Divorce is wrong

Landos

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I had divorce papers served on me, not the other way around. Whether it's right or wrong according to the Bible isn't part of the discussion when you are served. My wife 'wasn't happy' and 'felt it was best' and that was that. Sometimes you have no say in the matter.
 
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rusmeister

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even if there is only a handful of faithful people, the Church is still in its fullness.
I’m trying to hold onto that. Like I’ve said a hundred times, it’s thanks to Lewis and Chesterton that I haven’t just walked out.

It’s not that people sin. Heck, I am the worst hypocrite. It’s that people make the sin OK and perfectly acceptable that repels even staunch believers. We ought to fear the approval and normalization of sin. We ought to continue to hold that it is actually wrong. But we don’t, and that is when our belief becomes vain, we refuse to take up our cross, and try to serve both God and live as the world does. We miss the mark and make it OK to do so.
 
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rusmeister

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Believers are not to divorce one another. Believers would not divorce one another. Sometimes one or the other, or both, aren't really believing, and in such cases marriages are ended, because of their sins.
I do agree, only here I think we need to be much clearer that “not believing” means committing adultery, and being OK with that.
If your spouse leaves you against your will, and you have not sinned in that, then you are a victim, not to blame. I’m only saying that we have forbidden the admission that there generally is blame. And again, I’m talking about two ostensibly repentant Orthodox Christians, not unbelievers, not other cases. A lot of people didn’t read my OP very carefully. I have updated it to try to limit the “GT syndrome” of dozens of people throwing in opinions irrelevant to Orthodoxy or the particular situation I am speaking about. And nowhere am I speaking to any specific case, because there may be a fact which makes a given case irrelevant to what I am talking about.
 
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rusmeister

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I had divorce papers served on me, not the other way around. Whether it's right or wrong according to the Bible isn't part of the discussion when you are served. My wife 'wasn't happy' and 'felt it was best' and that was that. Sometimes you have no say in the matter.
Agreed, and that case doesn’t fall under what I am talking about. There are bona fide victims in divorce, my sister being one, my mother another. But we tend to jump on the chance to be victims, that drive to ignore our own sins and blame everything on another is the opposite of what we are generally supposed to be doing, and I am talking about two Orthodox Christians who both say they want to continue to try to lead the life we are called to.

Divorce was the first attack on the sanctity of the family. It made all if the other attacks possible. If we admit divorce because people are merely unhappy with each other, then we can’t talk about the sanctity of marriage, period, as we do not hold it as holy. Admitting it in general, outside of the words of Christ, is an attack on MY marriage. It means MY marriage may be dissolved on exactly the same principle, and I myself am a forgiven sinner. I do not judge anyone’s status before God.

I say that the Church has become SO lax on the issue that we need to tighten up our attitude hard, and stop seeing marriage as the world sees it. Exceptions remain exceptions. The 2% is real. But 98% of us are not exceptions on any given form of brokenness, just wannabes. We all want exceptions, the “get out of jail free” card. And we are not supposed to want that.
 
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Agreed, and that case doesn’t fall under what I am talking about. There are bona fide victims in divorce, my sister being one, my mother another. But we tend to jump on the chance to be victims, that drive to ignore our own sins and blame everything on another is the opposite of what we are generally supposed to be doing, and I am talking about two Orthodox Christians who both say they want to continue to try to lead the life we are called to.

Divorce was the first attack on the sanctity of the family. It made all if the other attacks possible. If we admit divorce because people are merely unhappy with each other, then we can’t talk about the sanctity of marriage, period, as we do not hold it as holy. Admitting it in general, outside of the words of Christ, is an attack on MY marriage. It means MY marriage may be dissolved on exactly the same principle, and I myself am a forgiven sinner. I do not judge anyone’s status before God.

I say that the Church has become SO lax on the issue that we need to tighten up our attitude hard, and stop seeing marriage as the world sees it. Exceptions remain exceptions. The 2% is real. But 98% of us are not exceptions on any given form of brokenness, just wannabes. We all want exceptions, the “get out of jail free” card. And we are not supposed to want that.
That's true, no one is saying that it is ok for a spouse to hit the other, but that unfortunately people divorce because of "losing love" or other stuff.

I don't think the West-Kardashian divorce is ok.
 
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rusmeister

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That's true, no one is saying that it is ok for a spouse to hit the other, but that unfortunately people divorce because of "losing love" or other stuff.

I don't think the West-Kardashian divorce is ok.

That is just another aspect of the issue. What is the Christian response to abuse? The champions of divorce never consider the idea of simply removing oneself from the spouse gone mad (which may not be simple, but may be necessary). The idea that one could see oneself sacramentally married even if an axe-murderer must be locked up never occurs to them. They immediately shout “Divorce!” Without asking what the consensus of the fathers is, or whether there is any reasonable alternative to divorce. The examples of people whose marriages ended going into monasteries are forgotten. The idea that we could continue to live as a faithful spouse even if our spouse doesn’t doesn’t occur to us, or we immediately dismiss it if it does. The ideal, which is what we are called to, not just a “nice idea” is to be married one time, for life, whatever exceptions the Church ever allowed notwithstanding. At any rate, we have no teaching to the best of my knowledge that acknowledges divorce except for unrepentant adultery (and THAT as a hardness of our hearts, NOT what Christ would do).

It’s much like abortion. People look for the extreme/improbable cases, and then use them to justify “irreconcilable differences”, and the much more common sense of unhappiness because the spouses are refusing to love. The situations ARE hard. They ARE unpleasant. I have my own, and so sympathize. I have sinned and been forgiven, and so I sympathize. But the teachings of the Church are really clear, and that we have begun to hold them in disdain as “unattainable”, “sour grapes” (much like how we feel about our own imperative to be holy) and therefore we need not strive to fulfill them.
 
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I do agree, only here I think we need to be much clearer that “not believing” means committing adultery, and being OK with that.
If your spouse leaves you against your will, and you have not sinned in that, then you are a victim, not to blame. I’m only saying that we have forbidden the admission that there generally is blame. And again, I’m talking about two ostensibly repentant Orthodox Christians, not unbelievers, not other cases. A lot of people didn’t read my OP very carefully. I have updated it to try to limit the “GT syndrome” of dozens of people throwing in opinions irrelevant to Orthodoxy or the particular situation I am speaking about. And nowhere am I speaking to any specific case, because there may be a fact which makes a given case irrelevant to what I am talking about.
Okay, I’m just going to ask a few questions for clarity (I’m sorry, I’m not trying to argue I promise!). I know you stated that if your spouse leaves you against your will, you’re the victim. I agree. These questions are more about the prospect of remarriage.
1) in regards to both individuals being orthodox, divorce is wrong except in cases of adultery? As in only one person committed adultery and the other was a victim? Would that also mean if the divorce initiating spouse entered another relationship. So would that mean the innocent spouse is now free to remarry? Regarding Matt 5:31-32
2) what of unequally yoked orthodox couples (one orthodox, one nonbeliever)? Then would it be just 1 Cor 7 or both 1 Cor 7 and Matt 5:31-32? Especially if the unbelieving spouse abandons the orthodox spouse for another relationship? Would the innocent spouse be free to remarry?
 
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I do agree, only here I think we need to be much clearer that “not believing” means committing adultery, and being OK with that.
If your spouse leaves you against your will, and you have not sinned in that, then you are a victim, not to blame. I’m only saying that we have forbidden the admission that there generally is blame. And again, I’m talking about two ostensibly repentant Orthodox Christians, not unbelievers, not other cases. A lot of people didn’t read my OP very carefully. I have updated it to try to limit the “GT syndrome” of dozens of people throwing in opinions irrelevant to Orthodoxy or the particular situation I am speaking about. And nowhere am I speaking to any specific case, because there may be a fact which makes a given case irrelevant to what I am talking about.
I don't think that I've ever known a married Orthodox couple wherein both were "ostensibly repentant" and yet seeking divorce. If I have I'm not aware of it. It seems a very unlikely situation. I've known many, on the other hand, who had turned back from following Christ or else were never following Him to begin with, who were seeking divorce or got divorced. It's a grave evil regardless of the conditions that precede it. It's a horrible thing and it not only effects the couple, but their extended families and their friends. It's the death of a beloved person in your lives. This is basically what it amounts to. Blessed are we if we are able to know how greatly we ought to be mourning over this. But we can rejoice in spite of this sorrow, because the Lord has overcome the evil world, and we are saved if we believe, with repentance.

I too, my brother, am deeply grieved over things pertaining to marriage and adultery. I guess I should keep my eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ, and let all the evil things be for me a cause for deep repentance, and not a cause for stumbling.
 
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ArmyMatt

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I’m trying to hold onto that. Like I’ve said a hundred times, it’s thanks to Lewis and Chesterton that I haven’t just walked out.

It’s not that people sin. Heck, I am the worst hypocrite. It’s that people make the sin OK and perfectly acceptable that repels even staunch believers. We ought to fear the approval and normalization of sin. We ought to continue to hold that it is actually wrong. But we don’t, and that is when our belief becomes vain, we refuse to take up our cross, and try to serve both God and live as the world does. We miss the mark and make it OK to do so.

yes, but this is nothing new. sin and heresy have a habit of domination save for a handful until the sin of heresy gets rejected.
 
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rusmeister

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Okay, I’m just going to ask a few questions for clarity (I’m sorry, I’m not trying to argue I promise!). I know you stated that if your spouse leaves you against your will, you’re the victim. I agree. These questions are more about the prospect of remarriage.
1) in regards to both individuals being orthodox, divorce is wrong except in cases of adultery? As in only one person committed adultery and the other was a victim? Would that also mean if the divorce initiating spouse entered another relationship. So would that mean the innocent spouse is now free to remarry? Regarding Matt 5:31-32
2) what of unequally yoked orthodox couples (one orthodox, one nonbeliever)? Then would it be just 1 Cor 7 or both 1 Cor 7 and Matt 5:31-32? Especially if the unbelieving spouse abandons the orthodox spouse for another relationship? Would the innocent spouse be free to remarry?

You can't talk about divorce without first understanding what marriage is. To be divorced is to be literally unmarried, and it would be like talking about haircutting for bald men, or glasses for blind people, if you don't first ask what the thing is that haircutting and glasses are for. You need to know what hair is and what eyesight is for. So it is with marriage.

Marriage in the Orthodox understanding is a sacramental bond for life. It is meant only to be done with one other person and no others. That already makes remarriage itself problematic, and the Church's dealing with it as it would with any brokenness. It is an icon of Christ and His Church. Christ will never divorce His Church. It cannot be broken in a repentant state. If one HAS broken it, they must repent; that is, be sorry that they did, NOT consider it "the best/right thing to do", but something that shouldn't have been done. That's what repentance means in terms of marriage and breaking our sacred vows and befouling the sacrament.

Remarriage shouldn't happen in the Church. It can and does happen, and some, even here, are remarried in the Church. Economia, meant to be mercy, increasingly gets misunderstood and taken as a pass to do it again (I do not say that anyone here consciously thinks that). Some even imagine that they can do it three times "legally", as if it were a legality, rather than a sacrament. A person is not supposed to be baptized twice in the Church; neither are they supposed to be married twice. A remarriage has to involve a repentant state toward the divorce of the first, which would have to be irrecoverable. And here I'm only talking about divorce. The death of a spouse is another issue, but we can see that the ideal is the same. People ought not to remarry, that is the ideal; if they do, it can only be under economia and repentance, and it must never be held to be a perfectly normal thing for us to do.

But the main thing that I find intolerable and anti-Orthodox is when two spouses both declare repentance and a determination to remain in the Church and follow Christ, yet not reconcile, but go ahead with a divorce. That's against the entire spirit of the Gospel, of having to forgive our enemies and learn to love all. I can't see such a divorce as legitimate, but a profanation of any economia ever allowed. If anyone can be divorced sheerly because of a sense of unhappiness, then we can all be divorced. Nobody's marriage is sacred, everybody is with someone until they tire of them - that is the world, and not the Gospel. It's an attack on all marriages, including mine. So yes, I take it personally, because it means that my wife can similarly divorce me on the same basis when she feels like she's tired of me, or vice-versa.
 
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rusmeister

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I don't think that I've ever known a married Orthodox couple wherein both were "ostensibly repentant" and yet seeking divorce. If I have I'm not aware of it. It seems a very unlikely situation. I've known many, on the other hand, who had turned back from following Christ or else were never following Him to begin with, who were seeking divorce or got divorced. It's a grave evil regardless of the conditions that precede it. It's a horrible thing and it not only effects the couple, but their extended families and their friends. It's the death of a beloved person in your lives. This is basically what it amounts to. Blessed are we if we are able to know how greatly we ought to be mourning over this. But we can rejoice in spite of this sorrow, because the Lord has overcome the evil world, and we are saved if we believe, with repentance.

I too, my brother, am deeply grieved over things pertaining to marriage and adultery. I guess I should keep my eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ, and let all the evil things be for me a cause for deep repentance, and not a cause for stumbling.

I see it in front of my eyes. Multiple cases just in my parish. But I think something OUGHT to be said, and not because it's "my pet peeve", but because this issue enables all of the other attacks. Make marriage holy again, and there can be no talk of tolerating serial marriages, "open relationships", "same-sex relations" and so on. I think silence on the issue has enabled and encouraged the wrong attitudes in general.

And the Upton Sinclair principle is always at work: "“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ". We are ready to close our minds to truth if we perceive a threat to whatever we have built on the falsehood.
 
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Landos

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I don't think that I've ever known a married Orthodox couple wherein both were "ostensibly repentant" and yet seeking divorce. If I have I'm not aware of it. It seems a very unlikely situation. I've known many, on the other hand, who had turned back from following Christ or else were never following Him to begin with, who were seeking divorce or got divorced. It's a grave evil regardless of the conditions that precede it. It's a horrible thing and it not only effects the couple, but their extended families and their friends. It's the death of a beloved person in your lives. This is basically what it amounts to. Blessed are we if we are able to know how greatly we ought to be mourning over this. But we can rejoice in spite of this sorrow, because the Lord has overcome the evil world, and we are saved if we believe, with repentance.

I too, my brother, am deeply grieved over things pertaining to marriage and adultery. I guess I should keep my eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ, and let all the evil things be for me a cause for deep repentance, and not a cause for stumbling.

My ex wife stopped going to Church a few years before our divorce, that's usually the pattern. We were going to her conservative Lutheran Church at that time as I had not come back to my Orthodox Church yet. This was the same Lutheran Church we were married in. That happens quite often in my experience, one spouse or the other turns away from the Church and 'sets themselves up' to get in a divorce mindset. Another is, the spouse who is going to file starts talking with divorced friends of theirs-that 'seasons' their mindset and prepares them to go that route.

There was no physical violence in our marriage, my ex-wife admitted that when we had both-attorneys-face-to-face discussion to resolve disagreement over how the assets were to be divided. It was just she 'didn't believe it was working' and wanted out. And her best friend had just gone through a divorce and was advising her. After that meeting I just got up, walked out without a word and drove 5 hours up to Toronto to do business the next day. My wife calls me later at my hotel and says 'Why did you just get up and leave like that? I thought we could walk out together (I kid you not)? I said, 'You tore my heart out, I don't remember a minute of the 5 hour drive up through Canada. I hope you're happy now.'

The divorce was finalized when I was in Boston on business. I was called out of a meeting to take a call from my attorney. He said, 'It's been finalized by the Judge, you're formally divorced now.'. I said 'Ok, thanks.', hung the phone up and went back to my meeting-I felt completely empty of emotion. There are no winners in a divorce, everyone loses. Attornies make a lot of money advising their clients they can come out ahead in a divorce. It's all a great lie and an Evil deception. The secular law in most western nations isn't founded on ethical principles anymore in many cases. Legality has replaced morality.
 
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Landos

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You can't talk about divorce without first understanding what marriage is. To be divorced is to be literally unmarried, and it would be like talking about haircutting for bald men, or glasses for blind people, if you don't first ask what the thing is that haircutting and glasses are for. You need to know what hair is and what eyesight is for. So it is with marriage.

Marriage in the Orthodox understanding is a sacramental bond for life. It is meant only to be done with one other person and no others. That already makes remarriage itself problematic, and the Church's dealing with it as it would with any brokenness. It is an icon of Christ and His Church. Christ will never divorce His Church. It cannot be broken in a repentant state. If one HAS broken it, they must repent; that is, be sorry that they did, NOT consider it "the best/right thing to do", but something that shouldn't have been done. That's what repentance means in terms of marriage and breaking our sacred vows and befouling the sacrament.

Remarriage shouldn't happen in the Church. It can and does happen, and some, even here, are remarried in the Church. Economia, meant to be mercy, increasingly gets misunderstood and taken as a pass to do it again (I do not say that anyone here consciously thinks that). Some even imagine that they can do it three times "legally", as if it were a legality, rather than a sacrament. A person is not supposed to be baptized twice in the Church; neither are they supposed to be married twice. A remarriage has to involve a repentant state toward the divorce of the first, which would have to be irrecoverable. And here I'm only talking about divorce. The death of a spouse is another issue, but we can see that the ideal is the same. People ought not to remarry, that is the ideal; if they do, it can only be under economia and repentance, and it must never be held to be a perfectly normal thing for us to do.

But the main thing that I find intolerable and anti-Orthodox is when two spouses both declare repentance and a determination to remain in the Church and follow Christ, yet not reconcile, but go ahead with a divorce. That's against the entire spirit of the Gospel, of having to forgive our enemies and learn to love all. I can't see such a divorce as legitimate, but a profanation of any economia ever allowed. If anyone can be divorced sheerly because of a sense of unhappiness, then we can all be divorced. Nobody's marriage is sacred, everybody is with someone until they tire of them - that is the world, and not the Gospel. It's an attack on all marriages, including mine. So yes, I take it personally, because it means that my wife can similarly divorce me on the same basis when she feels like she's tired of me, or vice-versa.

A friend of mine was divorced by his wife. The wife had helped a couple (they were in our parish) whose wife was going through a terminal illness-she eventually passed away. Anyway, my friends wife was spending a lot of time over at their home. She became enamored with the husband and after his wife passed away, she filed for divorce from my friend and eventually married the other guy. And-this is the unbelievable part-both this wife and her new husband continued to attend the Lutheran Church where we were all members. My friend did as well. And they're all sitting in the Congregation every sunday, somehow justifying their actions to themselves. The really sad part was my friend had several teenage children who were the real victims-what witness does it provide to the kids when the parents are acting like that? Shameful.
 
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rusmeister

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A friend of mine was divorced by his wife. The wife had helped a couple (they were in our parish) whose wife was going through a terminal illness-she eventually passed away. Anyway, my friends wife was spending a lot of time over at their home. She became enamored with the husband and after his wife passed away, she filed for divorce from my friend and eventually married the other guy. And-this is the unbelievable part-both this wife and her new husband continued to attend the Lutheran Church where we were all members. My friend did as well. And they're all sitting in the Congregation every sunday, somehow justifying their actions to themselves. The really sad part was my friend had several teenage children who were the real victims-what witness does it provide to the kids when the parents are acting like that? Shameful.
Well, they're not Orthodox. The world is always falling away, and we're always struggling to not fall away. my concern is for the Orthodox Church, as authority is an issue for other Christian groups. All I'm saying is that we ought not to make that kind of thing OK.

That children always suffer from divorce, however one tries to sugarcoat it - yeah.
"They'll understand when they are older."
No, the kids understand just fine right now. They haven't been sullied by adult cynicism and prevarications. They want mom and dad to learn to love each other and manage to get along, NOT break up. And they are right, and it is the adults who are wrong.
 
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Well, they're not Orthodox. The world is always falling away, and we're always struggling to not fall away. my concern is for the Orthodox Church, as authority is an issue for other Christian groups. All I'm saying is that we ought not to make that kind of thing OK.

That children always suffer from divorce, however one tries to sugarcoat it - yeah.
"They'll understand when they are older."
No, the kids understand just fine right now. They haven't been sullied by adult cynicism and prevarications. They want mom and dad to learn to love each other and manage to get along, NOT break up. And they are right, and it is the adults who are wrong.
When I was a kid, I had hoped that my parents would get divorced so that I didn't have to endure what our lives were like. I don't recall how many long hours I spent wandering through the woods alone. Some marriages are not made in heaven: they seem to have been made in hell. Sin sucks.
 
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Landos

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When I was a kid, I had hoped that my parents would get divorced so that I didn't have to endure what our lives were like. I don't recall how many long hours I spent wandering through the woods alone. Some marriages are not made in heaven: they seem to have been made in hell. Sin sucks.

My parents quarreled most of the time. Not some of the time, MOST of the time. I spent many hours wandering through woods alone myself. I know where you're coming from.
 
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Landos

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Well, they're not Orthodox. The world is always falling away, and we're always struggling to not fall away. my concern is for the Orthodox Church, as authority is an issue for other Christian groups. All I'm saying is that we ought not to make that kind of thing OK.

That children always suffer from divorce, however one tries to sugarcoat it - yeah.
"They'll understand when they are older."
No, the kids understand just fine right now. They haven't been sullied by adult cynicism and prevarications. They want mom and dad to learn to love each other and manage to get along, NOT break up. And they are right, and it is the adults who are wrong.

I believe divorce is wrong in the majority of cases, people give up too easily these days. You need to work on a marriage just like anything else. But, if one party in the marriage has divorce forced on them, you can't hold them accountable. When one member of the marriage stops going to Church it's a signal they're getting ready to do something sinful. And divorce is that in most of the cases.
 
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Christianity is just a cultural relic nowadays. Modern post-christian western society has co-opted authentic Christianity and destroyed it, something that even the bolsheviks if still alive would stand in awe of. If certain teachings are fashionable to our new cosmopolitan way they will be promoted and followed, if some can be twisted and reinterpreted to fit into the new paradigm they will continue tobe, and if other beliefs don't fit they are made optional. The problem with marriage is that the people marrying are clueless to what it's for. To many the ceremony is simply the cultural thing to do, for others it's an institution which was defined by hollywood and popular media or the heterodox understanding etc. Only when Christianity returns to it's underground roots as a small sect and sheds it's fickle and traitorous laity will the authentic mysticism of it's sacraments be revealed.
 
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When I was a kid, I had hoped that my parents would get divorced so that I didn't have to endure what our lives were like. I don't recall how many long hours I spent wandering through the woods alone. Some marriages are not made in heaven: they seem to have been made in hell. Sin sucks.

My parents divorced after 26 years of a marriage that was unhappy in pretty much all of my memory. I think that what you REALLY wanted was for your parents to learn to get along with each other. Even you would have seen divorce as less desirable than that. I was talking about what kids REALLY want, not what cheap alternative they would accept.
Still, I am grateful my parents stayed together as long as they did. When they finally did divorce, we were better able to deal with the trauma - though it cost us all and created other bad situations with the replacements they chose.
Divorce is the death of love, as suicide is the death of life. It is a refusal to love when it becomes hard. It’s little wonder that the modern world, having eagerly accepted the one and all the brokenness it brings, is accepting the other under pretty foreign words like “euthanasia”.
 
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rusmeister

A Russified American Orthodox Chestertonian
Dec 9, 2005
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Christianity is just a cultural relic nowadays. Modern post-christian western society has co-opted authentic Christianity and destroyed it, something that even the bolsheviks if still alive would stand in awe of. If certain teachings are fashionable to our new cosmopolitan way they will be promoted and followed, if some can be twisted and reinterpreted to fit into the new paradigm they will continue tobe, and if other beliefs don't fit they are made optional. The problem with marriage is that the people marrying are clueless to what it's for. To many the ceremony is simply the cultural thing to do, for others it's an institution which was defined by hollywood and popular media or the heterodox understanding etc. Only when Christianity returns to it's underground roots as a small sect and sheds it's fickle and traitorous laity will the authentic mysticism of it's sacraments be revealed.
We all want salvation for free, without paying for it by changing everything fallen in ourselves.
 
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