I always get a little spooked when somebody says that after they read the rabbis, they understood the New Testament better. You can mean that in a good way or a bad way; after you’ve had a lot of the bad way, I think being a little gun-shy is understandable.
That said, this article on divorce in Christianity Today was interesting.
The anonymous comment below Justin Taylor’s link to this pretty much restated my view. I can see neglect, but what about emotional abuse? And then we have to have a whole system to determine what emotional abuse is. I mean, I don’t live up to the standard of Christ and the Church. In some sense, then, I am not giving my wife what she needs (nor is any married man). Neglect? Emotional abuse? Grounds for divorce? Who draws the line? And what of the covenant symbol that marriage represents? What must happen before we can cheapen that, legally?
If the line must be drawn, then I have to believe that the line gets drawn in the local church. But there’s a big can of worms there, surely. I’m not against worm cans, big or small, but I am against them being opened unless they’re either determined by Scripture or determined by the local church and its elders.
I question the hard line being drawn here between “marital rights” as the modern translations put it, and “love” as the author puts it. How do we measure love? But conjugal rights are relatively concrete, and Paul felt comfortable speaking about that as well in terms of a rule for married life.
It’s not too many steps from “I’m not getting the emotional support I think I need” to “he doesn’t love me” and divorce in the evangelical world, and from there to “he never loved me” and the fiction of “it was never a real marriage” and annulment in Catholic circles.
I admit to being one of those people who have a hard time laying down a firm line about this, though. I feel for people in loveless marriages, and I feel for people in marriages where one person is effectively manipulating and using the other one.
But particularly among Christians, Christ’s name is at stake, and my usual rule of thumb here is “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded?” (1 Cor. 6:7) I know that a bad marriage is a terrible thing. But dragging the name of Christ through the mud by making your vows to Him of no consequence is worse, surely?
If we would die for His name’s sake, must we not also live for it?
