Hi,
I wanted to open a new thread on this subject because:
a) I've heard a LOT of comments from people concerning the reasons for divorce
b) I know this topic was being discussed before in other threads, and I wanted to keep it general.
I've heard from many Christians (Not Coptic though) that after many years of marriage, they've decided to leave their spouse because their spouse did not share their love for Christ.
Is that honestly a right reason to divorce? Even if a partner, in a marriage, loses his/her faith in Christ DURING the marriage, that is no reason for divorce either, as if you yourself love Christ, then you'll be righteous and stick with the person whom you married.
Even if you did not marry a person who was Christian, yet you had kids together, surely Christ would prefer that you remained together and not divorce over Him!??
Am I missing something, or is it OK to go and divorce someone because all of a sudden they don't love Christ as much as you??
Comments
so your question in itself is not really correct with the church! by lose their love, do we mean they left the church and call themselves members of a different denomination or religion?! because this is the only way the church will permit you to "remarry" (again remember there is no divorce in the church, but you are sometimes permitted to separate, and if you are given the "separation" permission, you can remarry)
Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife. But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?
if you married first then comes "loss" of faith, then you have to stay with him/her... but if comes change of religion... you have the power to be permitted a "remarrying"
so if its just a person losing faith and didn't leave the church, you cannot do anything...
akhadna el baraka... neshkor Allah!
I was a believer (not an orthodox--I came to Christ on my own through a search for meaning when I was 19) but my husband was not. I knew the Scriptural admonitions about being unequally yoked.
In fact, one weekend (I had been in Europe for an academic year and had just returned home for my brother's wedding and my boyfriend--almost fiance--had come to the wedding.) we were watching a television pastor (James Kennedy in Coral Gables, FL) and he was preaching on marriage. He talked about arranged marriages (my ex is from Iran) and how Americans like to act like our marriages are so much better because we "fall in love" and get married rather than have someone chosen for us (or rather than maybe choosing someone and then marrying before really knowing that person, which is more likely to be the case in Iran, for example). Kennedy said that if this were true, we should have lower divorce rates. Of course, we do not have, and that was his point: that "being in love" before you marry is not what makes marriage last. Certainly, the support and engagement of the extended nuclear family play a big role in marital longevity: other people have an investment in the marriage's survival.
Anyway, I heard him speak on this and was increasingly convicted during the sermon, which my BF was watching with me. After the program was over, I was in tears and extremely convicted in my heart that I needed to end it (we'd gone together for four years--the last one I'd been overseas, but we'd maintained the relationship through letters and phone calls). I told him, "I can't marry you. You aren't a Christian and I am. You should just leave." I went to take a shower and the entire time, I was praying for God to give me strength...expecting that he would have left while I was in the shower, as I had asked him to. When I came out of the shower, he was still there, and I did not have the guts--DID NOT HAVE THE GUTS, I say now!!!--to end it even though just think of the heartache I would have saved myself!
The thing is that many of us "come by our weaknesses" honestly, Certified Orthodox, and just because I had a tremendous faith, that doesn't mean I was able to overcome my own insecurities. I had my own inner struggles that superceded those other things...coming out of a background where there was very little love, a father who told me no one would ever want to marry me, and so, when someone DID want to marry me...well, you can figure the rest out.
I think that there is a huge difference though for people who are not believers when they marry and then they become believers during the marriage--that is different from my situation. In this case, the unbelieving spouse sometimes feels betrayed. In fact, I knew a woman who had this exact situation. Her husband HATED the church and Jesus because he felt that they took his "fun" wife away from him. They lived together, but he was so embittered that the marrriage was just a shell--two people living in one house but barely ever even talking to each other. Decades like that. Others have happy endings: the other spouse comes to believe, too.
I do NOT think it is even remotely Biblical to suggest that the believer be the one to leave JUST BECAUSE the other spouse does not believe. Certainly, there are some who believe that to divorce for ANY reason is a sin. Well, to them I say Thank God that God's grace is greater than yours!
Our decision about whom we marry will affect EVERYTHING else in our life. If you are a believer, you owe it to yourself to marry someone whose belief is very much on the same level as yours. Think of the oxen in the wooden yoke and why it is they must be equal to one another as they pull what they are carrying--and what will happen if they are each pulling in different directions.