By SharperIron on
Christian Living
Marriage
Divorce
Christian Colleges and Seminaries

“We believe the covenant of marriage is created by God. We also believe strongly in the power of grace in a broken world and the call to be peacemakers.”

Discussion

Sat, 08/30/14

… Is not just coming from the ‘same-sex marriage’ movement. It is under attack from our hetrosexual Christian leadership too.

Tue, 09/02/14

On divorced Christians:

  • Sadly divorce happens. I happens to many fine people. There are S/I members who are divorced.
  • The church has to make way for their full participation and involvement in the fellowship
  • I’m a bit of a hardliner who believes that the divorced should not serve as pastors.
  • However, they need our love and acceptance

Twitter

Jim's Doctrinal Statement

Tue, 09/02/14

[Jim]

On divorced Christians:

  • Sadly divorce happens. I happens to many fine people. There are S/I members who are divorced.
  • The church has to make way for their full participation and involvement in the fellowship
  • I’m a bit of a hardliner who believes that the divorced should not serve as pastors.
  • However, they need our love and acceptance

Not to derail, but am wondering why these points shouldn’t apply to the sin of homosexuality in the same way it applies to the sin of divorce…

Tue, 09/02/14

T Howard,

Are you talking about ongoing sin or in the past? Divorce is different from what you are seeming to suggest, because it’s an event at a point in time, and in many cases, even if there is repentance on the part of those involved, there’s no going back (i.e. spouse dead, re-married, person divorced did not initiate and spouse doesn’t want them back, etc.). I Cor 6: 9-11 indicates that some of those who are now washed, sanctified, and justified did indeed participate in all manner of sins. I don’t see divorce mentioned in that list, but it certainly includes adulterers, who may have had a divorce as well. That doesn’t mean that those people are qualified to be pastors, but it does at least imply that they are fully involved in the fellowship.

Obviously, unrepentant sin should be handled differently.

Dave Barnhart

Wed, 09/03/14

Dave,

I guess I see in Jim’s (and other’s) comments the willingness to downplay the seriousness of divorce. “Ah, too bad they got divorced… Oh well, time to move on and act like all is well.” A Christian who is involved in a sinful divorce often isn’t called to repent, doesn’t have to deal with church discipline, doesn’t have to show the fruits of repentance, and doesn’t have to work through the issues that caused the divorce… but yet is still welcomed into the fellowship of believers and integrated into ministry. To your point, divorce is now pretty much swept under the rug and people move on.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think people need to wear a scarlet ‘A’ or ‘D’ on their chest after a divorce, but I do think we need to view divorce the way God does. Divorce is ultimately an attack on the gospel, and yet we brush it off and move on like all is well. If the church used to be too hard on divorce, I believe the church has now become too soft on divorce.

Just to clarify, when speaking of divorce I’m referring to divorce caused by the sinful actions of one or both parties.

Wed, 09/03/14

One possibility for re-emphasizing the seriousness of divorce would be to have the deacons and elders of a church interact with those who are divorcing. Divorce always involves sin—adultery or abandonment or eventually probably both—and it seems to me that the filing of a divorce petition offers church leadership a great chance to offer both partners some counsel, and it’s a ball that appears to me to be dropped fairly often.

And regarding this situation, would we consider the head of a Christian college an elder? Certainly he’s trying to teach, or lead teaching, students the Word of God, so I’d say yes. At the very least—see above—he needs some serious counsel about why his wife appears to have left him.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Wed, 09/03/14

Jim, in your bullet list I saw no mention of a need for repentance, reconciliation, church discipline, working through the sin issues that led to the divorce, etc. I’m not saying you’re personally “soft” of divorce, but often comments like yours are echoed in churches that don’t address the sin issues involved before offering restoration and integration.