and divorce, primarily the Mt.19 and Mark 10 passage, and what Paul subsequently wrote in 1 Cor. 7 when he quoted Jesus (vs. 10-11) and discussed what He said in relation to the question posed in vs. 1 concerning the preeminence of celibacy. And the traditional doctrine is based on a lack of knowledge of, disregard of, and disrespect of the Mosaic Law concerning MDR! It is even believed that Jesus disagreed with Moses and abrogated the bill of divorce. If the early Gentile church would have had a greater respect for and understanding of the Mosaic Law they would have understood what Jesus said and would not have developed such an unrealistic, even delusional doctrine!

Well, anyhow, I look forward to discussing this doctrine and related passages with you all.
Blessings,
Sherman

Sounds interesting Sherman. I find a lot of traditional Christian takes on sexuality questionable. If I hear one more republican claim gay people cant get married because the bible says ‘one man one woman’, I’ll scream. They conveniently ignore all the polygamy, concubines etc in the OT. Not that I’m claiming we should do that today, but it seems disingenuous to make these claims when scripture itself has a broad picture of relationships. Even the fornication thing assumes marriage today is as it was in bible times. Which of course, it isn’t.

Not saying I know the truth of it. I don’t. But the questions ought to be humbly asked. And a proper discussion done

Hi Sherman:

Mat 5:32 but I–I say to you, that whoever may put away his wife, save for the matter of whoredom, doth make her to commit adultery; and whoever may marry her who hath been put away doth commit adultery.

These are Jesus words according to Young’s Literal Translation.

I’d be interested in reading how you interpret them.

Yes, few consider whether MDR is under civil or ecclesial authority. In the Mosaic Law, marriage was primarily a Domestic issue with a little Civil oversight and NO priestly oversight. The priests did perform a test to see if a woman accused of adultery did so. The woman sacrificed an offering, swore before God that she did not commit adultery, and drank the ashes of the offering. If she was guilty she would waste away and die. If not, no worries! Note that such is the opposite of other ungodly trials by fire. In the inspired trial by fire, the person only suffered if declared guilty by God for the trial in itself would not harm someone otherwise. In ungodly trials, the person has to be supernaturally blessed to survive the trial. What a difference there is when law is inspired by God. It’s full of compassion and mercy!

First note that it says “put away”; it does not say “given a bill of divorce”. The purpose of the bill of divorce was to legally free a woman who has been “put away” to marry and not fear being accused of adultery or reclaimed by the husband that expelled or abandoned her. The purpose of the bill of divorce was to mitigate the all too common oppression of women in the ancient near east!

Also note that it says, “except for fornication (pornea)”. Fornication is basically any non-legally established union. Simply put, if a couple is just living together and there is no legally recognized covenant establishing their relationship, then there is no need for a legal bill of divorce to dissolve the union.

If a man puts away his wife without giving her a bill of divorce, he causes her to commit adultery and any man that marries her to commit adultery because she is still legally bound to her first husband. This is actually still a problem today among observant Jews. It’s called the Agunah problem. An Agunah is a woman who is still “bound” though for all intents and purposes single. Observant Jews do not recognize civil authority, but must have a religious bill of divorce written before a Jewish woman who is separated from her husband can marry another without being considered adultery.

Context, Context, Context!

There are two OT examples of men who married a woman, apparently abandoned them, and the women were married off to other men. Samson’s first wife, a Philistine and David’s first wife, Saul’s daughter.

Samson married a woman, got upset with her an left the marriage feast to get some robes by killing some other men, came back and her father had given her to the best man. So Samson got mad and did some crazy stuff.

David married Saul’s daughter paying a gruesome bride-price of 100 Philistine deaths. Saul goes crazy and conspires to kill David. Michal helps David escape, but David leaves her with her deranged father, King Saul. Saul marries her off to another man, Paltiel and she lives with him for maybe 10-17 years as his beloved and only wife. In the mean time David marries 2 other women. Saul dies, the kingdom divides, and David rules over Judah. Ishboseth, son of Saul, was made King of Israel by the General of Israel’s army, Abner. David repeatedly beats Abner and the army of Israel. Abner conspires with David to become king of Israel and reunite Judah and Israel. David says he will IF Abner takes his wife, Michal, from Paltiel and brings her to him in Jerusalem. Abner does this and it says that Paltiel followed the army that took her away, followed them on foot weeping all the way from their home to Bahurim, the border of Judah where Abner commanded him to stop following them. It’s a very sad scene. And Michal was brought back to David, from a man that dearly lover her for years, to a man who apparently never loved her again! And she died childless, likely due to the curse that was upon Saul’s head of having his lineage cut off. And she’s even maligned today for getting mad at her husband for dancing “before the Lord” and enticing women to lust after him, maligned as if she’s in the wrong for getting upset with David, maligned as if she was cursed by God for doing so. Michal’s is one of the most tragic stories of the OT.

The purpose of the bill of divorce was to stop things like this from happening. If a man expelled or left his wife he was to give her a bill of divorce and free her to legally marry another man. And if she married another man, her first husband could never again remarry her, even if her second husband died or divorced her too! The bill of divorce was meant to mitigate the oppression of women in Israel, dealing with a common problem throughout the ancient near east, women having little or no legal rights and being considered property!

This is really interesting Sherman. Will definitely be taking a look.

I’ve heard atheists so often decry certain OT customs as barbaric, without any understanding of ancient context. The trial by fire is one. I’ve heard the claim it is a forced abortion. I always saw it as God protecting women, who likely couldn’t speak for themselves, from being executed at a husbands whim.

I’ve always found Davids daughter Tamar extremely sad too.

I have heard pornea is a term meaning loosely sexual sin, rather than fornication. What is your take on that?

I think (75% convinced) it likely refers to relationships that were specifically forbidden - incest, too close familial tie, a man marrying a woman and her daughter, etc. So instead of being a term for anything that is not specifically legalized, it’s a general term for sexual activity that was specifically forbidden. But it deserves more study.

Understanding the cultural and historical context is key to understanding any literature, but especially legal material! Many laws in any time, culture, or area make absolutely no sense when removed from their cultural, even geographical context!

As to drinking the ashes causing an abortion, I very much doubt it, and that is not even what the curse was to result in; rather, she was to waste away, if memory serves me correctly. Also, it is unlikely that the man would want an illegitimate child to be aborted. The child could become a servant in the home or even be sold as a slave if the man did not want to claim the child as his own.

A primary reason the laws were given were to mitigate existing social problems, to teach the children of God, the Jews how to be a light among the nations, a guide to those trapped in darkness! Sadly, I don’t think this was nearly realized as much as it could have been. Of course, the greatest Light to the nations that came through the Jews was/is Jesus!

Why do the disciples say that if this is so, it is better not to marry?

Sonia

watching this thread with interest. i think Sherman’s doing something rather brave in tackling these topics. it’s near to my heart as i grew up in the north american puritan context, from which i have seen a LOT of bad fruit. good fruit happens to, to be fair, but the bad fruit seems an inevitable result and the good fruit seems a surprise, when viewed somewhat from the outside.

i think it’s fascinating that some people who are really happy to question translation, cultural context, social context, etc when it comes to UR…but not so happy to do the same thing when it comes to some pretty vague moral issues.

i think we need to approach Scripture holistically…the same approach to everything, otherwise we’re in danger of picking or choosing our interpretive methods in such ways as please us…which i’d argue is just as dangerous as picking and choosing what Scripture we’ll hold to.

I’d like to come at it from a secular perspective and state my present beliefs. I am open to learn from other people’s experiences. I say secular, because I think there is one way for christians to live and it is wrong for christians to expect unbelievers to have the same standards or to be judged by the same rules.
For the health of society, and having worked for many years with the consequences of broken relationships, I believe that a couple who have offspring within the age range of 0 to 18 years should not be allowed to divorce. I believe that divorce has a devastating effect on the welfare of the child and her needs should be paramount. (Obviously there would be extreme exceptions but I believe “no divorce” should be the general law.)
On the other hand, if a couple is childless or their children are adult, I have no problems with easy divorce laws for such a couple.

Pilgrim, I would think that if children were involved it may be less devastating for their parents to part ways than to suffer through an angry and completely dysfunctional family.

I’m of the conviction that Christians are explicitly instructed that under no circumstances may they seek a divorce or remarry (post-divorce). I think one should peacefully leave (not divorce) abusive partners, especially if children are involved. But I also think Christians shouldn’t be enforcing this on anyone but themselves (and nor do I think Christians who believe this should be forcing this upon other Christians who don’t — I have a divorced Christian friend who is remarrying in a couple of months and I respect and wholly support him in his decision). The State and Church should keep its obnoxiously large nose out of other people’s business, especially regarding marriage and divorce. I’ll take the witness of the early Christians who kept the overseers and Empire out of their joyous day. If I get married to a radical enough bride, I’d be content rejecting a civil-marriage completely, and would proudly live a common-law marriage in good conscience. I don’t see much need to notify a secular third party (the State), find a “registered” priest, send in a written legal contract and pay a fee, when it’s simply a spoken sacramental covenant between two people.

Yes, that’s a common retort but it is not my experience.

I assume you’re speaking of Mt.19:10. I get the feeling that the disciples were jesting, joking, as men will do. Jesus had just confronted the Pharisees concerning their duplicitous question concerning No Fault divorce. He highlighted God’s original desire for healthy, happy, and lasting relationships, explained why Moses was inspired to legislatively enact the bill of divorce, avoided the Pharisees’ trap, and implied, I believe, that they were foolish for arguing so much about proper divorce method and would be much better off helping people have lasting marriages! It was a tense situation that I think the disciples were adding a little comic relief to saying in essence, “well if marriage is that much trouble, a man might as well remain single (like Jesus).”

Jesus took this passing remark as an opportunity to challenge another errant tradition of the Pharisees, that being that in order to be righteous one must marry and have children because that was the first commandment given, “be fruitful and multiply.” They considered anyone, especially any male, to be unrighteous who did not marry or seek to marry, like Jesus! So Jesus took this side comment as an opportunity to radically challenge the Pharisees teaching and attitude concerning singleness, affirming that God calls some people to singleness as a means of best serving Him in the kingdom!

People usually assume that the disciples were serious, shocked by Jesus apparently attempting to change the Law of Moses and make marriage indissoluble. Of course, in the context of both the Mat. 5 and Luke 16 passages, Jesus specifically affirms the Law, every jot and tittle! To interpret what Jesus said to imply He disagreed with Moses legislatively enacting the bill of divorce is to completely disregard Jesus’ direct statement that He endorsed everything Moses inacted!

Shoot, most people do not even realize that in Mat. 19 the Pharisees are asking Jesus concerning No Fault (any-matter) divorce. Without understanding the cultural context it is way to easy to completely misinterpret text spoken from, in, and too that context!

Under Mosaic Law, marriage and divorce was almost wholly a Domestic, Familial issue. Local Civil authority only stepped in when needed to deal with specific issues. If the man divorced his wife, he wrote up the bill of divorce, if he could write, and gave it to her. Moses did not specify a specific way of doing this, at least not in the written document of the Law.

Traditionally a man who desired a wife, spoke with the girls father. If the father was open to the union, they’d agree upon a bride-price, usually about a year’s salary based upon their socio-economic level. The man would come up with the bride-price and pay it to the father. This payment of the bride-price established the marriage covenant verbally. The young man would then work on adding a room to his father’s house. When that was completed he’d come for his bride and have the wedding ceremony where the written marriage covenant/contract was signed having all of the specific stipulations of the bride-price, dowry, and any unique agreements such as a limit on how far the wife could be moved away from her family.

Usually the dowry was a sum of the bride-price and the girls family inheritance. If she was 1 of 4 children, it would be the bride-price (a year’s salary) + 1/5 of the family’s wealth, a considerable amount of wealth whether in precious metals or goods (cattle, sheep, etc.). This served as a financial foundation for the new family and legally actually belonged to the wife wholly! And IF the man ever divorced his wife for illegitimate reasons, the man had to pay the wife the full amount of the dowry which was recorded in the marriage contract!

During the 1st Century, things had changed and divorce was handled through local civil government. A board of three respected men from the community would judge concerning the details of the divorce and write up the document. By the time of Christ, the Pharisees, typically being the majority civil leaders, had made a terrible burden out of this process. The Shammaites believed and used a Fault-based, public approach to divorce. A man presented his case against his wife and proof of such to the judges. They judged what percentage of the dowry he had to pay based on the reason for the divorce. Because of not wanting the woman to become a drain on the community they usually would lean towards the woman being paid as high of a percentage of the dowry as possible. Whatever the reason though, the man had to publically declare it which made a terrible situation even more shameful.

The Hillelites promoted a No-Fault, Any-Matter divorce process. However, though no reason was needed for the divorce, the man had to pay the full dowry and had to personally give the document to his wife. The process was longer and more laborious than the Shammaite divorce, but it was Private!

The Pharisees had an unending argument over the merits of these two significantly differt modes of divorce. But they failed to address the Agunah problem. Many men, because of a desire to keep the dowry, would simply kick-out, expell, abandon, their wives, not legally divorce them, and often relegate them to a life of whoredom and poverty! It was a malicious, evil, wicked, mean-spirited, hard-hearted thing to do to a woman! And the Pharisees allowed that to continue because they failed to recognize the purpose of the Mosaic Bill of Divorce - to mitigate the suffering of women under the hands of abusive, wicked, selfish men.

Instead of basing their civil law upon the Spirit of the Law, they nullified it’s power for righteousness through their traditions! They argued over whether the man had to personally put the document in the woman’s hand or not, and did not even think to give the woman the power to sue for divorce, thus leaving the cancer of abuse of women to spread in their communities! In fact, I believe it is this that God was denouncing the Jews for in Malachi 2:16! This hateful expelling of the wives of their youth. Jewish men would marry Jewish maidens, have children with them, and then when they grew older would expell them from their houses, relegate them to a life of poverty and isolation or even whoredom, and then marry younger foreign women, breaking their covenants with God and the wives of their youth! Evil, wicked, hard-hearted, selfish, down-right MEAN! This was the straw that broke the camel’s back and brought on the judgment of God during Malachi’s time. And I think that Jesus referenced this alluding to the coming judgment of God on Jersualem again! Sadly, Mal.2.16 has been translated as “God hates divorce”, completely missing what was going on.

Don’t misunderstand me, divorce is tragic. In many ways it is often worse than the death of a spouse. In death, there is a burial, support from family and the community, enabling the widow or widower to move on. Divorce is often like being chained to a dead body, no burial, and becoming an outcast to family and friends. It’s terrible. But I don’t think that Civil law will solve this problem, only a change of hearts through the power of ressurection and reconciliation, the power of grace, love, and forgiveness! And I speak from experience being a child of a broken marriage!

Sadly, the church has fallen into the same trap that the Pharisees did. Instead of focusing on empowering people to have happy, lasting marriages, they’ve spent way to much effort on trying to control people through law and relational exclusion! Instead of empowering people with the truth concerning the fragility of marriage, they’ve tried to make out like marriage was indissoluble, even a sacrament! What a load of… Well, pardon my vulgarity, but this topic I am very passionate about! I’ve seen the church turn it’s back on people during one of the most devestating periods of their lives, abandoning the children too to the destruction, marking them as having problems forever! Frankly, the traditional doctrine of the church had a big part in the destruction of my parent’s marriage and in ongoing problems for my parents and siblings!

How much power should civil government have in divorce? Well, that’s debatable. I tend to lean towards little if any, and then only to protect and empower the weak and often abused. How much authority should church government have concerning divorce? None! Marriage and divorce is best handled almost exclusively at the domestic, family level! And our families should take a more active role, I believe!

Forgive me if I misunderstand what you are saying but you seem to me to be suggesting that any man or woman in a marriage should be free to divorce his/her partner at any time and for whatever reason willy-nilly.

In addition, despite several long posts, the only mention of the children (who, to my mind, should be put first and foremost in any consideration) is this:

As I have previously stated,I have worked for many years dealing with the consequences for children of their parents divorce. I do not regard 18 years as too long a time for a man and woman to remain together having brought a child into the world and having committed themselves to a lifetime covenant.
Our society is falling apart precisely because our families are falling apart.
I also have some experience of divorce within my family but I am grateful to God (and take no credit) for a marriage which has survived 29 years to date.

Please tell me that I have misunderstood what I have quoted at the top of this post.

P.S. I’d like to ask: Have you always held this belief with regards to divorce or have you changed your belief in recent times and if so, what was it that caused you to change your belief?

Ultimately people divorce because of heart disease, “hardening of the heart”, whatever reason they give. Does God or scripture delegate authority to civil government to regulate divorce? I don’t think so. Should we as communities give over personal authority and responsibility to the state to govern us? That’s debatable. Frankly, I think the less government and more personal responsibility the better in most matters, including MDR. Many people completely ignor civil authority and simply live together. And in some cases, the government even penalizes marriage monetarily, especially among the poor (in America at least). I suppose I just don’t have much, if any, faith in civil government to establish wise laws in this regard, much less to interpret and apply them under the spirit in which they are written.

Reality is, couples split up for all kind of reasons, some serious, many seemingly willy-nilly, but ultimately because of hardening of the heart! I believe we’d be much more productive putting our efforts towards empowering people to walk in love and integrity, character issues, than to try and control them through civil law.

I agree whole heartedly on the importance of marriage, and the tragedy of broken marriages and families, especially for children, but also for all of us. But I don’t think that any number of civil laws concerning this can cure the problem of divorce, or even help it very much.

I agree with you whole-heartedly about the devestation that divorce causes children and the evil it fosters throughout society. I see divorce as a fruit of evil though, instead of as the branch. Forbidding divorce through civil legislation is about like forbidding someone to die. Relationships are born, some last without end and some get sick and far too many die. Forbidding the death of a relationship in this present evil age where we are surrounded by death doesn’t seem realistic to me. It seems much more realistic to me to focus on empowering people to have health relationships, to learn to walk in love and forgiveness with eachother. I don’t think civil law will ultimately help this problem.

The traditional doctrine of the church never made much sense to me for it locked too many people out of the church. People who had been divorced and remarried were seen as second class citizens of the kingdom, and the spiritual legitimacy of their 2nd, 3rd, or 8th marriage was questioned by the church and thus questioned by the couple, whether they had children or not! I recall my aunt saying to me one day, “Sherman, you know I’d like to invite so and so to church, but you know she’s divorced and remarried!?” At the time I had no answer to her. And then divorce hit my parents; and I realize now it was partly because of our church’s attitude towards divorce’es and doctrine of divorce.

Even so, I didn’t try to refute the traditional doctrine because of it not making sense to me, or because it had negatively effected many people I knew. Rather, in my studies of scripture I happened to come across some information that revolutionized my understanding of what Jesus said in regards to MDR. It suggested that Jesus drew a difference between separation and divorce, and that Jesus’ statements that are commonly interpreted to signify that divorcees should not remarry are actually explaining why a woman separated but still legally married under Jewish civil law could not rightly, legally marry another - because she was still legally married to her first husband.

I set out to write a short article on this information, but the more I got into the details of the traditional doctrine, the more I saw that it was a web of misinterpretation of scripture and errant principles. I soon realized that an article or a series of articles on the subject would not be able to dismantle that web of lies and in turn build a solid foundation for a healthy spiritual approach to MDR. I devoted myself to research and writing and four years later, my book was published. And 8 years after that I need to do a revision as I’ve uncovered even more in support of what I’ve come to believe. But I could be wrong and am always open to rethinking what I now believe.

Specifically, should a couple be legally forbidden from divorcing if they have children 0-18? I don’t believe civil authority can effectively help in this regard. People would just not marry, as many do today. And others would seperate though still legally married and just live with someone else.

I believe that it is important to recognize that marriage is breakable, to have healthy personal and relational boundaries, and serious consequences for serious breaches of those boundaries - the most serious of which being divorce. Divorce causes relational, psychological, emotional, financial, physical, and spiritual problems for everyone touched by it for generations to come, especially for the children of divorce; but civil authority is not the answer, I think.

Sherman, I’d like to read your book, but the link in your signature (if that’s what it is) isn’t clickable, and I’m not finding a listing on Amazon . . . .

Revised: Oops! I guess I misspelled your name. There it is; I’ve found it now!

Oh – and I meant to also say, if you want help editing your revision, I’d be happy to offer my assistance. I’m not a pro, but I’ve helped/am helping several of my friends with their books. It’s always helpful to have another pair of eyes to spot inconsistencies, misspellings, muzzy bits and so on. I’ve been told I’m pretty good help. Let me know if you’d like that.

Blessings, Cindy