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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.even if there is only a handful of faithful people, the Church is still in its fullness.
I do agree, only here I think we need to be much clearer that “not believing” means committing adultery, and being OK with that.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.
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.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.
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.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.
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.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 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’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.
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?
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 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.
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.
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.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.
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.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.
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.
We all want salvation for free, without paying for it by changing everything fallen in ourselves.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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