Christians and Divorce part 2

My friend who felt that because her marriage hadn't worked out, it therefore wasn't a real marriage in the eyes of God was American and not Mennonite, which is why I was curious as to whether her idea was a common American Christian one or what. I agree, it would have made more sense to say that she was sorry the first hadn't worked out, and that in spite of having gone through a divorce, she didn't actually "believe" in divorce, but nonetheless....

Well, I'm actually relieved that it doesn't make sense to you either. I was very floored since she was so bitterly against divorce, and then to find she'd been divorced...

Okay, well for years, western secular divorce laws were based on what you just said about Christians marrying and divorcing - allowable only with one party clearly in violation. In practical terms though, what that meant was PI's jumping out of the bushes with cameras to catch a cheating spouse, or if both people wanted out badly enough, one party (usually the man since men were expected to be hound dogs anyway) claiming they had committed adultery, even if they hadn't, just to be granted a divorce.

My problem with all that comes in that as in the above example, the matter of Christians divorcing and remarrying in cases of physical adultery, is that it sticks to the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law.

Paul doesn't address wife-beating, husbands who sexually abuse their children, or spouses who to all intents and purposes spiritually stray in that they are not there in the marriage as a partner and a helpmate, or perhaps even where the marriage has deteriorated to the point where the sex in the marriage is non-existent. If it is the act of sex, as Paul says, in the verse you quote, that you are joining yourself to unholy things, and sex is the act that bonds a marriage, then what about sexless marriages? If it is about the act of procreation, then where do infertile couples fit in?

To me then the whole aspect of Christians and marriage and divorce, and sticking to the letter of the law, becomes what Jesus said about keeping clean the outside of the cup, and not the inside. Which is why western secular divorce laws became easier to begin with - because they didn't and couldn't address all the different ways spouses can stray or make a marriage unendurable. It isn't just about the physical act of straying.

I know you know all that, I'm just setting it out for any readers.

When I separated from my husband, I heard a humorous thing said by one of my friends that an acquaintance had a "Mennonite divorce." I asked her what that was and she said that was where you couldn't stand each other but, by God, you stayed married and rained down judgement on everyone else for "not trying."

Which reminds me of another joke, which I've also heard as a Baptist joke: "Why don't Mennonites make love standing up? Because it might lead to dancing."

There's a lot of truth in some of these jokes - how people can become so absorbed by the letter of the law, that the spirit behind the law completely escapes them.

Well, I have a lot of work to do myself. Thanks for your response. I'm not taking issue with it. I just finally admitted to myself years ago that the Bible makes no sense for me at all on the issue of divorce and I think Jesus means that people ought not to divorce for frivolous reasons, and that an intact union was the original plan before we screwed it all up.

Layla