In three of the gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — Jesus is quite clear about his feelings on divorce: it's a sin. Those who divorce and remarry commit adultery. Divorce is the breaking of a covenant meant to be a lifetime bond — or "'til death do us part," as the traditional vow goes.
Those who claim to follow Christ, however, seem to disregard this little bit of legalism from Jesus. Apparently the son of God didn't understand that sometimes it just doesn't work out between humans and they're better off parting ways than remaining in a relationship that makes them miserable or may turn out to be abusive. What did Jesus know, anyway? He didn't have a nagging wife to worry about!
Nearly 50 percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce. Interestingly, according to researcher George Barna, those who divorce the most frequently are those who claim to follow Jesus the most closely.
Among "born-again" Christians, 27 percent currently are divorced or previously have been divorced, compared with 24 percent among adults who are not "born again." Surprisingly, the Barna report said, the Christian group whose adherents have the highest likelihood of getting divorced are Baptists. The only group to surpass Baptists were Christians associated with non—denominational Protestant churches.
I've always found it interesting that right-wing religious groups who spout off about how they have to protect "traditional marriage" from the gathering storm of gays and lesbians who want to take vows and enjoy the rights and privileges of this civil commitment are not all that interested in doing away with the biggest threat to heterosexual marriage: divorce.
A Web-designer-cum-political-activist in California is out to help "traditional marriage" advocates change all that.
In a movement that seems ripped from the pages of Comedy Channel writers, John Marcotte wants to put a measure on the ballot next year to ban divorce in California.The effort is meant to be a satirical statement after California voters outlawed gay marriage in 2008, largely on the argument that a ban is needed to protect the sanctity of traditional marriage. If that's the case, then Marcotte reasons voters should have no problem banning divorce.
Even if it's meant as "satire" Marcotte is still collecting signatures for his ballot measure, and will need 694,354 valid signatures by March 22. His measure will probably fail, but it points up the blatant hypocrisy of the "traditional marriage" crowd. It's not really that they want to preserve heterosexual marriage — because if they did, they'd be the ones leading this charge. Instead, they are simply bigots who want to bar people they find "sinful," "sick," "perverted," or just plain "icky" from gaining equal rights under the law.
Under the canard of "religion" — the "traditional marriage" folks have made the case that two men and two women are not "God's best" and therefore do not qualify for the sacred institution of marriage. Interestingly, it wasn't until 1215 that the church even recognized marriage as a sacrament — preferring to leave the obviously civil institution to secular society where it originated.
Divorce used to be something people were ashamed of, and something that churches took seriously. When my father, a Southern Baptist preacher, divorced my mother in the 1970s, he never served another church again. No Southern Baptist church would have a divorced pastor in their pulpit. His career was over. Now, there are plenty of divorced Southern Baptist preachers leading churches including mega—church leader Charles Stanley in Atlanta.
Certainly, divorce is a necessary option for couples. Often it's the best thing for a couple trapped in a loveless or abusive relationship. People change, circumstances change, and often it's best for two people to part ways. Even religious institutions, over the years, have come to understand this and don't tend to vigorously condemn people for the decision. Many churches, in fact, have divorce care groups and other activities specifically for divorced people. Even Ron Prentice, the executive director of the California Family Council who led a coalition of religious and conservative groups to qualify Proposition 8 called outlawing divorce "impractical." The reality of life has trumped even the words of Jesus.
Ah, Jesus, remember him? Even though he said not one word about homosexuality in his entire ministry — those who oppose marriage equality for gays and lesbians continue to invoke his name to deny equal rights to an entire group of human beings. All the while, they ignore his words against divorce as quaint and antiquated.
I wish I lived in California. I'd sign Marcotte's petition and work to ban divorce. It would be nice to be able to go to the polls and vote on someone else's civil rights for a change. It would also be nice to finally show those who have voted to take away my rights what it feels like to be a second class citizen in America.
Tags: bible, california, divorce, jesus, same-sex marriage
My parents are no longer living together. I do not agree with divorce, yet I don't want them to live together and nagging all day long. In reality, there are a high percentage of people in the United States who pay the IRS more than they really need to. Why would you throw away your hard earned money to the government when you won't get anything in return? Fortunately, there are measures that you can take to hold onto more of your own money. Like many other aspects in life, sometimes the best protection or defense is a great offense. Moreover, the more educated you are, the higher are your chances of keeping your hard-earned money. And according to what they and the law decided, their money including cash advance will be divided to us, their kids. I don’t want to see another family broke because of money matters.
Homosexualists are not interested in imposing homosexual "marriage" on society because they want to get married, but because they want to legitimize homosexualism. Statistics amply demonstrate this. During the entire year homosexual "marriage" was forced upon Californians, only 18,000 couples bothered to get married out of a population of almost 37 million people. And many of those couples came from out of state. So much for all that vent up, uncontainable desire to get married!!!
The statistics everywhere prove getting "married" is NOT the objective. It's the red herring!
So stop whining and crying about homosexual "marriage" being rejected as insane and anti-social, and start owning up to the fact that what homosexualists are really after is forcing society to accept homosexualism. The facts are undeniable. Homosexual "marriage" is cleverly being used as a ruse...
Actually, it is not so much a ruse as it is the mechanism to advance the agenda.
Yeah, and so what. Your letter points out what the author of the article said - you don't want to accept homosexuals as a legitimate class of citizens. So that is why you want to deny equal rights because you don't think homosexuals are equal.
Yes, every time one of the anti-gay folks posts it merely confirms what I've said. They never learn.
"Statistics amply demonstrate this."
Was this intended as a humorous sentence? 'Cause it reads that way.
Come to think of it, so does the rest of the comment...
So what? The protect marriage movements are also ruses. Do they care one iota about marriage? no they only care that they can keep the status quo. At least the marriage equality movements are more honest.
And as far as legitimizing homosexuality I think you need to read your bible -- in greek and hebrew. You'll get a very different perspective on this issue. The bible was very, very, very specific about what it condemned.
A favorite translation for 1 Cor 6:9 is to translate arsenokoitais to either sodomite or homosexual. Both would need to be qualified because sodomite and homosexual expand the meaning of the word beyond arsenokoitais which has a very specfic definition of permiscous sodomite.
The group that seeks equality is not the same as the group of people the Apostile Paul was talking about. As arsenokoitais implies permiscuity not fidelity.
I know I would sign the petition and I have been divorced, and resigned from professional ministry. I don't know what the author's Bible knowledge actually entails, but she left out two very vital facts:
1. Jesus said in Matthew 19:4-6 "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them MALE AND FEMALE,and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." So, Jesus did not endorse Gay Marriage, and one cannot say that He was silent on the subject.
2. Divorce is a sin, and like nearly all sin is forgivable upon repentance and restoration. Jesus said that divorce was permitted because of the "hardness of your hearts" The GLBT community wants endorsement of a lifestyle without repentance or restoration.
Candace also mentions the Church not ordaining Marriage as a sacrament until the 13th century as a reason to submit that the church's position on Gay marriages is somehow indefensible; right after pointing to Jesus declaring marriage a holy state.
Without looking at the methodology, it would seem 3 percentage points on the Barna poll is not that significant;especially in light of the fact that a Christian would be more likely to get married than an unbeliever. Last time I checked, marriage was a prerequisite for getting divorced
In response to point one - Jesus was asked a question about heterosexual marriage and thus answered within that context. To stretch his words to mean that he only endorsed heterosexual marriage or that his reply excludes gays and lesbians from marriage is your own isogesis. You're simply reading into his words what you want to read.
Also, you have to keep it in context. No one would have thought to even ask Jesus about same-sex marriage since no one was thinking about those things then. Jesus can't answer a question he was never asked.
Certainly marriage existed in Jesus' time - but it was always a civil matter, invented to permit the orderly passage of property from father to son and to prevent some "bastard" from coming along and staking a claim to some man's property - including his women. So, the definition of marriage has already changed a lot since its inception.
You wrote: "The GLBT community wants endorsement of a lifestyle without repentance or restoration."
Since homosexuality is not a sin, there is no need for either repentance or restoration. Not sure what your point is there other than to type more words.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful post, Candace. I'm a seminary student concerned about this issue. I'm wondering, though--what is the Scripture (from Jesus) that you are citing with regard to his unequivocal stance on divorce? I didn't think Jesus took such a strong position--he had some rather countercultural ideas about family, after all--so please refresh my memory. Gratefully, Adrienne
In Matthew 5:31-32, Jesus says:
31 It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.'
32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Certainly Jesus recognizes that Moses gave in and granted divorce for "hard heartedness" but Jesus obviously disapproves in a strong manner. Divorce = adultery - the breaking of covenant, which was no small matter.
Good Capt. Equinox...
Before you quote the Bible, perhaps you should study it some more:
1. If you really have read the Bible you know that there are at least three different biblical positions on divorce - a. Moses', b. Jesus', and then c. Paul's. Tell me, which one is God's position? You may try to harmonize them, but in all honesty, such attempts fail for they are contrary, if not contradictory positions.
2. And then, since you don't seem to know that, perhaps you don't know the tradition that when God created the first human "Male and Female" (Gen. 1) that means that it was a hermaphrodite... Only when God figured out that it, the first human was lonely did He put it to sleep and split it into a single-sexed heterosexual pair (Gen. 2) This isn't some strange fantasy I'm making up; it's a real opinion that's found in traditional Jewish & Christian writings, illuminated manuscripts and miniature devotional paintings.
Such stories of the creation of humanity can't be understood literally.
Judeo/Christian creation stories really ought to be put into a context of other origin stories - such as the one found in Plato's symposium: There Aristophanes explains how originally humans came in three types, each with two heads, four arms and four legs...and two sets of genitals, either both male, both female or one of each. When these ferocious beings threatened to supplant the gods on Olympus (shades of Babel here?) they were split in two to calm them down a bit. And so, forever after, humans go looking for their "other half"... Thus explaining hetero, gay and lesbian coupling.
Once we know that bit of religious history, those stories and traditions, we know that we have to be careful when you start wielding Genesis rhetoric to justify your opinion. Which Genesis creation story (there are two different ones...)? Whose interpretation? And why should we believe you? Using the Bible as a War-hammer, a Battle Ax or a Spiritual Spear, tells us what kind of a person you are and what sort of soul you have at the moment. Go back and read your Bible with a calm heart and humble mind. There's more there than you now know...
The contrast between "good for me and not for thee" is interesting in this context.
If, indeed, same-sex marriage is so evil and wrong, and we must save opposite-sex marriage from some huge boogie-man, then let us all work to ban divorce, and move back to the days when women were property, to be dispensed when our fathers found us a husband-- right after menarche.
We can pay the Church (RCC, not these Protestant ones, we're going back to basics, remember?) our taxes, as well as the state, and our leaders can wait outside in the snow for favour from the Priests.
I'm sure that would be perfectly acceptable in the eyes of these ones. We can burn people at the stake for not agreeing with the majority, and hang them for perceived "moral" sins. We can then turn off all the lights, stop going to hospital when we're ill and no one can drive. This is, after all, back to basics, correct?
I'll line up first, so that my life can be examined. I am divorced, live with my partner, we parent three children, and I am a Pagan.
Better get the lighting fluid...
/sarcasm
On a serious note: I don't want to live in a country where taking someone's Civil Rights away to please a vocal, bigoted group of religionists is ok. There are those amongst us, in this country, who work for equality for everyone-- even when it hasn't been popular.
And I believe whole-heartedly that we will prevail, and sooner than one might think :)
Matthew 5:31-32
31 It was also said, 'Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.'
32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
This comes from the sermon on the mount. If you take it out of context(remember the sermon is over 100 verses and in 3 chapters) it sounds like we should ban divorce. Jesus through out his sermon made it clear that there are always exceptions so I feel Jesus would be against a ban since that since that would not be a mericful application of the law.
But Jesus clearly was against divorce. In ancient times too many people just would divorce there wives without a good reason simply because you could just give a certificate. Jesus was trying to stop this. The other way of never allowing it is just as bad and ignoring what Jesus said about the law -- it was not abolished. The idea here is divorce shouln't be the norm.
As for the Defenders of Marriage part of the reason you aren't taken seriously is because you are not addressing more obvious threats to marriage. You might talk about it, but your actions show that you care more for the status quo than actually protecting marriage.
Some of us think that the status quo is a danger to the tradition of marriage -- so would tha make me a defender then?
I think that if your first thought is to deny someone anything because of who they are you need to read Mat 5:21-22 and Matt 7:1-5 and see what Jesus thought. And if the sermon on the mount isn't clear for you on what is more important than the law Jesus sums it up several times. I think Matthew 23:23 is the most clear though: Justice, Mercy, and Faith where Jesus doesn't pull punches at the scribes and pharisees.
Matt 23:23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.
Remember our righteousness has to exceed that of the scribes and pharisees to enter heaven, and if we do not do that then we have received our reward.
In light of the immanent passage of the anti-gay bill in Uganda that will impose the death penalty for gays and lesbians, I think this move in California doesn't go far enough. Instead of outlawing divorce completely, let's just impose the death penalty for adulterers. It's biblical! Jesus says those who divorce commit adultery, and the punishment for adultery is ... death:
Leviticus 20.10:
If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
After all, Jesus said "do unto others as you would have others do unto you."
Jesus may indeed equate divorce with adultery in Matthew 5:31. But where does he say that adultery is bad? Isn't that a modern cultural value that we're unfairly imposing on bronze-age Palestinian society? After all, that was a time when concubines and the buying and selling of slaves were quite common, and from a culture that had no problem with fathers selling their daughters to others. Perhaps Jesus was just clarifying the semantics, making a factual observation without attaching any moral stance.
Jesus was also clearly against families, declaring that one could not follow him unless he hated his (always "his") mother, father, brother, sister, etc. And we know that Paul 'clarified' this stance by stating that marriage is a very poor substitute for outright chastity. Doesn't that suggest that what should be "banned" is marriage? That would certainly take care of the divorce problem.
Wrote a little song.....wanna hear it?
“Under-achiever” (Cheer Up Miss PreeJeen)
(Using the melody from the Monkee’s “Daydream Believer” and a homecoming queen)
Just for Carrie Prejean
Oh she just lies
About most things
Twisted Ideology
Preaching her devout
Divinity
It’s ok
She’s right wing
And deception
Is their thing
Just listen to
Most any
Jesus Freak
Cheer up Miss Preejeen
Washed up beauty queen
She’s an
Under-achiever
Who lies
CONstantly
Bibles are her thing
Gays should not wear wedding rings
God tells her how evil this would be
And her lying never ends
Just like most Republicans
A hypocrite
Just like most of her breed
Chorus:
Cheer up Miss PreeJeen
Christian beauty queen
She just
Plays with her beaver
Crying
Lord help me please
Cheer up Miss PreeJeen
Washed up beauty queen
She’s an
Under-achiever
Who lies
CONstantly
Fake, phony and fraud
It’s ok
Cause she has God
Everything’s ok
If she believes
Such a hypocrite
Lost her crown
Cause she’s unfit
Preaching
Her self-serving
Piety
Chorus:
Cheer up Miss PreeJeen
Christian beauty queen
She just
Plays with her beaver
Crying
Lord help me please
Cheer up Miss PreeJeen
Washed up beauty queen
She’s an
Under-achiever
Who lies
CONstantly
Repeat Until End
apigwithlipstick@aol.com
CoteHanger 2009©
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