(13) You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, With weeping and crying; So He does not regard the offering anymore, Nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.
14 Yet you say, "For what reason?" Because the Lord has been witness Between you and the wife of your youth, With whom you have dealt treacherously; Yet she is your companion And your wife by covenant.
15 But did He not make them one, Having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, And let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.
16 "For the Lord God of Israel says That He hates divorce, For it covers one's garment with violence," Says the Lord of hosts. "Therefore take heed to your spirit, That you do not deal treacherously."
There are some that want to make the culture war go away - tired of being embattled or believing that the Church has lost, or for whatever reason, you have people who have adopted the mindset that we should not be fighting about moral issues. Unfortunately, the perspective being communicated is that the Church should stay silent and not try to influence the culture, and these battles will go away.
In other words, the Church, in the mindset of some, is the problem, not the answer.
Take for instance this headline I came across at the Vox website: "The Christian right is coming for divorce next..." This reflects a mindset that the Church is some radical entity that is "coming for" or "seeking to destroy" certain institutions or practices. In this case, the article defends no-fault divorce and predicts societal destruction if it is eliminated.
The article began by discussing the history of no-fault divorce, quoting from Marcia Zug, a professor at the University of South Carolina. It states that before the 1960's...
Typically, the only way to do it was to convince a judge that your spouse had committed some form of wrongdoing, like adultery, abandonment, or “cruelty” (that is, abuse). This could be difficult: “Even if you could prove you had been hit, that didn’t necessarily mean it rose to the level of cruelty that justified a divorce,” said Marcia Zug, a family law professor at the University of South Carolina.
Then, California implemented the first no-fault divorce law in the nation.
The article fast-forwards to today, stating:
Today, however, a counter-revolution is brewing: Conservative commentators and lawmakers are calling for an end to no-fault divorce, arguing that it has harmed men and even destroyed the fabric of society. Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, for example, introduced a bill in January to ban his state’s version of no-fault divorce.
It mentions officials, such as Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and former HUD Secretary Ben Carson, who have expressed a desire for stricter laws on divorce.
The article did share a quote from Sen. Deevers:
Opponents of no-fault divorce argue that it is hurting families and American culture. Making divorce too easy causes “social upheaval, unfettered dishonesty, lawlessness, violence towards women, war on men, and expendability of children,” Deevers wrote last year in the American Reformer, a Christian publication. “To devalue marriage is to devalue the family is to undermine the foundation of a thriving society.”But, the article then continues to drive home its point, stating, "...today, an end to no-fault divorce would cause enormous financial, logistical, and emotional strain for people who are trying to end their marriages, experts say. Proving fault requires a trial, something many divorcing couples today avoid, said Kristen Marinaccio, a New Jersey-based family law attorney. A divorce trial is time-consuming and costly, putting the partner with less money at an immediate disadvantage. It can also be 'really, really traumatizing' to have to take the stand against an ex-partner, Marinaccio said." It goes on to say:
No-fault divorce can be easier on children, who don’t have to experience their parents facing each other in a trial, experts say. Research suggests that allowing such divorces increased women’s power in marriages and even reduced women’s suicide rates. A return to the old ways would turn back the clock on this progress, scholars say.
“We know exactly what happens when people can’t get out of very unhappy marriages,” Zug said. “There’s much higher incidences of domestic abuse and spousal murder.”
But, one must also ask himself or herself - what have been the social costs of the devaluation of marriage and the greater availability of divorce?
At the Breakpoint website, John Stonestreet and Michaela Estruth write:
Divorce is even praised as a cultural good, but rather than delivering the freedom and happiness promised, the data shows that men and women who remain faithful in lifelong marriage are happiest.
That’s because marriage was intended by God from the beginning, as part of the creation mandate.
Stonestreet, along with Timothy Padgett, write, from the Breakpoint website:
There are times when divorce is necessary, but it is always tragic in the same sense as when catastrophic cures like amputation or chemotherapy are necessary. To pretend otherwise is a dangerous fantasy. The Bible sees marriage as a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, but, recognizing the frailty of human nature after the Fall, it allows for divorce in extreme cases, such as abandonment, adultery, or abuse.
Highlighting the “wholesome” effects of no-fault divorce is even more reckless than praising the upside of amputation. Divorce is a messy, sometimes necessary, side effect of living in a world full of sin and folly. But while we may have to deal with our human weakness in this way, it’s never something we should excuse by saying that it is for the kids’ good. The cost to children is too high. Its effects on children are too long-lasting for society to allow, let alone encourage. To do so is to ignore the data, the stories, and reality itself.
John MacArthur reinforces a Biblical view of marriage in a piece published on the Focus on the Family website:
Divorce has become pandemic, to the point that hardly a person can be found who has not been affected by it either directly or indirectly. Many marriages seem to be little more than a socially recognized battleground where warfare between the spouses is the rule and harmony the exception.He writes, "From those two verses (Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24), taken from the first two chapters of Scripture, the Lord presented four reasons why divorce was never God’s intention." The headlines of each section make the point:
Each year around the world, there are millions of divorces, and beneath the rubble of mind-numbing statistics lie the crushed lives of men, women and children. None of them escapes suffering and damage, no matter how amicable the divorce may be. Nearly every state in America has enacted no-fault divorce laws, making divorce almost as easy as marriage. It is not surprising, therefore, that the largest caseloads in civil courts today relate to family disputes.
- God created male and female
- God intended permanence
- God desired consecration and commitment
- God made every marriage in heaven
I've heard it said that married couples should stay together "for the sake of the children." Obviously, the cost of divorce to children can be quite high, which has been pointed out. But, that is only a minimum standard - a couple should stay together because of God's intention for the marriage and try, with His help, to make it all He desires for it to be "for the sake of the children..." and for the sake of the two parties and for the glory of God.
Marriage is full of incredible benefits, but we don't experience those in their fulness until we totally surrender to the author of marriage, so that we do marriage His way. There will likely be times of trial that put pressure on the marriage - couples may have to wrestle with conflict and may struggle to reach a unified decision, in some cases. But, just as our individual trials build God's character in our lives, so we can trust that our corporate trials in marriage will be used by God to construct a lifelong, resilient, loving marriage centered on Jesus.
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