(M, C)br...
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(M, C)
"Because you suffered a tragedy, you must be punished for the rest of your life! Because your marriage has ended in heartbreak, you must resign yourself to living the rest of your human days without companionship and intimacy." Does that sound hard-hearted? It is! But that is exactly what some rigorously dogmatic churches and clergy tell the divorced. I have had many utterly discouraged divorced people come to me asking if I would remarry them. Their own pastor has told them they cannot remarry without losing the sacraments and other privileges of the church. They feel rejected and like second class citizens.
Frankly, I think this uncompromising refusal to remarry any divorced persons, no matter what, is a complete misunderstanding of our text. Obviously, marriage is intended to be a new being or unity. The Scriptures again and again declare that the ideal is one man and one woman together for life. But, Jesus and Moses also acknowledged the reality of human frailty and imperfectness. Our Lord said permission for divorce was a recognition of human "hardness of
heart." Matthew's version of the same saying seems to tacitly allow for remarriage under certain conditions. Beyond all this is the constant theme echoed throughout the Bible in Hosea, Psalm 51, and elsewhere -- and brought to a magnificent crescendo in the Gospel; the theme of forgiveness, second chances, new beginnings -! To condemn the divorced as sinners and refuse them a second chance for marriage is to totally ignore this theme. It is the worst kind of hard-heartedness. It is the most blasphemous kind of rejection of the gospel of forgiveness and new creation!
-- Campbell
"Because you suffered a tragedy, you must be punished for the rest of your life! Because your marriage has ended in heartbreak, you must resign yourself to living the rest of your human days without companionship and intimacy." Does that sound hard-hearted? It is! But that is exactly what some rigorously dogmatic churches and clergy tell the divorced. I have had many utterly discouraged divorced people come to me asking if I would remarry them. Their own pastor has told them they cannot remarry without losing the sacraments and other privileges of the church. They feel rejected and like second class citizens.
Frankly, I think this uncompromising refusal to remarry any divorced persons, no matter what, is a complete misunderstanding of our text. Obviously, marriage is intended to be a new being or unity. The Scriptures again and again declare that the ideal is one man and one woman together for life. But, Jesus and Moses also acknowledged the reality of human frailty and imperfectness. Our Lord said permission for divorce was a recognition of human "hardness of
heart." Matthew's version of the same saying seems to tacitly allow for remarriage under certain conditions. Beyond all this is the constant theme echoed throughout the Bible in Hosea, Psalm 51, and elsewhere -- and brought to a magnificent crescendo in the Gospel; the theme of forgiveness, second chances, new beginnings -! To condemn the divorced as sinners and refuse them a second chance for marriage is to totally ignore this theme. It is the worst kind of hard-heartedness. It is the most blasphemous kind of rejection of the gospel of forgiveness and new creation!
-- Campbell
