How can Christian Righters be against gay marriage but not divorce?

Great Debates
61

First of all, I was considering states with high numbers of evangelicals, not red states specifically. I’m unaware that opposition to divorce is part of the Republican platform, or has been an issue in any campaign in the 30 years I’ve been voting. Second, I specifically did not blame religion for the higher divorce rates. I suspect economic factors have more to do with it myself.

Here is a link giving data on the higher divorce rates .

And

I don’t know what cohabitation rates are per state or faith, or what “divorce” rates are there, and one could even make the argument that discovering incompatibility before being married is advantageous. We can only measure the rate for those confident enough in their relationship to get married.

None of which has anything to do with my main point, which is that focus on gay marriage over divorce is misplaced for any group claiming to care about marriage.

62

I just popped in because of the totally stupid shellfish/pork=mixed-fabrics=gay-sex thing.

The Kosher food laws was one group of laws in Leviticus. They never applied to Gentile God-fearers, and in Acts 9-10 are specifically negated for Christians, and even marginalized for Jewish Christians if it got in the way of them reaching out to Gentiles. Kosher diet & the mixed-fabric prohibition (btw, some priestly garments were commanded to be mixed fabric) were to denote the distinction of Israel from the Gentiles. That is not a concern for Christians.

The prohibition of male-male sex was in the section of Levitical laws that dealt with covenental faithfulness & sexuality: child-sacrifice, sorcery, adultery, bestiality, incest and m-m sex were all banned in this. Of course, I could call up threads here where some Dopers support 9-month abortion & have a so-what attitude towards bestiality & adult consensual incest.

Also, Christ in speaking of marriage DOES say it is between a man & a woman.
Among the Jews, as Sampiro rightly noted, there was no controversy about gay sex. Paul, when speaking to the Gentiles- for whom homosexuality was an issue,
did reinterate the ban against it, not because it was a violation of the Israel-Gentile distinction, but because it was a violation of the Genesis-order of marriage.

Why don’t the vast majority of Christians support the death penalty for adultery & other sexual sins? Well, for child molestation & rape & bestiality, I’m not against the death penalty. However, re adultery & homosexuality, I think Christ set the example in forgiving the woman caught in adultery AND cautioning her to don’t do it again (of course, there were lots of illegal irregularities in that situation). I don’t think Christ totally abolished the death penalty here.

What should wrongly-divorced/remarried Christians do if they are truly repentant? It depends. If they actually left the first spouse TO marry the second spouse, and the abandoned mate has not remarried, and there are no children in the second marriage, then perhaps divorcing the second spouse & returning to the first one is the answer. It’s interesting that Christ doesn’t say what should be done- just that wrongly-divorced/remarried folks are in an adulterous situation. Maybe the best they can do in repentance is make sure the alimony/child-support is paid up & strive to do better in the second marriage.

OK, final summation- I think Christ in the passages Sampiro cited is actually condemning people divorcing in order to marry someone else. I don’t think He’s even talking about someone who has been divorced for years & then finds someone to marry much later. He’s talking to those (mainly men) who think they are getting around the adultery ban & dumping one spouse to take another.

There is another interesting bit of Bible scholarship that suggests He is condemning people who just dump the first spouse & take another mate, without even bothering to get a legal divorce.

Conclusion: Biblical grounds for divorce: divorce, abuse & abandonment (which includes creating an intolerable living situation). Jesus never intended to say that an innocent person is forever bound to a covenant-breaker/abuser. He sure was not looking to make the Torah Law harsher on people. Anyone with Biblical grounds to divorce is free to remarry. Any other who divorce & remarry should repent, in whatever way possible. Sometimes the eggs are just too scrambled to just restore the first marriage. In that case, you do the best you can in your legal obligations to the first spouse & resolve to do better with your present spouse. Christ gave authority to the Apostles & by extension the Church “to bind & to loose” and this is one of those situations. Christ did not give authority to the Church to totally change the rules as the mainline Protestant churches are now debating.

Good book on Divorce/Remarriage from a Christian Reconstructionist who is also a Bishop in the Reformed Episcopal Church: Ray Sutton’s SECOND CHANCE

http://freebooks.commentary.net/freebooks/docs/a_pdfs/rssc.pdf

http://freebooks.commentary.net/freebooks/docs/html/rssc/rssc.html

63

Btw, my church (Assemblies of God) is very strict on divorce/remarriage as far as pastors. It used to disallow anyone who is divorced & remarried from being a pastor but in 2001 amended that to allow those who were D/R before conversion.
I still think there needs to be an exception for those innocent parties whose partners have either gave them grounds for divorce or initiated the divorce themselves. I do know my pastors have addressed the issues openly & are very careful about officiating marriages of congregants who have been divorced.

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65

Well, you’re free to expect that, but it’s not what Christianity teaches. The Bible clearly states that divorced people are not necessarily forbidden from remarrying. You can demand that they remain celibate if you wish, but that’s your own teaching. It’s not what the Bible teaches, nor does remarriage necessarily contradict anything that’s in the Scriptures.

Besides which, even if your objection were valid, it still would not prove that Christians who are divorced are the terrible, horrible hypocrites that people here paint them as. As I emphasized, some of them were divorced through no fault of their own. Others willfully divorced at some point in their life, and then repented. They can attempt reconciliation, but if the other spouse is unwilling to reconcile, then that’s ultimately not their fault. (Apparently though, that doesn’t stop some peopel from heaping scorn on these folks despite their change of heart.)

66

Your cite is the opinion of one cleric about what the bible teaches. That does not make it the only interpretation, nor the right one. For example, I am sure I could find religious figure who could use the bible to justify gay relationships the same way. I interpret the bible differently than you do; that does not make me wrong.

67

Speaking only for myself, I do not claim that Christians who divorce are “terrible, horrible hypocrites”. I do claim that Christians who divorce and remarry (or have no real problems with those who do) YET would work to prevent or speak out against same sex marriages being legal in the name of religion (that’s “legal” in the eyes of the state mind, no church is required to allow these unions= a church can require you to marry only women at least 5 inches shorter than you and chosen by your maternal grandfather if it so wishes and the government cannot say otherwise) are either hypocrites or ignorant and are at very least inconsistent, and I stand on that statement.

Friar Ted: That’s the best explanation of the dietary/“ceremonial” distinction I’ve read; thanks.

68

Probably because about the time that the issue was brought up it and several other events led to some of the most violent upheavals in European history. Those on the side against divorce lost that battle from a legal standpoint and we’ve had legal divorce in our culture ever since.

69

Generally the argument as I have heard it presented is that divorce eroded the value of marriage. They see marriage as the foundation of civilization. So gay marriage is just further down the slippery slope.

70

Well, y’know what they say… only Reagan could go to Reno.

The point of doing so would escape me.

71

And I understand why you’d feel that way. As I pointed out though, the Bible does not absolutely prohibit remarrying after divorce. There is therefore no inherent inconsistency between opposing gay marriage AND post-divorce remarriage. To condemn these people as “hypocrites” is therefore unwarranted.

72

The cite also went into considerable detail about why that particular cleric holds that interpretation. Based on my experience, this stance is pretty much universal among evangelical churches.

Now, you might choose to disagree with that particular interpretation, and that’s your prerogative. You would have to substantiate that particular interpretation as well as demonstrate why the interpretation that I cited is in error. Personally, I think that the language used is pretty darned clear.

More importantly though, even if your interpretation were accurate, this still does not mean that the Christians in question are being hypocritical. At best, it would only mean that their interpretation is erroneous. It does not make them hypocrites unless they are acting in violation of their own convictions – correct or otherwise.

73

From your own link, which is not a scholarly treatment but the opinion of a single cleric,

implying that to that man it is at best a gray area. The only thing gray about the words of Jesus, who would seem the ultimate authority on how Christians should live trumping all who came before and after, is whether someone who divorces a spouse who was adulterous can remarry. (Someone who can read Greek may be able to clarify that issue; he definitely says it’s permissible to divorce for your mate’s adultery, but I can’t tell if remarriage when the spouse was divorced for adultery.
For all others (those who divorce for incompatibility, those divorced because they themselves were adulterous, those who divorce because they’ve fallen out of love with their spouse and in love with another person) the answer is pretty clear: in Jesus’s own words , DON’T DO IT: IT IS NOT A LEGITIMATE MARRIAGE, IT IS ADULTERY*.

If you are a Christian who has divorced and remarried for any reason other than their spouse’s adultery (and even then it’s not clear on the remarriage part), or you are a Christian who has no seeming problem with marrying a divorced person whose ex spouse is still alive, and yet you call for gays to be denied the right to be married (by secular authority) based on a belief in the “sanctity” of marriage, then you are subjecting others to follow the teachings of a religion (not of its founder, who said nothing about the subject) when you yourself willfully disobey not just the teachings of the same religion but teachings specifically spoken by the FOUNDER AND NAMESAKE OF THAT RELIGION himself. That IS hypocrisy. In my opinion it is unarguably hypocritical. Even some of the Dopers who are devout Christians agree with that point.

*Pardon the emphases, but it’s extremely important: these are the words of Jesus himself quoted in three different Gospels; for perspective only two record the Beatitudes and the raising from the dead of Jairus’s daughter, while the wedding at Cana, the Magi, the raising of Lazarus from the dead and the trial before Herod appear in only one Gospel; this evidently made an impression on the early Christians.

I wonder if you get to eat the meat in the bestiality executions (since the animal is ordered to diealso).

74

I don’t have the verse in front of me, but I’m pretty certain the answer is No.

And for even asking the question… EWWWWW!

75

Wow, Friar Ted, you have posted some whoppers in your time but this beats all. I thought I had seen every kind of twist and turn imaginable, but I’ve never seen something like this. You really can make the bible say anything you want, can’t you? Your mental gymnastics would make Bela proud, although the depth of the delusion displayed here is kind of sad.

So let’s discuss this. Your stance is that Jesus never comes right out and says “don’t get remarried,” he just says if you do get remarried, you’re breaking one of the ten commandments. And your position is that since Jesus didn’t specifically say “don’t do it,” that means that you can do it. But you are clearly commanded not to commit adultery- it’s right there in the ten commandments! How many times does god have to say it?

Ok, let’s use your own logic to unravel Paul’s feelings on homosexuality. Did Paul ever come right out and say “Don’t have teh buttsexxx”? Or did he just say that people that did it would not inherit the kingdom of heaven? Because you just told me that when Jesus said that doing something violated the ten commandments, he didn’t really mean you couldn’t do it because he didn’t come right out and say “don’t do it,” so using your logic homosexuality is OK because Paul didn’t come right out and say “don’t do it,” just that it was wrong.

Why does Jesus need you to tell me what he “intended” to say? Why can’t he speak for himself? What about all the people who don’t visit this website, and don’t get the privilege of your divine interpretation, which, by the way, concludes the exact opposite of what Jesus said? If Jesus meant to say what you say he meant, why didn’t he just say that? Let’s look at what Jesus said: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery.” Period. That’s what he said. Apparently, Jesus thought that was enough. Jesus felt that that statement was sufficient to convey the message he was trying to get across, but apparently, you don’t think he did a good enough job, so you’re telling me what he really meant. “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery” is not ambiguous, Friar Ted. Why do you think your perfect god’s perfect book needs explaining? Do you think God is too weak or to stupid to write down what he actually means?

Don’t forget having sex with your wife when she’s on her period. That’s banned too, but in 18 years of attending church 3x a week, I never heard a sermon on it. How about you, Friar Ted, do you support the exile of a person who has sex with their wife when she is on her period? Why not? You have just stated that these laws still apply today. And if the laws still apply today, the punishment for those laws must also still apply today, or you might be open to the accusation that you are cherry picking the parts of the bible you like.

Oh yeah, and changing your grandchildrens’ diapers, is that allowed, Friar Ted? The bible prohibits it, right there in the same chapter where it condemns homosexuality, so I assume it still applies today, right?

76

You cannot claim to be more Christian and be more against gay people being alive than Shirley Phelps-Roper, yet the bitch has an illegitmate son. Go figure.

It’s the same with “pro-life” people who have abortions. It’s only okay if I do it.

77

I daresay that the vast majority of Christians would object to the claim that Shirley Phelps-Roper is the epitome of Christianity. She may be extremely outspoken, but that does not make her the most Christian person in the world. This seems to be a case of taking an extremely vocal self-described believer – one whose views do not reflect those of most Christians – and then arbitrarily labelling her as the model for all of Christianity.

But for the sake of argument, let us grant that she is indeed the most Christian person in all the world’s history. Does having an illegitimate son automatically make her some sort of hypocrite? That does not logically follow; after all, her son was born a long time ago, and people change. Saul of Tarsus himself was known as a persecutor of the faith, and yet he changed his ways and was ultimately accepted as a leader within the church.

Again, I am NOT defending the notion that Shirley Phelps-Roper is some wonderful example of Christianity in action. Rather, the point is that the sins of the past do not automatically make someone a hypocrite. That’s what repentance is all about.

78

I can’t believe I had to google “Shirley Phelps-Roper”. The middle name should have clued me in.

79

You’re going to have to provide a cite for that, friend. I have yet to find any Biblical translation that presents those as “Jesus’s own words,” as you claim. Now it’s pretty obvious that this is your interpretation of what he said, but if that’s the case, then you shouldn’t emphatically insist that they are “Jesus’s own words.”

Besides, I’ve already shown why this prohibition is not universal or absolute. If your only answer is “Well, that’s what one cleric says,” then you’re simply side-stepping the issue. Moreover, as I’ve already reminded you, this is NOT just the intepretation of one cleric alone. I have yet to encounter a single evangelical church that teaches otherwise.

Finally – and again, this is something that I’ve pointed out repeatedly – even if your interpretation were correct, it would only mean that Christians are mistaken in allowing remarriage. It does not make them hypocrites. Hypocrisy is when you violate your own principles. You may be mistaken in your beliefs, but that doesn’t make you a hypocrite.

Of course, it’s much easier to simply ignore this distinction so that we can continue throwing the “hypocrisy” accusation around. After all, why let such piddling details get in the way of a convenient soundbite?

80

Sorry, Sampiro. I replied too hastily to your post, and failed to see that you did at least acknowledge the “For all others…” distinction that I raised.

Again, you are making WAY too much of the fact that I only cited “a single cleric” in my previous posting; after all, I have yet to encounter a single evangelical church or prominent evangelical teacher who disagrees with that evaluation. While this does not mean that there is no debate on this matter, it does mean that it’s foolish to paint this as the judgment of a single isolated preacher.