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Re: Rigid/legalistic doctrine concerning divorce and remarriage

There is also the fact that ‘abuse’ is actually a term used rather widely. The US has a number of domestic violence centers. They are almost all exclusively for women, though there are actually a fairly large percentage of households that experience domestic violence where the woman is violent. She’s usually smaller, but if she’s constantly hitting you, violently waking you up, or if she’s got a knife…and you go to jail if you hold her back or restrain her, that’s a dangerous situation. DV centers are typically run by feminists based on feminist philosophy. Many of them rely on the Duluth Model, which extrapolates the attitudes and actions of one morally and mentally messed up man to all abusive men. There is also the ‘divorced wheel’ model which includes quoting scriptures on submission as abusive behavior. The man controlling the family purse strings may be considered abusive behavior. I’ve seen some DV literature. Women may be taught that a number of typical male behaviors are part of a pattern of abuse. Conservative Christian doctrines and traditional husband behaviors (e.g. the man being in charge of finances) are presented as abusive. The idea that a couple fight or argue and then make up is presented as part of an abusive cycle.If a woman reads up on ‘abuse’ and then hears her pastor say she can divorce and remarry because of ‘abuse’, how does she respond? The pastor is talking about broken ribs and black eyes. Maybe she’s thinking of her husband controlling the checkbook, quoting scripture about wives’ submission, and telling her she looks fat in that dress. (Extreme example here.) Throw in some of the stuff that is promoted as ‘rape’ when feminist fornicators take over the dialogue… like if a man talks her into it when she wouldn’t have wanted to otherwise, or if she felt pressured. I’m not sure if this is still the case, but some of the DV literature has promoted the idea of ‘once and abuser, always an abuser.’– maybe not those words, but that was the general idea. I know abusing one’s wife is a horrible thing, and there are a lot of good things about living in a culture where there is a strong stigma against hitting women. But is it the heart of God for abusers to repent and marriages to be restored, or for marriages and families to be broken up? Are men who have gotten drunk and hit their wives and children beyond redemption? It may make us angry to think about it, but does God want to save and restore even the ones who are guilty of what we would all agree is actual ‘abuse’?Looking at some of the material and later at some of the models and tools used online, it is fairly easy to label a lot of men as abusive. There is also a radical feminist idea that all men are ‘potential abusers’There are also a number of genuinely rotten behaviors that get labeled as ‘verbal abuse’– demeaning and degrading someone. But more innocuous speech can be labeled as abusive also. There are different levels of ‘abuse.’ Saying from a pulpit that a wife can divorce over ‘abuse’ may be giving your audience permission to divorce over a myriad of offenses of varying degrees of severity.Take a look at this ‘Power and Control’ Wheel. If you sit around and think of it, you could think of a list of behaviors that a husband does that you would not label as abusive, but ticks a spoke of every one of these wheels. The man may not be the nicest husband, but probably nothing that comes to mind when most conservative Protestants think of ‘abusive’. There are courts sending men accused of domestic violence to feminist programs, where they learn that the source of domestic violence is their being uncomfortable with female power and all kinds of feminist ideology. I don’t remember the exact figures, but some estimates I have heard of is that 30 or 40 percentish of marriages or couples with physical abuse are cases where the wife is physically abusive. Those are the one’s reported. This may be underreported by men who don’t want to speak ill of their wives or admit to being being up by a girl. She hits. He can’t hit back. There is a stigma against him hitting her, but not vice versa. If he defends himself or bruises her restraining her, and she calls the police, there is a very high chance he gets carted off in handcuffs and charged. There are places where police are required to take someone away from a DV call where there has been violence. There have been cases where they arrested too many women for feminist groups tastes, they complained, and the police started arresting more men again. The man is arrested, has a black mark on his record, and is labeled as an abuser. Oh, yeah, and the wife might be able to get permission from her pastor to divorce and remarry based on this________________

Amen________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/

Are some ‘Marriages’ just legal fornication? Just asking….. ________________Some facts but mostly just my [email protected]/

Link, have you ever looked upon a woman with lust whom you were not married to? If so, have you plucked your eye out yet? Jesus was very specific about plucking your eye out if it causes you to stumble.Matthew 5:28But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

This is another very good question. How do we define what God has joined together? The Old Testament law didn’t require God write a wedding invitation in the sky. The father gave the virgin daughter in marriage. Boaz took the widow Ruth to wife by agreeing to take her along with redeeming the property with elders as witnesses. Ruth was apparently willing. Rebecca agreed to marrying Isaac. (And Jewish traditional requires bridal consent.) [quote]If both spouses are confessing believers I think we are right to take a very, very conservative/restrictive approach to the subject of divorce and remarriage. But as you point out, there are a LOT of variables. A rigid/legalistic approach makes things easy, which is probably why we are continually drawn to such things. [quote]Do Jesus words give a lot of leeway? The exception clause doesn’t even show up in two of the Gospels that quote Jesus on the issue. The church had a ‘rigid’ view for the few centuries at least, and the Roman Catholic view is fairly rigid in some ways up until now (though there have been those who have skirted the rules, with bishops approving cousin marriages in one case and disallowing them after the fact in others, but only for kings, kind of like how the chief priests allowed Herodius to divorce.)

I still have my eyes, and I haven’t castrated myself. What about you? I tend to view that as hyperbole. I did break up with a young woman I was dating when I was in my early 20’s before I met my wife because there were a few cues from her that I interpreted that there was a willingness on her end if I were to try to indulge fleshly lusts. That seemed dangerous and that was one reason I thought of when I decided to break up with her. An older friend of mine I talked with about it told me after the fact that this was like cutting off my hand. He took the passage a bit metaphorically. But I don’t see how interpreting the words of Christ or Paul on divorce and remarriage as hyperbole or allegory makes much sense in this case.I like sex as much or maybe more as the next guy my age. I enjoy the companionship of my wife and having a family, too. But is being celibate akin to some kind of death sentence? Did Jesus marry on this earth? Didn’t Paul live single? Didn’t he recommend it as a superior lifestyle for being focused on pleasing the Lord. Timothy probably did, too. Is remaining unmarried or being reconciled a severe, heartless thing to recommend________________

It definitely is not, for the reasons you mention. But recommending is much different than commanding.The irony here is that you and I would likely have the same conclusion about 99.5% of individual cases placed in front of us. But there are a lot of wounded, hurting people in that remaining 0.5% who are being given a yoke the Bible has not commanded them to carry.I apologize that my tone has been too strong in this thread. I know you are just trying to live in accordance with Scripture, as we all are. I appreciate that and accept your apology.I want to bounce a scenario off of you and other readers. I had a coworker many years ago who told me some of her family history. I believe this was an uncle of hers. The husband got stuck behind the Berlin Wall, but his wife and child got out and moved to Canada. Since they could not be together, he managed to process a divorced and inform her so she could remarry. She married again. Years later, after she was dead, the Berlin Wall came down and he traveled to Canada to see his descendants there. It’s a sad story. She was in some kind of United Church. It bothered me that the husband and wife did not just stay single. I believe in staying celibate in that case. Each even knew the other was alive. It wasn’t an MIA or lost at sea situation. What do you and other posters think________________

I still have my eyes, and I haven’t castrated myself. What about you? I tend to view that as hyperbole. I did break up with a young woman I was dating when I was in my early 20’s before I met my wife because there were a few cues from her that I interpreted that there was a willingness on her end if I were to try to indulge fleshly lusts. That seemed dangerous and that was one reason I thought of when I decided to break up with her. An older friend of mine I talked with about it told me after the fact that this was like cutting off my hand. He took the passage a bit metaphorically. But I don’t see how interpreting the words of Christ or Paul on divorce and remarriage as hyperbole or allegory makes much sense in this case.I like sex as much or maybe more as the next guy my age. I enjoy the companionship of my wife and having a family, too. But is being celibate akin to some kind of death sentence? Did Jesus marry on this earth? Didn’t Paul live single? Didn’t he recommend it as a superior lifestyle for being focused on pleasing the Lord. Timothy probably did, too. Is remaining unmarried or being reconciled a severe, heartless thing to recommend?