I have to agree with Tony also, I like the analogy of the ejector seat, as being something you try very hard NOT to use. I’ve known far too many couples who enter marriage with the thought in their minds that divorce is a convenient back door, and have no thought of forever, no thought of growing old with their mate.

On the cultural level, I still believe marriage is a foundation of society, and that a good lot of society’s woes have to do with current attitudes towards it. Stability is God’s idea, and lifelong stability in marriage goes far beyond benefitting just the couple and their family.

As for the “indissolubilist” position, if Erin was meaning to quote Matthew 19:8, she left out Jesus’ qualifying statement “except for marital unfaithfulness”, which shows that Jesus understood human frailties. If Jesus has said here that there is one way in which divorce and remarriage could occur without it being adulterous, then “marital unfaithfulness” breaks the bond of marriage that Erin claims is never broken.

Again, I like how Tony put it….”His saving will is to rescue people from the wreckage we make of our lives, and enable a new start and life in grace. Anything other than that would be legalism of the most pharisaic kind.”

In that context, I define divorce as the “Martin Baker option”. Martin Baker make ejector seats. Any pilot will tell you that the mark of a good pilot is making your number of landings equal the number of take-offs. Even if problems arise, you may still be able to deal with them and bring the aircraft to a safe landing. However, there comes the point (engine gone, wing dropped off, etc) when the only available option is the Martin Baker option. Just so, most marriages will go through variable periods, and may encounter problems. If the problems spotted soon enough and addressed properly, the relationship may continue safely. If the problems prove insoluble, or are not addressed soon enough, they may reach the point of destroying the marriage. While it was never God’s intent for that marriage to end in divorce, any more than it would be a pilot’s intent to end his flight parachuting from a wreck, that may be the only remaining option for the rescue of the people involved.

In short, I believe it is God’s creative will for marriage to last for life, but I do not believe it to be his will that people are destroyed in order to make that so. His saving will is to rescue people from the wreckage we make of our lives, and enable a new start and life in grace. Anything other than that would be legalism of the most pharisaic kind.

Divorce is clearly not part of God’s creative will, but my own take has always been it is there as a final permission, perhaps an escape valve for our sinfulness. Since it does seeem to be permitted in some situations, I ask myself why it should be permitted at all if remarriage was not recognised in some instnaces. If that is forbidden then a formal separation is all that is needed. In that sense I identify more to Tony and you Dave, than to Erin. However if anyone out there can comment on that point I am always ready to listen and be corrected.

None of this changes the fact that the creative will is that marriage is intended for life, and our Christian imperative is to actively pretect our own marriages as well as support the institution generally. The curate of the Parish where my younger daughter was recently married, in her talk at the ceremony, expressed this in terms of support when “the whatever does happen as it will”, and the emotions of the big day are passed.

Secondly I do appreciate your take on “equal”, not just in marriage itself but also for its wider implications. On complementarian type issues, including women in ministry and for Angilcans like me the episcopacy, I have felt I should start with creation as expressing God’s intention for us, before considering how things moved on after the fall. The church should surely show the world, imperfectly no doubt, something of the consumation of the Kingdom . Genesis 1 is neutral here. Male and Female are in His image and there is no implicit comment one being over the other. But Genesis 2 caused me more diffficulty. Seeing your take here seems to bring a greater sense of unity with Genesis 1, and gives us a start point where the only real differences between men and women a those governed by biology.

However, that sin is not an unforgiveable sin, is it? My NT only knows of one unforgiveable sin, and whatever ‘blasphemy against the Holy Spirit’ actually means, that has nothing to do with marriage or sexual sin, as far as the context suggests. Now, if the failure of a marriage can be forgiven, and the forgiveness offered in the gospel means a complete new start with our sins ‘covered up’ (as in the Hebrew for Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement), cannot that mean the possibility of a new marriage? You may wish to argue that it should mean remarriage to the original partner, but that may be simply impossible, or even morally offensive.

Let me illustrate with one case, from among the many I have dealt with over the years. Both people sat before me were divorced. His ex-wife had run off with a younger man, leaving him behind – she left him, against his wishes, and he was divorced against his wishes. Her ex-husband had been become violent, had attacked her and the children on a number of occasions. His violence was such a threat that she left him, for the protection of the children, and divorced him. A few years later, they met and fell in love, and her children loved him, and they wanted to marry and become a proper family again. Are you telling me it was wrong for me to do marry them? Remarriage to the original partners was out of the question. Here was the way in which God could redeem the situation, and give them the new start which the gospel is about. Further, she was a life-long Christian and church member; he was interested in the faith, and became even more interested because of the compassionate way in which we dealt with them.

I sggest, Erin, that you read the texts with a little more of that compassion, and look at them in the context of hurting and broken people, rather than the vision of the perfect community which always gets things right. ‘Cos I haven’t found that yet, but I’ve been so blessed in working with them.

Why is something that God hates (divorce) so prevalent in our times today?
It is because people today do not know what the Bible says about marriage, divorce and remarriage.

“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”
—Jesus Christ

Because remarrying after a divorce constitutes adultery, we must ask ourselves who are we committing adultery against if we are no longer married? If a divorce makes us single why are we committing adultery AFTER a divorce and if we have no spouse AFTER a divorce then who are we committing adultery against?

The answer would have to be that it is against the one from whom we are divorced. This would mean that a divorce does not dissolve the marriage bond if we can still commit adultery AFTER the court proclaims that they have dissolved our marriage.

If divorce truly ended marriage, it would be impossible to commit adultery AFTER divorcing. The fact that Jesus Himself says that the adultery kicks in AFTER a divorce must mean that divorce is powerless to actually end the marriage covenant that God has said is for life.

“A wife is married to her husband as long as he lives.”
1 Corinthians 7:39

Many, many people today are deceived.

If a divorce makes us single, why are we then committing adultery while on a honeymoon with a new partner AFTER a divorce?

People don’t get it, the divorce didn’t work…Jesus said so.

The court may declare someone’s marriage dissolved but Jesus does not agree with the court…Luke16:18

http://www.cadz.net/tony.html

http://www.cadz.net/remarriage.html

http://www.marriagedivorce.com/mdreform2.htm