…as Professor [Mark A.] Smith surveyed the front lines of the culture war, he was surprised, not so much by the issues of hot debate and controversy, but by an issue that was obvious for its absence ”” divorce.
“From the standpoint of simple logic, divorce fits cleanly within the category of ”˜family values’ and hence hypothetically could represent a driving force in the larger culture war,” he notes. “If ”˜family values’ refers to ethics and behavior that affect, well, families, then divorce obviously should qualify. Indeed, divorce seems to carry a more direct connection to the daily realities of families than do the bellwether culture war issues of abortion and homosexuality.”
That logic is an indictment of evangelical failure and a monumental scandal of the evangelical conscience. When faced with this indictment, many evangelicals quickly point to the adoption of so-called “no fault” divorce laws in the 1970s. Yet, while those laws have been devastating to families (and especially to children), Smith makes a compelling case that evangelicals began their accommodation to divorce even before those laws took effect. No fault divorce laws simply reflected an acknowledgment of what had already taken place. As he explains, American evangelicals, along with other Christians, began to shift opinion on divorce when divorce became more common and when it hit close to home…..
[i]But divorce harms many more lives than will be touched by homosexual marriage. Children are left without fathers, wives without husbands, and homes are forever broken. Fathers are separated from their children, and marriage is irreparably undermined as divorce becomes routine and accepted. Divorce is not the unpardonable sin, but it is sin, and it is a sin that is condemned in no uncertain terms.
Evangelical Christians are gravely concerned about the family, and this is good and necessary. But our credibility on the issue of marriage is significantly discounted by our acceptance of divorce. To our shame, the culture war is not the only place that an honest confrontation with the divorce culture is missing.
Divorce is now the scandal of the evangelical conscience.[/i]
Liberal posters on T19 have been making this point for some time. I hope that we will be more gracious in our acknowledgment of their argument now that Al Mohler is stating it.
That is not to say that there aren’t serious pastoral conundrums that require resolution, even if one adopts a more resolute attitude to divorce. How do priests handle a divorce within a congregation? What should be their attitude to the divorced and remarried who seek to be a part of a congregation? How should the laity react when friends tell them that they’re contemplating divorce? And so on, and so on . . .
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
A divorce in a parish can be a very difficult thing for the priest, having to minister to both parties, and for other parishioners. Been there, done that. And although I don’t marry any whose ex-spouses are living, unless it’s nullifiable, I have to treat every couple the same, whether they’re 1st or 2nd marriages. I’m sure one could find some hypocrisy in there, but it’s a tough call.
Dr Mohler has some good stuff to say.
“Smith explains that the inclusion of divorce on the agenda of the
Christian right would have risked a massive alienation of members.”
True. There is an unseemly resort to divorce by those who preach
“family values”. The author also incisively notes that the whole issue
of divorce has been “privatized” – relegated to a purely personal
area which apparently has no relationship to the larger context of that
person. How can evangelicals “privatize” this ? Doesn’t the secular
left seek to privatize all manifestations of religious expression ? There is
an inconsistency, if not fraudulence and hypocrisy, from
those preaching a God-centered morality but who willingly fracture
family bonds.
As for the “massive alienation” which could result from forthright
condemnations of divorce, let it happen. Jesus “massively
alienated” most of his disciples in the sixth chapter of John’s
gospel. They went back to their former way of life and “walked
with Him no more” after they had experienced his repeated
statement regarding His Flesh and His Blood, which they regarded
as a “hard saying”. Jesus was definitely stricter than his
contemporaries regarding divorce and re-marriage. Divorce is
not a purely private matter. It strikes most harshly at
the immediate family involved, but it also dilutes the testimony
of the Christian community.
RE: “Liberal posters on T19 have been making this point for some time.”
Except that liberal commenters haven’t been making Mohler’s argument at all!
Their remarkably silly argument has been that since Christians, including Anglicans, have engaged in other sins, like greed or glutton or divorce [only of course they don’t see that latter as sin, and indeed they have championed free love, free sex, and no-fault divorces] that we are thus hypocrites for not deciding to call gay sex holy and blessed and come up with rites that offer church approval of gay sex.
Their follow-up claim that Anglicans haven’t cared about or resisted divorce is then made — which of course is a lie, as anyone can see by looking at one of the primary issues at General Convention 2006 in the conservative resistance to the Beisner approval, which was duly rolled over by the foaming revisionists that were on the committee.
Sorry, but I don’t respect specious arguments, nor am I gracious to those arguments.
Good to have Mohler making his usual excellent points.
Jeremy Bonner writes, “Liberal posters on T19 have been making this point for some time. I hope that we will be more gracious in our acknowledgment of their argument now that Al Mohler is stating it.”
Yes, but liberal protesters argue, “Divorce is clearly condemned and yet the divorce rate among evangelicals [see below] is the same as the general population, so we should be free to [fill in the blank]”.
Also, [url=http://sapphiresky.org/2010/03/04/christian-divorce-rates/] note that evangelical Christians[/url] have the lowest divorce rate 28% whereas atheists/agnostics have a rate equal to the general population. And this needs to be seen with the fact that evangelical Christians have the highest marriage rates (78%) and atheists/agnostics have the lowest. Barna does have a category of born-again – but not evangelical – which have a high divorce rate. His definition of evangelical subsumes born again. Also, Barna doesn’t distinguish when he talks about “Baptist”.
4,
This liberal poster will make the following observation (argument implied):
In my diocese I have received communion from divorced persons serving as a Lay Eucharistic Ministers in good standing. The Divorced are able to serve on Vestry, lead Sunday school, lector and serve in paid lay ministry positions.
In my diocese a practicing homosexual is practically (and sometimes explicitly) barred from those roles.
The former appears to be a function of loving the sinner hating the sin, recognizing the reality of our culture, what have you. And I’m glad for that tolerance of people who are broken.
The latter is viewed as…well, if you’re on T19 you know the justifications involved.
Good for Reverend Harmon for posting this–silent-on-divorce-but-tough-on-the-gays is a pretty common stance for orthodox clergy, perhaps because being tough on the divorced would result in some pretty empty churches.
I suspect what will follow will be an explanation as to why Luke 16:18 doesn’t apply but Romans 1:27 is crystal clear.
I see that Sarah made my point while I was writing mine (a much quicker wit!).
Sarah/Robroy,
I agree that for some liberals the facts of evangelical divorce are cited for the purposes of justifying other innovations. My point was they correctly identified a blind spot in the moral compass of some reasserters. That such a blind spot exists is surely evident from the fact that ACNA felt obliged to legislate that the fact of divorce would be a bar to elevation to the episcopate.
In recent research, I’ve found it interesting to discover just how vocal on the subject of not condoning divorce the old Episcopal Church was; few before the 1920s would have contemplated such a stipulation as ACNA adopted being necessary. And yet it was and it is. It’s also possible that for some on the liberal side the issue is also perceived as problematic; I can think of several liberal friends for whom the divorce culture is cause for concern.
If something is a scandal then it needs to be acknowledged to the world, including to those who might be tempted to exploit such an admission. I seem to have this vague memory of some advice of our Lord on the subject of motes and logs.
“I can think of several liberal friends for whom the divorce culture is cause for concern. ”
Actually, I think that for [i]most[/i] liberal progressive types, divorce is a concern. But it is just too good a logical fallacy ([url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque ]tu quoque[/url]) not to use to shoot the dart of hypocrisy at the orthodox.
RE: “That such a blind spot exists is surely evident from the fact that ACNA felt obliged to legislate that the fact of divorce would be a bar to elevation to the episcopate.”
Wait — so if ACNA does not legislate, they are being easy on divorce and hard on gay people. But if they *do* legislate they acknowledge that there is a blind spot?
How about good for ACNA for duly forbidding [i]activities that make a person ineligible for the episcopate?[/i]
RE: “If something is a scandal then it needs to be acknowledged to the world. . . .”
I wholeheartedly acknowledge that the practice of unallowed divorce and remarriage by those who claim that they are Christians is a scandal, just as the practice of so many many other sins by those who claim that they are Christians is a scandal. That is why we need to have clear rules and clear boundaries for leadership and practice in the organizations which encompass groups of purported Christians. But again — that is not the “argument” [sic] that the revisionists have made on this blog.
Wonderfully salient article and great posts. I am concerned, however, after looking at Jesus’ example. Jesus never listed all the sexual sins but He did hold up marriage a the means and objective of all human things sexual. I think that we all spend too much time holding out the sin and not celebrating the holy and undefiled. If young people would see our celebration and agreement with God I think there would be far less of all kinds of sexual sins.
Don
It’s not that liberals make an argument on this scandal, its that they know it’s there and can rely on it.
“Porneia” is read in more than one way, and the farther back you go in church history, the more often it is read as “incestuous or other prohibited marriage” rather than adultery. What would Augustine have said?
The Church is also pretty quiet on “shacking up” (showing my age there) or what is currently called (last I knew) “hooking up”.
It appears to me that the aspect of divorce over which the church in general is having the least clarity is that of repentance.
If a person was divorced [i]before[/i] becoming a believer, the marriage prep ought focus on understanding the reasons and attempting to ensure the do not recur. That would certainly count as repentance and walking in a new direction.
No-fault divorce has been devastating both within and outside the church because it allows one party in the marriage — and 80% of the time it is the woman — to force a divorce over the objections of the other. The only requirements is “breakdown of the marriage,” and if the man wishes to save the marriage, but the woman does not, that is presented as additional evidence of hopeless breakdown.
I truly do not believe the church should count such a divorce against a person able to prove (s)he attempted to save the marriage. The person [i]initiating[/i] that divorce is in another category altogether.
Similarly, I would grant some genuine mercy in cases of the four-As — adultery, abandonment, abuse, and addiction — more particularly to the aggrieved party, but not exclusively. I see no reason why a man who ruined a marriage as a younger, addicted, adulterous non-believer should [i]not[/i] be allowed to re-marry on the strength of considerable evidence that he has repented and changed his behaviour. Such a person might actually be particularly well-suited to leadership in the church … [i]cf[/i] Saul of Tarsus.
Nor is there ant reason why someone truly repenting of homo-sexual activity ought not be allowed to marry, or even rise to leadership.
The issue, people, is repentance and changed life-direction. To call persistently active homosexuality, or adultery, or greed, or any other active sin “good,” and thereby worthy of affirmation and blessing … is another situation altogether.
Comparison of divorce and homosexuality is a red herring. Nothing more, nothing less, and I say that as a man who was divorced a long time ago. I am now and delighted and enthusiastic one-woman man, and that makes all the difference.
Not to that I can claim any advantage of youth, but “hooking up, I believe has much less commitment implied than “Shacking Up”, being at base a one night ( or less) connection for the purpose of sex. To Shack up I think you at least have to bring a toothbrush and a change of underwear. In other words, “hooking up” happens when straight people behave like homosexuals.
Creedal Episcopalian (#15),
You’re making a general assumption about motivation that none of us can know for certain in all cases. I don’t why sinful behavior among homosexuals as well as heterosexuals can’t still be informed by commitment and/or self-abnegation. That doesn’t mean that the Church must bless it.
Of course, the justification for the Church treading softly with the latter is that it is striving to ‘regularize’ the living arrangement, but it does so without ever really explaining that the former state is not that to which Christians are called, it lays itself open to the charge of hypocrisy.
14,
I don’t see the divorce-homosexuality connection as fallacious. Reasserters often declare that the crisis in the Episcopal Church isn’t about gays, but about scriptural authority.
Lots of contextualizing/redefining in this thread…does my reappraiser heart good to see such charitable hermeneutics on T19!
“[i][b]I don’t see[/b][/i] the divorce-homosexuality connection as fallacious. Reasserters often declare that the crisis in the Episcopal Church isn’t about gays, but about scriptural authority.”
Don’t see? Really? It is not very hard. Who’s pushing the divorce culture on the TEClub? Who’s fighting it? Sarah has [url=http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/26655#444583 ]quoted proceedings[/url] from the Beisner affair (sorry, that is probably a poor choice of words). Who were the players siding against the elevation of Beisner? Bps Lawrence and MacPherson.
Have some “orthodox” compromised wrongly on adultery? Brian McLaren used to be orthodox and now is an outright heretic. So that gives you liberty to espouse heresies, too?
Mohler’s piece isn’t about liberal heresies, which are of course many and manifest, and will be duly punished in the hottest fires Asmodeus can stoke.
It’s about the inconsistency of the orthodox position.
Mohler doesn’t mention this example, but it was telling to me at the time. GAFCON’s “Jerusalem Declaration” attacks reappraisers for claiming “God’s blessing for same-sex unions over against the biblical teaching on holy matrimony.”
But what is GAFCON’s take on “the biblical teaching on holy matrimony”? Well, they condemn “acceptance of serial monogamy, in which marriage is followed by casual divorce and subsequent re-marriage, not once but several times.”
Hold on…where did the wod “casual” come from? Not the Bible. But that is the Orthodox loophole–liberals have “casual” divorces, being godless and all. The Orthodox have regrettable divorces, or repented divorces, or unavoidable divorces. I suspect this “casual” insertion is what allows ACNA to tolerate the divorced currently clergy in their midst.
Links:
http://anglican.dot5hosting.com/The_GAFCON_Jerusalem_Declaration.pdf
http://www.gafcon.org/images/uploads/gafcon_way_truth_life.pdf