Divorce?

I was recently placed in the rather uncomfortable position of having to defend some of the policies of the Roman Catholic Church.  I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job of it.  I am not, and never have been, a member of the Roman Catholic Church, but I have some understanding of their doctrine; sometimes I think I understand the doctrine better than most Romans I know.  There are many things in their doctrine that I don’t agree with; don’t misunderstand me, I know that there are many good people in the Roman Catholic Church, but I have doctrinal issues with that denomination.

One of my co-workers was griping that a Roman Catholic priest advised her to get a divorce.  Don’t misunderstand, she wanted the divorce; she just felt that the advice was contrary to the doctrine that this priest was supposed to be upholding.  I asked her if she was Catholic; she is.  I asked if her husband was Catholic; he was not.  Well, now I understand the priest’s position.  I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I understand.  I tried to explain that little “loophole,” and, in retrospect, I realize that I shouldn’t have used the term loophole.  I should have just asked her if she would have taken offense if the priest had advised her to “stop living in sin.”  I feel reasonably certain that her response would have been something to the effect that she wasn’t living in sin, and I would have agreed with her on that point.  I was able to successfully point out to her that “The Church” did not recognize her marriage, since her husband did not share her faith. 

I can understand religions teaching that inter-faith relationships are wrong, or at the very least, a very bad idea.  If nothing else, think of the children; the offspring from a Catholic-Baptist coupling are going to have a hard time finding acceptance in either church (the fact that the children should not be blamed for their parents’ decision notwithstanding); children from a Jewish-Hindu marriage even more so.  It can also lead to a great deal of confusion and emotional turmoil in the children’s upbringing; what is a child to do when daddy’s church teaches that mommy’s church is wrong, and mommy’s church teaches that anyone who attends daddy’s church is a vile sinner (and don’t try to tell me that it doesn’t happen)?

So, the upshot of all of this is, that, since the Catholic Church did not recognize her marriage, as far as that priest was concerned, her marriage was, in effect, “living in sin.”  So her “divorce” was nothing of the kind; it was an act of penance.  In the eyes of our government, she was married, and she got divorced.  In the eyes of her church, she was living in sin, but she repented, and went through the necessary formalities so that the state would no longer recognize the marriage that “The Church” never acknowledged.

Now, to my mind, the proper religious viewpoint should have been to attempt to proselytize the unbelieving husband, which may have been impossible, but, failing that, to continue the relationship, unless the husband decided that he wanted to end it, or he became abusive or unfaithful to her.  In 1 Corinthians 7, Apostle Paul talks at some length about the faithful wife (or husband) sanctifying the unbelieving spouse, and also that if the unbelieving spouse chooses to end the relationship, the believer is not bound to that person.  I understand that there are sometimes circumstances that require a separation.  I don’t think Paul was advocating that a wife stay in a relationship where her physical well-being was being threatened, whether by violence or by sexually-transmitted diseases that her husband could potentially be bringing home, but, for the most part, if you find yourself in a marriage with someone who doesn’t share your faith, you should expend every effort to try to make that marriage work.

Excuses

            There are a lot of adages about excuses; my favorite would have to be:  “Excuses are like armpits.  Most people have them, and they generally stink.”  Scripturally, excuses seem to go back almost as long as sin does.  When God confronted Adam about eating the forbidden fruit, Adam’s response was, “The woman that you gave me …” and Eve said, “The serpent …”  A guy that I used to work for would chant, whenever he sensed an excuse coming, “My wife she; my dog he; my car it…” because most of the excuses he heard started with one of those three phrases.  Adam’s excuse isn’t much different; for that matter, neither is Eve’s.  This may also be the original example of ‘Chutzpah,’ Adam trying to tell God that his sin was because of the woman that God had given him (isn’t Adam basically saying that the sin was God’s fault?).

            When Abraham got caught telling a lie (well, okay, it was a half-truth, but let’s face it, a half truth is still a lie), his response was, “Because I thought …”  Notice he did not say, “Because God directed me to…” or, “I was commanded to…”  He just decided in and of himself that this was the proper course of action, and went with it.  As if that were not enough, years earlier he had gotten caught telling the same lie!  If it didn’t fly the first time, what made him think it would work the second time?

            When God told Moses to go lead Israel out of Egypt, Moses was full of excuses.  He couldn’t speak well; he didn’t know how to tell the Israelites who had sent him…  For somebody who was supposed to be meek, he sure did talk back to God a lot.  Of course, I understand that he felt more comfortable talking to God than he did to Pharaoh.  He understood his relationship with God, but he wasn’t sure that Pharaoh wouldn’t kill him on sight, and a meek man like Moses really didn’t want to go to Pharaoh with something that he had a pretty good idea would be received as bad news.

            When Saul was made king over all Israel, he made a lot of mistakes, and he made a lot of excuses.  At one point he even tried to blame “the people.” As king, ultimately, he was responsible for the people anyway; if they weren’t following his orders, he should be making sure that they were dealt with accordingly.  The king doesn’t just have power and authority over the people; he also has responsibility for the people.

            When David became king, he showed himself to be one of the rare individuals who didn’t make excuses.  When David made mistakes, he owned up to them, he took responsibility.  When Nathan confronted David about Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah the Hittite, David immediately confessed.  I’m sure that there were many excuses he could have come up with, and maybe several that he had used to justify himself in his own mind, but once that he knew without a doubt that he was caught, he let those excuses go.  Later on, David numbered Israel, against Joab’s counsel; then, he confessed his sin.  To be honest, it may very well be that, this time, he simply had no excuse:  Joab had already asked why the king would even care how many men were in Israel; God could defend Israel with only a few, provided that those few (and their king) were faithful.

God didn’t expect David to be perfect; He doesn’t expect any of us to be perfect.  He made us; He knows what we are capable of.  It occurs to me, though, that these men were four of the most prominent leaders of God’s chosen people in ancient times.  I don’t mean to denigrate the other three, but it’s pretty clear to me why David is the one said to be a man after God’s own heart.  To be honest, I would be kidding myself to even try to compare myself to any of those four men (well, maybe Saul), but I think that, if I could be like one of them, I would most like to be like David.