Since the 1960’s, American Culture has been struggling with the notion of “free love” that has been translated into “free sex” by today’s Americans. Simply put, this notion suggests that sex is merely an act between two people that has no future consequences or ramifications.
The notion is wrong on several points. Even our personal experiences tell us that sex is much more than a singular act. Sex binds us emotionally to our partner in ways more complex than the simple physical binding that occurs during the sexual act. As Pope John Paul II used to point out, sex is a promise of love in physical acts, rather than words. Sex is a complete giving of yourself to the other person, which is why it is sinful when it occurs outside of marriage (only in marriage have the partners given the promise of permanent love that makes sex the complete act of that love).
In today’s world we have magazines elevating serial seducers to the level of a god. Men who sleep with a different woman each night are not viewed as if they have a psychological problem that makes them view women as sexual objects; rather they are viewed as the true measure of a man. This is far from the reality and these articles ignore the intense loneliness of these men (and women, of course) and the selfishness necessary to debase not only the other, but also yourself, in this way.
In some ways, protestant churches have accepted the notion of “free love.” They have accepted contraception as if the will of God was determined by the majority of His self-professed followers. Some have okayed abortion – both contraception and abortion are requirements of a culture that preaches “free love,” since they are necessary to get away from the realities of the sexual act (it is so powerful that it can produce the fruit of love – a child shared by two people). Many of these churches have accepted remarriage after divorce as if it were a natural dogma of life. It is only the Catholic church that sticks with the traditions of the last 2,000 years and says “No” to divorce, contraception, abortion, and free love.
In order to remove the cancer of “free love” as a personal creed from our society, we need to get back to preaching about marriage. In other words, we must show individuals that there is another option out there: marriage to a spouse you love that can never be broken up by anyone. A marriage so strong that you give everything to your spouse, which means no more contraception. A marriage that is based on the Truth that God put into our very souls.
To preach that we must live it first. So love your wife, love you kids, stop using contraception, and then tell others how they can have what you have - through Christ.
God bless,
Jay
You have it sooo right! Marriage promotion is the key to killing the free-love movement in the U.S.
Jay,
At our church, we believe that there are grounds for divorce in the Bible. However, we know that it is God's desire that marriage be forever. Nonetheless, humans have a sinful nature and the Lord knew this which is why God spoke on this issue and gave guidelines.
Jay, when a couple divorces, their marriage is ended. Now if a Roman Catholic couple get married then have an anullment, their marriage has ended. You can give the run around about how you feel that anullment is overused and what not, but it is practiced and allowed by the Roman Catholic church. I have heard of marriages "anulled" after 10 years!! Whether you want to believe it or not, anulled marriages, ends the marriage. The same couple who took vows before God in the Roman Catholic church can get their marriage anulled by the same church. Whether it is 2 hours or 2 years after, the marriage is terminated. It is still a divorce, even though it is not called a divorce.
Their is an issue of morality in this world Jay. I agree. There are issues of morality within Protestant world and the Roman Catholic world. This world is turning more and more dark. However, I am not worried. I know that GOd is at work. God's word is what will turn the world around. The world learning about who Christ is and about His teachings is how things will change for God's Glory. Free love in this country is not the problem, but merely a manifestation of a deeper issue. Lack of the knowledge of who is truly God, is the real problem. When this world learns of Jesus Christ and place Him # 1, everything else, will fall in place.
God Bless
SandT,
An anullment is a recognition that a marriage was never valid. Matrimonial consent, for example, is the essential element of any marriage. If a woman marries under the threat of violence the marriage could be judged invalid ("If consent is lacking there is no marriage" CCC1626).
I've always thought Jesus' teaching on divorce to be pretty unequivocal (Mt5:31-32;19:3-9;Mk10:9;Lk16:18), I'd like to hear your view on these passages.
Well-Spoken. Christopher West would approve. We have much work to do if we are to faithfully witness this vital expression of the Gospel to our culture. People desperately need to believe this.
fidens,
I have seen marriages after 10 years anulled. And there was no threat of violence present. 2 of the marriages that I have seen anulled by the Roman Catholic church were instigated by adultery. It is still a divorce no matter how you look at it.
God Bless
SandT,
I have heard similar stories and believe that in some cases annullments may have been granted where it is not appropriate. That is not the issue.
The issue is whether there is a material difference between saying that a marriage was never valid (which can be the case, to take your example, if when entering the covenant, one party does not INTEND to remain faithful) and saying that a couple 'fell out of love', drifted apart, etc.
How an individual is disposed when he or she makes a matrimonial commitment is different from how they act once married or how the relationship progresses.
I'd still like to hear your view on those passages.
Fidens,
"I have heard similar stories and believe that in some cases annullments may have been granted where it is not appropriate."
You may feel it is not appropiate, but the local RC church that allowed felt it was OK. The point is, Jay was going on and on how the RC is the only church that does not allow divorce. My point is that the instances of anullments we mentioned are the same as divorce.
God Bless
Actually, SandT, Jay's only claim is that the dogmatic position of the Church is that divorce is impermissible. Whether some Church officials have granted annulments in cases where they were unwarranted is a separate issue entirely. In other words, the dogma of the Church states that abortion is mortal sin. Just because a priest tells some young girl in the confessional that abortion is "no big deal" does not change the infallible teaching of the Church. It just means there are priests who are taking their souls into their own hands--something that definitely happens.
In Christ,
Dave
One nitpick point about the dissolution of marriage. The Roman Catholic Church does teach of precisely one condition under which a valid marriage can be dissolved: namely, an unconsummated marriage. This differs from an anullment where priests try to determine if the marriage was valid to begin with.
Another nitpick point about divorce being "impermissible". A better word would be impossible. Namely, dissolution of a consummated, valid marriage simply can not happen while both husband and wife live even if people were to attempt such a thing.
The teaching is more along the lines of "dont try because it is impossible and you might fool people into thinking you succeded" (e.g. attempting to ordain women, attempting a homosexual marriage, celebrating the mass with apple juice instead of wine, attempting to baptise an adult who was already baptised as an infant) rather than "dont do it because suceeding would be bad" (e.g. abortion, contraception, selling consecrated hosts on e-bay, starving Terry Schiavo to death).
Great points, all...
SandT,
At the risk of nagging, I'm still keen to hear your interpretation of the passages mentioned above. Please.
Fidens,
Here is what my church teaches about divorce.
On the verses you mention, Jesus does give an exception for grounds of divorce. That being marital unfaithfulness or fornication, depending on which version of the Bible you read. P*rneia is the word that is found in the Greek text of Mark and Luke. With that being said, my church teaches that we should learn to be forgiving as the Lord is to us. So if my wife were to have an affair and she asked for my forgiveness, then I am to forgive her. We are to pray together and do whatever it takes to make our marriage work. God does hate divorce. But the hearts of men has become hard. You may have those who cheat, remain unrepentant to their spouse and the Lord. They may continue to have affairs while the faithful spouse remains faithful. You also have an issue of an unforgiving spouse. In both cases, marital unfaithfulness or fornication is the cause and grounds for the divorce and is the exception for divorce. However it was never meant to be this way. God created man not knowing sin. But once Adam read that book, sin crept into humanity. Among these sins is adultery. Nonetheless, Jesus excepts marital unfaithfulness or fornication as grounds for divorce.
To make a marriage truly work, it is up to the couple that becomes one. The 2 of them must look to the Lord for first. They should be a prayerful couple, a God fearing couple. Their foundation for their relationship should be Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately, a lot of couples within the church do not take this approach. At our church, our pastors will not marry you until you have had counseling. The final conclusion of our belief is the following.
1. Marriage is sacred, and God hates divorce.
2. Christ gives the exception of fornication and/or marital unfaithfulness for grounds for divorce.
3. Despite the above reason, we believe that Christ would much rather have the adulterer seek forgiveness from their spouse, and that the spouse forgive completely as our Father in Heaven forgives us.
God Bless
SandT,
Thanks for your response - the reason I asked is that I have read a few interesting articles on the web about the translation of Christ's teachings on divorce, which I will attempt to summarise below. Please note that I have, somewhat guiltily, cut and paste a fair bit of the information below in the interest of saving time.
As you noted " p@rneia " in usually translated as "adultery," "unfaithfulness," "unchasteness," and even "fornication." Some note, however, that translating " p@rneia " in some of these passages as "fornication" makes no sense, if married people are being referred to. Usually " p@rneia " does mean "fornication." But that translation contradicts the context of the passages from Matthew because Jesus was speaking of divorce, the formal ending of a marital relationship. Likewise, "adultery" is an inaccurate translation because Greek has a different word (moichatai) which means "adultery," and that word appears in these same passages. The other mistranslations are English synonyms for "adultery" and are tendentiously used to translate " p@rneia " only in these passages.
Some commentators have argued, on the basis of 1 Corinthians 5:1, that " p@rneia " can mean an attempted marriage within forbidden degrees of kinship, i.e., incest. But we must also read Matthew 19.9 in its immediate context: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” refers to Deuteronomy 24.1, where it says: “If a man marries a woman and goes in to her and she is displeasing to him because he (then) finds in her an indecent thing and he then writes her a certificate of divorce” etc... Which raises the question of how “an indecent thing” should or could be interpreted. Could it mean anything the husband didn’t like, or was a serious offence required?
The pharisees’ question was which view Jesus would assent to. To everyone’s, also the disciples’ great surprise, Jesus upheld neither one of them, but maintained a far stricter interpretation. To understand what this interpretation was, and where Jesus found evidence of it in Scripture, i.e. the Old Testament, we must read Deuteronomy 24.1-4 in context with the “parash” (partition) to which it belongs: 21.10-25.19, where a primary theme is marriage with complications.
Deuteronomy 24.1-4 is about what a man may do when he has married a virgin, and paid or pledged to pay 200 dirham, which was the price if the bride was a virgin. If on the wedding night it turned out that she wasn’t a virgin after all, and he therefore divorced her, he should know that he could never get her back if she later married another, neither as a widow or again divorced. The same issue is treated from another perspective in 22.13-21, which includes bringing the issue to trial. In Old Testament times the trial could result in the death penalty for the woman. (We find a parallel to 24.1 in Matthew 1.19, where Joseph, being a righteous man, was going to divorce Mary quietly when he discovered that she was with child.)
That this really was a current issue among the Jews in Jesus’ time, we see in Mishnah (the Jewish authoritative interpretation of the law) where the subject is treated in several places. Here it is determined that a wedding with a virgin shall be held on a Wednesday. Why? Because the local tribunal was in session on Thursday, and there the groom could bring his complaint if it turned out that the bride wasn’t a virgin (the Ketuboth tract 1.1).
The Mishnah also says that if the girl wasn’t a virgin at the time of betrothal - when the marriage contract was written, in which it was stated that she was a virgin - then both the betrothal and the marriage could be annulled with no certificate of divorce and without any payment of the bridal price. (Ketuboth 7.7-8 and 1.6). The reasoning was that if the betrothal and the marriage was based on deceit or fraud by the girl’s family, then they were not legally binding and could be annulled.
On this background it is overwhelmingly probable that Jesus with “p@rneia” meant exactly that which in Deuteronomy is an unambiguous judicial expression for the bride not being a virgin - and that the shocked disciples immediately understood that this was what he meant. And there would have been no reason for the disciples to react as they did.
I wrote the following in response to a letter to the editor by a woman who was unable to see any of the disastrous consequences of artificial contraception. Perhaps she does not remember, as I do, before the birth control pill, when it was very rare for a girl in high school to get pregnant. Nowadays it is not unusual for school personnel to take a pregnant student to the local abortion clinic without parental permission. Nevermind that the teenager could profit by the love and advice of her parents. Nevermind that the parents will have to pay for the medical aftermath of a botched abortion. Nevermind that abortions have psychological consequences such as depression and suicide and the parent doesn't have a clue. Nevermind that a grandchild is killed. Some states are passing parental notification laws to prevent such takeover of parents' rights.
To get back to the birth control pill, rather than preventing pregnancy, the pill actually gives permission to teenagers to play around with sex, thinking they will not get pregnant, thinking they do not need a committed relationship first. And what happens? Most abortions are the result of failed contraception, not unavailable contraception. Whereas fear of pregnancy used to prevent girls from "going all the way," they now think they have a right to sex without consequences. Not only do they get pregnant but they also acquire one or more STDs, some causing death, others sterility. Boyfriends think they, too, have a right to sex without responsibility, and we get exactly what the letter-writer hated: "babies shaken and bashed about by mothers' live-in boyfriends."
Remember when girls waited until they were married to have a baby? Then they did not have to fear pregnancy. Then the father was around to do the Daddy thing and support Mom and baby. Then we didn't have all these unwed mothers without income, supported by the state, who think their only option is to do the very unnatural thing of killing their own child! It is not normal for a mother to want to destroy the child in her womb. She can grieve a lifetime for her lost baby.
Yes, I think that contraceptives have had evil consequences. They give permission to fornicate with abortion as the back-up plan. Self-control, reason and responsibility are out the window! Abortions have increased, not decreased. Sexually transmitted diseases are soaring. Kids think that sex is a plaything and if a baby gets in the way, well, just get rid of it! No wonder children are no longer valued. No wonder men think of women as objects to be used and discarded.
As I see it, birth control pills (or patches) change healthy, self-respecting women, deserving of real men, into hormonally-deranged toys for boys. Not only will they decrease her resistance to infection and other diseases, but they decrease her libido and mess up her psyche.
Buy stock in pharmaceutical companies. There's big money in degrading women.