The Bishop who caused division in the American Episcopal Church by moving in with and then forming a civil partnership with a man has announced he is now ‘divorcing’ him, whatever that might mean in the circumstances.
Gene Robinson was originally married to Isabella (Boo) McDaniel by whom he had two children. They divorced in 1986. Whether she divorced him, or he divorced her, we do not know.
In 1988 he set up house with one Mark Andrew and formed a civil partnership with him in 2008. Now Robinson is to end his partnership (which he remains convinced was a ‘marriage’) with Andrew, describing the parting as a ‘divorce.’
The Bible, just as it refers to marriage, only ever speaks of divorce or of ‘putting away’, in the context of man and wife, not man and whatever another man might wish to be called:
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Deuteronomy 24:1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. 2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.
The words of the Lord Jesus: Mark 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. 7 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; 8 And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. 9 What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Note that the Lord Jesus never said that man could not put asunder what God hath joined together, only that we should not. Happily, God never joined together Gene Robinson and Mark Andrew, so the question of whether man should or should not put them asunder does not arise.
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This is a bit of non story, then, in view of your conclusions. It’s a bit like asking it’s right for a ram to divorce a ewe, or for a farmer to split them up. They were never married in the eyes of God, because marriage is only for a man and a woman only. So it doesn’t arise.
What does intrigue me is why the Church of England won’t remarry divorced people, when in the Bible God so clearly allows for a bill of divorcement and says that the woman CAN be another man’s wife. So what’s the problem ?
Para 1: Exactly.
Para 2: Not sure I know, but it may be from a feeling that we mustn’t let standards slip, or that the Gospel trumps the Old Testament. And as in the Gospel of Mark the Lord said ‘let no man put asunder’ the Church of England has taken that as ‘no man can put asunder’. But in Matthew, the Lord makes an exception for divorce on the grounds of fornication and the C of E appears to have ignored that:
Matt 5:31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: 32 But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
The comments in the Gospels about marriage and divorce were given by our Lord ruling on a dispute between two rival ‘houses’ of Pharisaic thought. Bet Hillel said a man could divorce his wife even if her cooking was bad, Bet Shammai said ‘no divorce except on the grounds of adultery.’ The Lord ruled for Shammai, which is interesting, because on every other issue, such as our duty to be reconciled to our fellow man before going to the temple, on the need for humility, on care for the sick, it was Hillel who Christ said had it right.
As Michael Caine might put it: ‘There’s not a lot of people know that.’
“Let no man put asunder” meant “Man must not put asunder”, or “Man must not separate”, which is (very reasonably) the translation in the New English Bible. This is what you will find in bibles in other languages, for example Luther’s
„soll der Mensch nicht scheiden“. [shall Man not separate]
“Soll” is the stongest kind of “must”, equivalent to the old “shalt” of the Ten Commandments. Modern German translations keep to this.
So, rightly or wrongly, if the Church of England still thinks that no man can “put asunder”, they are in good company about what it means. It’s quite unusual for them not to have reinterpreted something in a progressive way.
Matthew 5:32 might be better understood in terms of Middle Eastern practise at the time. Remember Joseph sought to put away Mary when he discovered she was pregnant with Jesus. He was not legally married to her but their betrothal meant that they were already regarded as husband and wife, even though they had had no union. In Joseph’s eyes Mary had committed fornication and could therefore be ‘put away’. Applying this to Matt 5:32 helps us understand why Jesus used fornication as the only reasonable excuse to divorce (and incidentally the fornicator could mean either party). In other words what he is saying is that it is fornication, not adultery that invalidates a marriage. The reason being found in 1 Corinthians 6:16 which Stephen quotes below backing up the observation made by Busy Mum.
But of course we need to remember that the Lord Jesus would never contradict the law given in Deuteronomy 24. And there the context is not betrothal but marriage. So the adultery / fornication distinction is somewhat academic IMHO.
You’re right, Jesus would never contradict the law, in fact he raises the bar even higher than the law. You see that in all the sermon on the mount as well as his pronouncements on divorce.
Hmm, not sure about that. Always he asks, ‘What is written?’ ‘How do you read?’
I read that too but then go onto the “But I say unto you”.
I was actually thinking of Luke 10:
Luke 10:26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? 27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. 28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
Interestingly, although the Lord Jesus can be identified with the Pharisees, giving especial divine approval to most of Bet Hillel, and although he endorses their teachings – but not their actions – in Matt 23:2-3, he is far closer to the Sadducees on his insistence on the supremacy of the written word – but not with their rejection of the resurrection!
Bearing in mind what fornication actually means, there are probably very few people in this country who are truly married to the person they call their spouse and very few weddings that are honestly ‘white’.
That’s a bit harsh.
1Cor 6:16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
Harsh? The truth does hurt sometimes but the truth also ‘makes you free’; everybody is enslaved to their sexual desires now. What I have said is the moral absolute laid down by God and the minute this was departed from in theory (not practice – we know there have always been fornicators, adulterers, sodomites) we started on the downward spiral to where we are now. Truth is fallen in our streets and justice and equity cannot enter. Not will not enter, CANNOT enter.
If what I have said is ‘harsh, how, please, do you define fornication?
I tried to reply to Busy Mum, but my reply was not allowed. I wouldn’t want her to think I ignored her.
Don’t worry, she won’t be as offended by a non-reply as if she had read your reply.
What about offending the vast majority of married people (and people just living together, and homosexuals) in the country ?
What about offending God? He will be the final arbiter in this matter.
Maybe the vast majority of people in this country are offended by His law, but He will be offended by them at the Last Day – and by then it will be too late for repentance. Christians do not speak the truth in order to offend or in order to judge – but they must speak the truth in love…. if we truly love our neighbours as ourselves, we will warn them of impending danger, otherwise God will be offended with us to.
It’s not harsh, Busy Mum is just telling it as it is. The fact is most people in this day and age engage in premarital sex, which is called fornication. I don’t believe that is a biblical norm even if it has become normal for our modern culture. The God given precept of a man leaving his mother and father to be joined to his wife that the two may be one is worked out in the consummation. Hijacking that consummation out of the marriage covenant does not negate the resulting spiritual soul tie as Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 6:16. ” What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.”
I fully endorse what Busy Mum wrote “there are probably very few people in this country who are truly married to the person they call their spouse and very few weddings that are honestly ‘white’.”. It may be a hard truth but the truths of the Bible are counter cultural. However they’re not there to condemn but to draw us to the Saviour who frees us from our misdemeanours if we are honest enough to confess and be willing to renounce them.
what a farce
Having read some of the comments, it would be interesting to find out what actually constitutes a marriage in the bible? When compared to our western ideas. For instance in Pauls day the Romans had four expressions of marriage, from slaves, right up to the political elite and somewhere in between. Yet they were all recognised as marriage to some degree. No wonder Paul had to sort all this out in 1 Cor 7, he would have had a mixed bag of marriages.