Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a very misleading article. It sounds like she explaining why she divorced her husband. She didn't. After she sought a legal separation he divorced her. If I got that right, why is she trying to explain getting a divorce she did not initiate?
I didn't get that impression. I got the impression that she saw separation, with no hope of reconciliation, as basically equivalent to a divorce in terms of how other people would view it.
Very few people really can look at a divorce or permanent separation from the outside as a totally no-fault situation.
When Jesus talked about divorce and remarriage being "adultery", he is including that aspect of public witness to the denigration of an ex-spouse. Sadly, Even a successful remarriage, is by it's very success -- would by it's contrast act also as condemnation of the previous failed marriage by showing at least one spouse was able to have good vows.
Just so you know -- I'm in the same boat as her ... actually ... including having prayed for death, rather than live through watching my kids hurt; although alcohol was not involved. My wife filed for divorce after I obtained permission from the church to stay separated, and it was in part because my filing for permission to remain separate automatically invoked the provision where she would have to face a pastor with me and explain what the problems actually were. She filed for civil divorce rather than allow that. ( As her mother was fond of saying: We're a matriarchal family... and her refusal to meet under a male pastor suggests strongly that she is her mother's daughter. )
IMO, the only really good counsel she gave was for an abused spouse to physically separate (not divorce) from an obstinate, uncooperative mate who is abusing them emotionally or physically, or living a dangerous life style (drinking, etc.). I think doing that is a good way to protect yourself, and take away the comfort zone of the other person which was making it easy for them not to make a decision about the marriage and do nothing to end the abuse. I think doing that will end the frustration and hopelessness of an extended stalemate one way or another (they'll either divorce you, or straighten up). But the danger may be in doing that too early out of impatience.
Yes. I agree. Although "taking away the comfort zone" also means bearing retaliation and watching kids used as pawns. Unless the legal separation includes financial insulation -- it's a dangerous position too.
In my case, it took eleven years to separate informally (just sleeping in another place) -- and then, we worked on the marriage with secular counselors for four years, and then when all that failed -- I finally put her to the test to see if she was after power, reconciliation, or simply was too mentally ill to deal with life by forcing a confrontation with pastors and an accounting about finances.
The result of taking all this time was that when the divorce happened due to the threat of facing the church, my wife who had been spending my social security income support and child support to pay the principal on the house; (not the interest which is legal, but the *principal* eg: 6/7 ths of the whole cost was paid by me.) allowed her to use the argument in court that I had been out of the house so long, that *she* paid for far more of it than I -- To the tune of $10's of thousands of dollars....and, yes, I lost even though my attorney did point out to the judge three times -- where she got the money to pay for the house.
It was a very bitter pill to swallow, taking care of the kids for her during the day while she worked -- and then having her deny me access to them for a month, and that alone gave her grounds to be legally able to file for divorce as sole custodian as if I had not done a thing for the kids, ever. She who owns the house, get's the kids.
In reading the article through a couple of times, though, I'll note that you're right -- the author really doesn't address the nitty gritty issues of what Jesus talks about in Matthew 5:32 or Paul in 1Corinthians 7, and Mark 10:9. etc. It's focus is more secular than not.
But I would offer this as a partial defense of her position: Pornea is a perversion of the marriage vow. For example: Fornication is not marriage precisely because it doesn't intend to keep a covenant relationship, Adultery is likewise not a marriage even if done at a temple and before God; (cf: King Herod & Herodas, as the question Jesus was asked was done maliciously in Herod's territory to try and get Jesus executed like John the Baptist...)
But, there is an issue -- that God can see who is saved, and likewise God can see who will fulfill their vows; even if we can not. It's not a certainty, in my mind, that God joins all Christians in name, just because they visit the pastor for a marriage ceremony and go through the motions of swearing their oaths as if in good faith with a spouse who perhaps lied before God and everyone, or was incapable of understanding what those words actually meant "I Do". Does God actually join a marriage where one of the spouses is radically perverted, or an intentional breaker of his law/pastors and ways ?
When Jesus says, "Moses allowed you divorce because of your hardness of heart." -- is that not really the core issue of the word, perverted ? Unwilling to obey God and instead follow their own desires / lusts ?
That's where I wonder what it means when the pastors of her church judged that the husband was not willing to follow through on what was reasonably asked of him in the name of God. For, if he swore his oath with one of those pastors as a witness, or at least that church, they are his witnesses before God in the first place.
When it came to the woman caught "in adultery" in the temple, did not Jesus say: "Where are the witnesses/accusers" ?
and again "
Therefore, I do not accuse you either. Go and *sin* no more?"
