Divorce and Grace

No, Mennonites do not believe in salvation through grace in the way that you believe in salvation through grace. Mennonites are not actually Protestants: they fall into a no-man's-land between Catholicism and Protestantism.

Mennonites believe that we are all sinners and "come short of the glory of God" and that no matter how hard we try to be good, we could never be good enough for Heaven without the sacrifice that Jesus made, and the grace that allows us to be saved. Nonetheless, they also believe that "out of the heart, the mouth speaks" and that your actions follow your heart. Therefore your faith should be evident in works, otherwise something is clearly not right there. Salvation is a gift but not a gift to be taken for granted or abused. It is also a gift that can be lost. I also don't believe when you're in, you're in.

Salvation can be lost. I don't believe that a divorce necessarily makes it so but I do believe that there are people who turn their backs utterly on God and "deliberately" lose their salvation.

But more generally, Mennonites believe that to sin knowingly, is not covered under that grace. Sinning through ignorance would be covered. You would have to sincerely repent in order for that grace to cover you. Paul addresses this actually. Somewhere he says that there is no "covering" for knowingly sinning, as that means that Christ would be twice crucified.

Since divorce is a sin and remarriage is a sin, and it may be a sin that a person doesn't truly repent in his or her heart, Communion is denied, just as it would be for instance, in the Catholic church which takes a similar view of divorce and remarriage. Although they do provide a way out, as in if only one party was Catholic then the other party isn't, Catholics conveniently "don't count" that marriage as valid in the eyes of God, even if the other party is a Christian only not a Catholic Christian.

Mennonites don't count anyone out. So you're pretty well stuck. The idea that a marriage cannot be dissolved at all and a divorced person can't remarry without sinning is from Jesus' words in Mark: Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.

And in Romans, Paul says: ...by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.

Both Jesus and Paul seem to be saying that to remarry while your spouse is alive is adultery, regardless of the circumstances of the separation.

Layla