Should Divorcees Be Forbidden to Teach or Lead in Local Churches?

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The constitutions and bylaws of independent Baptist churches commonly include language that forbids divorced persons from teaching Sunday School or holding church office. The restriction is so common that of the dozens of church constitutions I’ve read and filed, only one or two lack some version of it. Since many churches with these restrictions have some history of conflict over them, the topic also tends to be seen as a minefield—best to fence it off and leave it alone.

But these same church constitutions and confessions of faith also strongly emphasize the authority of Scripture, and one question should always be welcome: Is what we’re doing biblical? Is it compatible with Scripture and the revealed nature and purposes of the church?

Let’s consider some arguments pro and con.

Pro

1 Discouraging divorce

Surely we all agree that churches ought to do what they can to discourage divorce and nurture thriving marriages. I’ve frequently heard this laudable goal cited as a reason for restrictive church policy on divorcees. The desire is that the church be perceived as univocal and consistently uncompromising on this point so that the message is unmistakable: God’s design for marriage is one man, one woman, for life.

2 Prevention by shaming

Cynical readers might be quick to suggest an alternative version of argument #1: “All these churches really want to do is scare people out of getting divorced by endlessly shaming those who are divorced.” Sadly, the cynics are probably more right than wrong on that point.

At the same time, the local church discipline passages in the NT do indicate that (a) some behavior is truly disgraceful and (b) churches can fail by being too accommodating of conduct that ought to be seen as shameful (2 Cor. 5:1-2, Ephes. 5:3).

3 Rejection of social trends – “easy divorce”

It would be difficult to research, but it seems likely that many of the divorcee restrictions were added to church constitutions in a period when divorce rates were dramatically increasing in the US. Part of this trend was the relaxing of requirements for divorce proceedings, leading to the creation of family courts and culminating in no-fault divorce laws. California became the first no-fault divorce state in 1970.

Biblically-informed Christians with a high view of marriage were appalled by this trend. Many saw the principle, “be not conformed to this world,” as requiring them to stake out a counter-cultural stand in this area. “We’re not joining this mad rush toward the destruction of the family.” Who can fault them for that?

4 The “husband of one wife” passages

Constitutions with divorcee restrictions sometimes footnote supporting passages that include 1 Timothy 3:2, 12 and 5:9 along with Titus 1:6. Though most of these passages refer to qualifications for elders, 1 Timothy 3:12 does apply the standard to deacons as well.

Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well. (ESV, 1 Tim. 3:12)

How are these passages relevant for restricting Sunday School teachers and other non-deacon leadership roles? The reasoning is that these passages establish the principle that those who are leaders the church should be exemplary individuals with exemplary families.

Con

1 The value of participation

Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 12, and many other passages, emphasize that each member of the body has a unique contribution to the life and growth of the whole. In Ephesians 4, the language is “joints” and “parts” that must work together (Eph. 4:16). In 1 Corinthians, Paul likens individual believers to hands, feet, eyes, etc. Nobody can be what someone else has been put there to be (1 Cor. 12:14-16).

None of this adds up to, “Divorced people must be allowed to be ministry leaders,” but it does add up to a sobering principle: preventing people from serving in ways they ought to be serving is a serious injury to the body—and therefore, a serious offense against Christ who is the Head.

Whatever case we make for excluding an entire category of people from multiple categories of ministry roles had better be a strong one. Does such a case exist? If such a case does exist, the “husband of one wife” standard for pastors and deacons is not it. Not only is it less than certain that the phrase was meant to exclude all divorce-and-remarriage scenarios, but we also have no Scripture indicating that this standard was intended to extend to roles other than pastors and deacons.

2 How divorces happen now

If LegalZoom has it straight, pure no-fault divorce is the law in 17 states and the District of Columbia. In these jurisdictions, no blame for any kind of wrongdoing may be identified as the reason for divorce proceedings. In the remaining 33 states, no-fault is an option.

In practical terms, this means that if either spouse wants to end the marriage on a no-fault basis, the other spouse has no say at all in the matter. A whole lot of legal process can go into dividing up property, custody, etc., but there is no legal basis for “fighting the divorce.”

At least one conclusion should be clear: it is possible to be a divorcee and have contributed nothing, either actively or passively, to the ending of the marriage. Should individuals in this situation be excluded from ministry leadership?

3 Example of what?

The reasoning that says “let’s make sure our leaders are exemplary individuals with exemplary families” has much to commend it. But given the realities of an easy-divorce society, the question arises, “Exemplary in what ways?” In a society that exalts and empowers individualism to an extraordinary degree, it may well be that a “good example” is sometimes a man or woman who is faithfully living the Christian life in a situation beyond his or her control. Can a divorcee be exemplary at holding to biblical attitudes and obedience while making the best of a tragedy he or she was was not able to prevent?

4 The kinds of people God uses

When we look through biblical history at the kinds of men and women God has chosen to use, even in leadership roles, we don’t find that they are always “exemplary people with exemplary families”—especially in reference to past transgressions. Badly checkered histories are common, and those histories include far worse offenses than failed marriages.

In some of our churches, as far as their constitutions are concerned, you can be a former axe murderer and teach Sunday School, but you can’t be a divorcee. Can this really be the intent of the biblical teaching?

It’s past time for churches to re-examine these policies. Yes, we want to obey Scripture. Yes, we want to discourage divorce and nurture strong marriages. Yes, we want to be counter-cultural. But is a rigid ban on divorcees in leadership really helping further these goals?

Discussion

Would anybody have a problem with:

  • your children being taught by a divorced woman who fled from an abusive relationship?
  • sitting under a Sunday School teacher who divorced before he came to faith?
  • sitting under a preacher whose wife renounced the faith, abandoned him, and left the marriage?
  • having a Deacon whose wife cheated on him and divorced him?

That is really the point of the article. There are genuine circumstances where one divorced party is not at fault. Yes, nobody is totally innocent, but you understand what I’m saying. Would you have a problem with any of these hypothetical people in leadership positions in your church? Why, Scripturally, are they at fault? Each circumstance is legitimate grounds for Christian divorce (we could quibble about #1, but bear with me), or took place before faith. What do you have beyond the appeal to “one woman man,” and the discussion about what on earth that means?

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

[TylerR]

Would anybody have a problem with:

  • your children being taught by a divorced woman who fled from an abusive relationship?
  • sitting under a Sunday School teacher who divorced before he came to faith?
  • sitting under a preacher whose wife renounced the faith, abandoned him, and left the marriage?
  • having a Deacon whose wife cheated on him and divorced him?

That is really the point of the article. There are genuine circumstances where one divorced party is not at fault. Yes, nobody is totally innocent.

My answers:

  1. your children being taught by a divorced woman who fled from an abusive relationship? My response: No but it would be wise for her to have a hiatus in her ministry to heal emotionally and spiritually
  2. sitting under a Sunday School teacher who divorced before he came to faith? My response: OK as long as he has a high view of the sanctity of marriage
  3. sitting under a preacher whose wife renounced the faith, abandoned him, and left the marriage? My response: Way out of my comfort zone. Best to step aside from the vocational ministry.
  4. having a Deacon whose wife cheated on him and divorced him? Same as # 1: My response: No but it would be wise for her to have a hiatus in his ministry to heal emotionally and spiritually

My take on all four is above. Think about it a moment; if we believe in repentance and restoration and not “one strike and you are out”, then we would conclude that one key issue in determining whether a person is qualified for ministry is to ask what they learned through the experience. What did they not see, and why? What did they ignore, and why? What did they do to contribute to the situation, if they did?

And if the blame is all on the other person—even in the case of adultery—then they’re most likely not eligible for ministry yet. Even if all the sin blame is on one party, there is the question of “what did you do to deal with this as the signs were presenting themselves?”.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Do objections to my hypothetical questions center on:

  1. What does it mean to be “above reproach?”, and
  2. What does it mean to be “the husband of one wife?”

Does unwillingness to say “yes” to any of my hypothetical come down to this?

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

[TylerR]

Do objections to my hypothetical questions center on:

  1. What does it mean to be “above reproach?”, and
  2. What does it mean to be “the husband of one wife?”

Does unwillingness to say “yes” to any of my hypothetical come down to this?

  1. What does it mean to be “above reproach?”. I don’t think the Greek helps much here - ἀνεπίλημπτος: 3 times in NT - all in 1st Tim. I’ll guarantee that no matter how “perfect” a man is, one can be found who will say “he’s not above reproach”
  2. What does it mean to be “the husband of one wife?” / has been debatable for some time / on this one, seems like it hinges on one’s view of divorce and remarriage

On # 2: I observe that in North America (or at least in the US), the supply / demand ratio of men who desire to be a bishop & have training TO open positions is about 10 to 1; and the vast majority of churches will eschew a divorced man.

https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/thabitianyabwile/2007/10/08/findin…


Phil Ryken makes the following observation:

To be above reproach, an elder must be ‘the husband of one wife.’ This does not prohibit bachelors from serving as elders. Commonly, elders will be married, and God will use the demands of their callings as husbands and fathers to do much of the sanctifyinig work that needs to be done in their lives before they are ready to serve as officers in the church. But remember that Paul himself was single and commended singleness to others as an opportunity for greater service in the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 7:17; 9:5). Some suggest that the phrase means ‘married only once.’ This would disqualify widowers who remarry, as well as men who have been through a divorce. If this is what Paul meant, however, one might expect him to be more explicit.

The point of the phrase is probably more general: elders must be morally accountable for their sexuality. The Greeks and the Romans of the day generally tolerated gross sexual sin. Polygamy was practiced by both Greeks and Jews. Marriage was undermined by frequent divorce, widespread adultery, and rampant homosexuality. The words of Demosthenes show the scope of the problem: ‘Mistresses we keep for the sake of pleasure, concubines for the daily care of our persons, but wives to bear us legitimate children’.

If a man were divorced and never remarried, would we still be having this debate?

There have been instances of a pastors who were divorced for understandable reasons such as abandonment by an unbelieving spouse or adultery by the wife and the pastor chose not to remarry because, in spite of the legal action, he still considered himself married. I can understand this, after all Paul said that singleness was preferred.

"Some things are of that nature as to make one's fancy chuckle, while his heart doth ache." John Bunyan

You can talk theory all you want, but the above is the reality

Options:

  • Lie or obfuscate in the candidate process (grossly unethical)
  • Split a church if you are popular and powerful enough to ride out the divorce implosion

My friend mentioned in the above post

  • Left the vocational ministry when their marriage imploded (I know the man well …and the wife. There was no innocent party here! Although the wife might have been more to blame …)
  • Took a sales job
  • Struggled making a living (his only living had been pastoring)
  • Was invited to teach a Bible study by disgruntled church members …
  • That group organized as a church

You’re right about the reality check. No doubt about it. I think it is easier and, perhaps, safer to just have a blanket rule. But, I think the Scriptural evidence doesn’t rule out a divorced person from leadership in a local church. I think a church ought to be willing to consider it, on a case by case basis.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

[TylerR]

You’re right about the reality check. No doubt about it. I think it is easier and, perhaps, safer to just have a blanket rule. But, I think the Scriptural evidence doesn’t rule out a divorced person from leadership in a local church. I think a church ought to be willing to consider it, on a case by case basis.

I agree with the bolded above with the following disclaimer / qualification

How “the Pastor” is different:

  • No doubt about it: “the Pastor” (especially in single-pastor churches and in hierarchical multi-pastor churches) is the big kahuna: He’s ex officio on all committees, probably has veto power on all important decisions, literally “has the pulpit”, he is he spokesman, the mouthpiece for the church. He sets the course.
  • A century ago when most people rarely traveled more than a days journey from home, there was a community sense about things - a local knowledge about families and histories. Today that is lost; people get up and move - they leave their baggage far behind. Because pastors are recruited from “the outside”, in the case of divorce little is known about the true causes.
  • In my view: Should be true plurality of elders & generally raised up from inside the church. I really believe this was the early church pattern.
  • In light of the above: having a simple statement excluding a divorced man from the pastorate is the most common sense solution for a local church

We ought to be careful about using it, since one thing in Jim’s link is that the church quite early decided—in direct contradiction to Paul’s command in 1 Tim. 5:14 to let the younger widows marry—that remarriage after being widowed constituted bigamy. Millions of believers suffered without the Biblical comfort of a wife due to that one! (there are hints of it in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale” from “The Canterbury Tales”—this one lasted a LONG time) Also worth noting is that the early church quickly moved to infant baptism and an episcopal structure. Those writings are interesting, but not binding, especially where the Scripture contradicts them.

It’s also worth noting that women really didn’t have a means of supporting themselves after divorce, so the church’s sanction would include both that against divorce in Matthew, and also against leaving the woman in poverty. So they knew, a priori, some things that we don’t necessarily know about cases of divorce today. (divorce sometimes leaves a woman, or man, in poverty today, but back then many would end up in prostitution or starving….)

I would grant that, as a rule, I’d see a history of divorce as a HUGE impediment to pastoral service, as it usually reflects moral and leadership failure, either of which is a bad sign for a pastor or deacon. I just think that if you can have a not only a murderer, but also a thug (Peter and that ear), a terrorist (Simon the Zealot), and a tax collector (Matthew) among the apostles, we can’t see divorce as an inherent disqualifier.

Agreed as well that it is “simpler” just to have the rule, but again—look at the apostles—God somehow didn’t choose “ease of administration” as His criteria for what is right for the Church. We ought to heed that.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Don, I know we’ve mixed it up a lot here on SharperIron, but I really, really appreciated your post earlier in the thread. Thanks for sharing that.

Tyler asked this:

Would anybody have a problem with:

  • your children being taught by a divorced woman who fled from an abusive relationship?
  • sitting under a Sunday School teacher who divorced before he came to faith?
  • sitting under a preacher whose wife renounced the faith, abandoned him, and left the marriage?
  • having a Deacon whose wife cheated on him and divorced him?

No for #1 & #2, Yes for #3 on the basis of I Tim. 3:2-3, and possibly #4, depending on the circumstances.

I’m not a pastor, but I’ve counseled probably 10 (maybe more) situations involving some sort of emotional / mental / spiritual / physical abuse in a marriage. What usually happens is that someone finds the wife crying, or she confides in someone (usually my wife) who then comes to me. I’m usually aware there are problems in the marriage but the husband excuses it as a “general lack of submissiveness” or “good leadership”.

In the most recent case, a woman caught her husband looking at pornography and indulging in voyeurism. She threw him out of the house. He had been telling others at their old church that she wasn’t following him and the pastor told the woman that she needed to submit to his headship among other things [this was while they were still living in the home together]. As it turns out, he had been indulging in affairs, was heavily into pornography, and refused all Biblical admonitions about dealing with his sin. He told his wife he wanted her to sell their home, because he didn’t live there anymore, and that he wanted a divorce. He also refused to pay for the family’s bills, so she fell seriously behind on the mortgage and wasn’t able to cover necessities like food and utilities, but he did, at the same time, lavish money and gifts on their son while this was going on. He also refused all contact with other believers that went after him to try and restore the marriage. Fortunately, she got support from her new church and others so she is rebuilding her life and finances.

At this point, we didn’t have any other choice other than to follow the admonition of I Corinthians 7:15 and ‘let him depart’. I don’t have a problem with her remarrying, either, but I doubt that she would after this, which is sad.

My point is that we need to vet our teachers extremely carefully when it comes to men who want to teach or lead in the churches, because the original story we got was of a husband who tried really hard to ‘save’ his marriage. What was going on under the surface was much uglier and more painful.

If someone wanted to teach or preach in a church I was at, I’d want to see the divorce paperwork. That might be the only way to get at the objective truths under the inevitable ‘he said / she said’.

"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells

Your point is well taken.

Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.

[Jay]

If someone wanted to teach or preach in a church I was at, I’d want to see the divorce paperwork. That might be the only way to get at the objective truths under the inevitable ‘he said / she said’.

this is probably one of the most important points in this thread. The amazing thing is that when a divorcee shows up *wanting* to teach, it is amazing how innocent he is. You have to be really careful before you allow this.

on the other hand, some years ago, we had a couple join us. We found out he played an accordion and we asked him to use it in our evening services. He, very concerned, told me he had been in the ministry, but was divorced and remarried. His second marriage was now some years, perhaps decades old. He was a faithful man and humbly concerned about his situation. Needless today, we had him play. They later moved away to another city, but his attitude was, in my mind, conscientiously spiritual. I have a lot of time for that.

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3