Views On Marriage and Divorce

Family Services
 Australia

Getting Married

Building
Relationships

relationships.com

smartmarriages.com

Marriage: God's "Buddy System" for Humanity The daily experience of marriage may be tedious or annoying. Yet we stick together, giving a boost or a reality check as needed, helping each other grow into what God created us to be  By Frederica Mathewes-Green

Making Sure
Your Needs Are Met 
By Karen Houghton
When we become a stay at home Mum, full or part-time, it is so easy to forget about our own needs as a living breathing person being met. This can begin from day one!

Baby Blues
by Veda Dante.
Many mothers suffer postnatal depression in silence, but a support group of volunteers in New South Wales is helping women to find their voices and reclaim their identities

Depression And Unemployment 
Written by Carolyn

Relationship, marriage and family education: secular based or church based?
Burnard, D

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE DON'T GIVE UP

We want you to experience God's joy and fulfilment in your marriage

Have a great Marriage where the wine of joy never runs out. Be inspired by God's Kingdom!

The Marriage of Heaven
& Earth
In John's gospel, the story of Jesus is a story about a wedding banquet where the wine never runs out....

ReligionOnline Articles:

The Risk of Divorce
by William Willimon
If marriage involves a creative, courageous, demanding and risky act, then it also contains the possibility of failure. Our word to divorced persons must be that the failure and evil inherent in divorce (or any other human separation) would destroy us were it not for the fact that God keeps his promises and continues his love even when we break our promises and our love fails. The past cannot be erased, but it can be forgiven.

A Theology of Divorce
by Robert G. Sinks
Divorce is not an unforgivable act. In some contexts divorce may be a creative, positive and affirmative response, ethically justified as that option which best approximates fulfilling the Great Commandment in the midst of limited alternatives...

Deconstructing the
Culture of Divorce
by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen

Forming a Family
by Adrian Thatcher
A review of two books on the family which emphasize the need for a more compassionate, gender-conscious and tradition-aware understanding of marriage and the family.

Marriage Today
by John Wall
Wall reviews a book on post-modern marriage. Marriage and the family are valuable social institutions, especially important for children, but they need to be newly understood in nonpatriarchal and egalitarian ways..

Marriage: The Impossible Commitment
by Donna Schaper
 The profound pressures which marriage faces are a spiritual and not a psychosocial matter. The gospel provides few answers about how we should live or what decisions we should make. It is not a recipe for right living. The gospel transcends the law only to name a more difficult law -- that of love, first of God and then of each other, even ourselves.

Marrying Well
by Don Browning
 The author reviews a book on marriage. Marriage as an institution entails public commitments not only between the husband and wife but also between them and their friends, extended families, the state and the church.

The Church &
the Family Crisis
 by Don & Carol Browning
 Research shows that none of the alternatives to the intact nuclear family (first marriages) performs well the task of rearing children. Neither the state nor the church can be a substitute. If the church is interested in helping society raise strong, healthy and self-directed children, it must help produce as many intact first marriages as possible.

Divorce Statistics
Collections on the web:

Divorce Statistics
Collection

Fact Sheet on
Divorce in America 
by Glenn Stanton
includes numbers of divorced people in U.S., several effects of divorce on adults and children.

Facts About Marital
 Distress and Divorce
 by Scott M. Stanley & Howard J. Markman. Divorce rates, marital conflict, predicting and projecting divorce, effects of divorce and marriage, lots of references to studies.

Why Marriage Matters: Twenty-One Conclusions from the Social Sciences
 (2002)

"One who marries a second time is not sinning, but he is not fulfilling the demands of evangelical perfection. It does him heavenly glory if he keeps the marriage tie sundered by death untainted by gladly obeying the economy"
(SAINT CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA)

Some reflections on Divorce

Divorce is a very complex and difficult issue. It is also a very common problem affecting Christians and non-Christians alike. Divorce rates are so high that a proper no-nonsense Marriage and relationship education seems more necessary than ever. We all need Stronger Families and Communities.

I urge every unmarried person, male and female, to read the about the effects of divorce on children. The harm of bitter break-ups and fatherless ness affects the children of divorce seriously for decades. Think deeply about the consequences to you, your partner, and the possible child before "going all the way." This is no time to be entirely emotional and impulsive.

The results of divorce may be devastating for people. Obviously for some, especially abused women, divorce comes as a relief, even liberation, from a far worse condition. Thankfully we live in more enlightened times and separated women are no longer scapegoated by society. Still, the harsh  realities of  survival make it difficult for divorced mothers to cope financially and otherwise. Divorced men don't seem to cope any better. It is interesting to note that "Divorced men are at least three times as likely to commit suicide as any other group, according to a review of suicide patterns in Australia". No doubt, women and children feel just as devastated by the trauma of marriage breakdown and divorce. Above all, when divorce proves inevitable, we must think of the children ( see: Coping with divorce: 21 ways to guide your children through divorce ). 

Note: A good Aussie ( government funded ) resource for marriage & divorce issues is: RELATE: INFORMATION ON RELATIONSHIPS, FAMILY, LOVE AND LIFE.

One would think that the great emphasis placed by Christian Churches on the thorny issue of Marriage/Divorce would lead to less cases of failed marriages among Christian ranks. Interestingly this is not so. In fact, Christians Are More Likely to Experience Divorce Than Are Non-Christians. As secular groups are happy to point out, divorce rates seem to be higher among Christians than they are among atheists. They site as evidence the well known  statistical data produced by the Christian Organization Barna, which in a 1999 poll ( USA ) set out to prove that religion reduces divorce rates only to find out the exact opposite! As it turned out, atheists had the lowest divorce rates... What is even more interesting is the fact that among Christian denominations,  Protestant "Born Again" Fundamentalist groups like Baptists have the highest divorce rates. 

Variation in divorce rates among Christian faith groups
religioustolerance.org

As religioustolerance.org reports, Barna's results verified findings of earlier polls: that conservative Protestant Christians, on average, have the highest divorce rate, while mainline Christians have a much lower rate. Donald Hughes, author of The Divorce Reality, said: "In the churches, people have a superstitious view that Christianity will keep them from divorce, but they are subject to the same problems as everyone else, and they include a lack of relationship skills. ...Just being born again is not a rabbit's foot." Hughes claim that 90% of divorces among born-again couples occur after they have been "saved.". According to the Barna Reasearch Study, Born Again Adults Less Likely to Co-Habit, Just as Likely to Divorce. 

Could all this have to do with the way such branches of Christianity deal with issues like sexuality, relationships, marriage, divorce, family, etc? 

George Barna, the president of the firm that conducted the study made the following revealing statements: "The national statistics have remained the same for the past half-decade. While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is that when those individuals experience a divorce many of them feel their community of faith provides rejection rather than support and healing. But the research also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families. The ultimate responsibility for a marriage belongs to the husband and wife, but the high incidence of divorce within the Christian community challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages" 

Rev. Tim LaHaye, co-founder of the Moral Majority, is a classic example of bad taste in marital advice: "As important as the father is in the life of a child, even he must take second place to mother during the first three years of life ... Consequently, mothers actually have more to do with producing a predisposition toward homosexuality than fathers. Two kinds of mothers are particularly harmful -- smother mothers and dominating mothers.". Now, I am not singling out Tim LaHaye, he just represents the typical religious mindset that, as statistics show, results in a lot of messed up families. Many well meaning fundamentalist Christian ministers ( like Tim LaHaye, Jerry Falwell, etc ) seem to be caught in a time-warp as they seek to promote 2000 years old "family values". As a result they seem to miss the point about what is important in today's complex world. The world laughed as famous tele-evangelist Jerry Falwell Attacked popular children's TV program Teletubbies!  

Click Picture to Enlarge

Not to mention Pat Robertson's infamous comment that "The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians". These are the sort things taught by the spiritual leaders of Conservative Protestant Christians. The subordination of women may have worked in the ancient world, but not today. On another note, if Patterson is right about feminism threatening capitalism, then let us all become feminists! 

The "family values" of Fundamentalist Christianity have become a synonym for absolutism, narrow-mindedness, sexism, bigotry, phobia and hatred. It is a kind of modern day witch hunt. Is it any wonder there are high divorce rates among Christian Fundamentalist groups?

Is "Family Values" the problem?

As A.C. Grayling writes  "Family values is a mantric phrase in political debate which represents a victory of sorts for the religious Right… it is... shorthand for a pre-packaged moral outlook which is hostile to sex, drugs, abortion and homosexuality, and anxious to keep 'young people' sexually ignorant and inactive until marriage, which must be monogamous and life-long and which must obtain only between a man and a woman - no matter how miserably unhappy they may become. Some nuclear families are of course blissfully happy,... but the majority of nuclear families in fact fail" (source: The Six Central Teachings of Christianity)

The pre-packaged moral outlook of "Family Values", just like any other pre-packaged morality, is doomed to fail because it ultimately dehumanises people by reducing them into a means to an end. It basically means that the code of the cult has to be protected at any cost, even broken homes. It becomes the reason d'etre of the religious group. Human beings ( and families ) become thus disposable as long as the pre-packaged moral code of the cult is upheld. This is the very essence of Pharisaism, the very thing Jesus denounced as inhuman. In this respect, it may well be said that "Family Values" is unbiblical . The same is true about the various "Family Values" organizations out there which put the pressure on Churches to conform to the Pharisaic spirit. Could organizations like Focus On The Family really be of the devil, as Brian Elroy McKinley claims? Probably not, but one wonders if they do more harm than good in their zeal to promote traditional family values. No, issues like abortion, stem cell research, cloning, euthanasia, the rights of homosexuals, sex-education, pornography, etc are not the cause of family and marriage breakdown. These "political" issues have side-tracked many well meaning Conservative Christian Churches and ministries. In other words, Conservative Christians who are concerned about the preservation of marriages and families are barking up the wrong tree. 

The Real Issues

It is time for the Conservative branch of the Church to recognise that the pre-packaged morality preached from its pulpits fails to address the real issues that plague family life. The real issues, which are hardly addressed by the overzealous preachers of "Family Values" include domestic violence and child abuse in families. As Lois Gehr Livezey explains in Sexual and Family Violence: A Growing Issue for the Churches, "it is time to break the silence on sexual and family abuse -- a silence that still haunts churches and schools of theological education even as these very issues are front-page news. Our silence will not protect us; it is life-threatening, and it is unfaithful to our commission...". 

Abuse does not only take the form of physical or sexual violence. There is also emotional and psychological abuse, not to mention spiritual abuse in the case of many Christian families. Control, manipulation and domination are destructive character traits that undermine the foundations of families. Unfortunately such negative traits are often validated by the Conservative Christian subculture, ie "wives shut up and obey your husbands, no matter what, since they are the head of the house", etc. Conservative Christian leader Pat Robertson actually said "I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period..." (Pat Robertson, The 700 Club television program, January 8, 1992). Pat Robertson's wife, Dede, obviously had to shut up and accept "God's will", when during their early, poverty-stricken married years her husband would run off to month-long prayer retreats: "Pat, I've tried to adjust to this 'saved' jag you're on, but you've become a fanatic. All you do is read that Bible all day and sit around and talk to Jesus. I'm a nurse. I recognize schizoid tendencies when I see them, and I think you're sick. It's just not normal for a man to walk out on his wife and leave her with a small child when she's expecting a baby any minute -- while he goes off into the woods to talk to God. God doesn't tell people to do things like that. At least, my God doesn't." ( quoted from Robert Boston, The Most Dangerous Man in America, pp. 25-26 ). Now, Pat Robertson was lucky. His wife didn't leave him. Other zealous Christians are not so lucky though, as their wives just have enough of their time-consuming "ministries". 

Too much religion takes the spice out of romance and love. Don't worry, God understands if we leave Him out of our bedrooms. He won't get offended... It is O.K to have some fun... It is also O.K if you forgot to pray because you were busy doing naughty things. God won't get upset... Puritanism has plagued the Church for thousands of years. God is not a prude. He designed the whole sex thing! In fact, all things considered, romance and sex are among the few things that make life on this planet bearable and interesting. Enough already with all this Christian pre-occupation with sexual etiquette! It is time to give up Puritanism. Sex is not a dirty word. Brinsmead reminds us of "an old Rabbinical saying that God will ask us at the end of life, "did you enjoy all the good things the world gave you to enjoy". It would be too bad if we had to answer, "I was too pre-occupied getting my soul to heaven to notice"... Brinsmead then makes the following comment: "It is quite amusing to compare the old Christian commentaries on the Song of Solomon with the Jewish ones. Thankfully the Church has made progress in its attitudes to the essential goodness of life. Modern Christian commentaries now acknowledge that the Old Testament Song of Solomon is nothing but a celebration of sexual love, something that would have appeared almost pornographic to the poor Jerome, fighting back the tormenting images of dancing virgins during his desert solitude...

But sex is not the only issue regarding marriage and divorce...

Another related issue is poverty and the high cost of living in our so-called affluent societies. How many marriages break down because of money, or rather, the lack of money... Unemployed parents don't feel good about themselves and as a result live in a negative frame of mind. Things are hardly better for those lucky enough to have a job. People have to work so hard to make ends meet that they fall victims to all sorts of pathologies like alienation, shame, guilt, anger, frustration, depression, anxiety, alcoholism, drug abuse, helplessness, low self-esteem, etc. Forget about romance, relaxation, quality time, conversation and, God forbid, pleasures of the flesh, because by the time people come back from work they are brain-dead, and mojo-dead(!). It is a wonder that any marriages survive at all! 

And what does the Church do? It blames the victim of course! They say things like "It is a sin to feel anxious about your material needs", "put God first", "you should dedicate more time to God's work ( ie the Church... )", "pray more", etc. In other words, they say to all these depressed people to shut up and work harder. This is what the Protestant Ethic is all about. Perform, perform, perform, obey, consume, breed and shut up lest you make God angry. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you trying to escape from an abusive relationship? Are you going through a painful divorce? Don't expect any sympathy or real help from the "family Values" preacher because all he can say to you is that "divorce is against God's Word". You don't matter as a person, nor do your circumstances make any difference. As far as they are concerned, divorce is a sin, end of story, they say to you either openly or with innuendos. 

The need for more relevant Christian resources

From the many e-mails we receive a lot have to do with prayer / advice requests by Christians who are experiencing marriage breakdown and divorce. By reviewing the Christian resources available on-line in regards to Christian Marriage and Divorce I have noticed that many of them tend to make sweeping statements about these issues often in very simplistic terms. These resources seem to be more preoccupied with “upholding the truth” of their doctrinal positions about marriage and divorce than to actually offer any real help and support to those in need.

The same seems to be the case with some over-jealous Christian churches, especially in the Conservative Protestant branch of Christianity. They give the impression that all they care about is “looking good” and “keeping the show going” at any cost, often at the expense of basic human decency.

No one disputes that divorce is a bad thing, especially when there are children involved. No one enjoys divorce or breaking up his/her family. We don’t need the church to tell us that divorce or family breakdown is bad. We all know that. The last thing someone undergoing such a painful experience needs to hear is that on top of it all God has spat the dummy too. Yet, this is what many of these churches or “Christian recourses” do! They just rub anti-divorce Scriptures in people's wounds.

Of course there is plenty of ammunition available for those who seek to make the life of others more miserable than it already is. The Christian religion is heavily armed with Canons and Swords!

The Catholic Church has its Church/Canon law. The Orthodox Church also has its canons and ecclesiastical rules. The Protestant Churches have the “Sword”, that is, the Bible. History has revealed all these canons and swords as Weapons of Mass Destruction…

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not arguing against these Christian… weapon systems. No, what I am trying to say is this; All Christian " weapons" were made to serve humanity and not the opposite. Once again I feel compelled to emphasise that there is no blueprint for human behaviour. Contrary to some naïve claims by overjealous Christians, there is no Church Canon, Law or Scripture that can possibly cover the complexity of what we call “human experience”. The sacred writings of the Church ( Bible, Patristic literature, Canons, etc ) offer great insights but no absolutes. The human experience cannot, and should not, be codified. When St. Paul was writing his epistles to the churches he was offering them his spiritual insights and not some new laws written on tablets of stone. Absolutism is simply not the way to approach life, especially spiritual life.

Robert Brinsmead explains why human life cannot be served adequately by any written code, including Scripture: "Christianity failed to understand Paul's critique of life "under the law." He did not break with his old existence because it was Jewish. That part to him remained "holy, just and good" The deficiency of the law, according to Paul, lay in its form as "written text." (See Romans 7 and 2 Corinthians 3 ) No written text can give life, says Paul, not even if it is written by the super apostles in Jerusalem! Not even if it is written with God's own finger like the Ten Commandments! And we might add, Not even if there was a verbally inspired Bible! ( John 5:39) The real new testament, declares Paul in his letter to the Corinthians, cannot be written in ink. It can only be written by the spirit of God in people..."

He adds: "That which is laid out in a written text is laid out like a corpse. It may have the form of the truth just as a corpse has the form of a person. This may sound like a harsh judgment, but what it is intended to show is that the written text is an inadequate vehicle for the spirit of God. It should never be equated with God's Word which the New Testament says is "spirit and life."... Human life too transcends any written code. Millions of laws are enacted, revised, updated and redrafted through the legislative bodies of the world. The task is never done because it is not possible to create a system of law which does justice to the infinite variety of human situations. There will always come a time when carrying out the written code will lead to the neglect or abuse of the neighbour; there will always be a situation when blind obedience to what is written will be without human sensitivity and compassion, even (or especially) when it is God's law. As an old wisdom saying puts it, "Law is for the guidance of the wise and for the blind obedience of fools."... Spirit is always greater than letter" ( The Scandal of Joshua Ben Adam Part 8 by R. Brinsmead, VERDICT November 1998, Essay 1E )

How can the Church reduce divorce rates

How can Christian Churches become more effective in their defence of the marriage institution? How can marriage breakdown and divorce be prevented? 

Certainly not by threats of God's judgement! 

Using God, or His so-called "Judgements", as a scare tactic simply does not improve the moral condition of people. It is time for Churches to give up these ineffective tactics, since they do more harm than good, not to mention the blasphemy of portraying God as a fearful entity.

Religious threats simply don't do any good. Those desiring to sin, sin anyway and those who are trying to be the "good guys" because they fear God end up hating God even more. You cannot love someone you fear. Love and fear are mutually exclusive emotions. This is why racism is called xenophobia. You cannot (truly) love someone whom you fear. Ask any psychologist. Remember 1 John 4:18? "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The man who fears is not made perfect in love". Yes I know there are all these passages in the Bible that talk about the fear of the Lord, but hey, what can you do? These contradictions merely illustrate the human/fallible element of the Scriptures. This of course poses a problem for those who equate God with a book, but God is greater than all the books of the world, including "inspired" books like the Bible. The Bible is not the "infallible Word of God", since it has contradictions and errors, but it contains some pretty profound spiritual insights written down for our benefit by "heroes of the faith"! As someone puts it: "A literal approach to the Bible embalms it. The Bible's function (providing us with a diagnostic tool, a "litmus test" for life) is enhanced by its contradictions and ambiguities. It forces our minds to reach beyond the obvious and find new meanings and hidden teachings. The Jewish oral tradition fills in a lot of the blanks. The Zohar (Mystical Biblical commentary from Spain in the 1200's) says: "The stories in the Torah couldn't possibly be about what they seem to be about, otherwise we could write better stories!" (III 152a)."

Enough then with all those fear-based Scriptures. Scare tactics should be out of the question before or after divorce cases in the Church. In many marriage breakdown situations people who decide to do something wrong ( ie adultery, violence, neglect, abuse, abandonment, etc ), do it anyway regardless of threats about God's judgements. This is why they say to themselves "what the hell"... As for the victims, they are so hurt or angry that the last thing they need is religious threats. This is why they say "the hell with this"...

We could even generalise and say that any circumstances that are serious enough to cause marriage breakdown would override the "threat" language of religion. A neglected wife would be so angry she most likely won't  give a fig about metaphysical threats, unless of course she is a cult member and has been severely brainwashed with hellfire and brimstone threats.

If the Church cannot use threats, then what can it use? Let every minister and Church leader be the judge. If Christianity has nothing better to offer than ridiculous threats about an angry punishing deity than lets just give it all up and go home. 

The good news is that Christianity enjoys an inexhaustible source of real spiritual power. The problem is that for 2000 years we have been so busy scaring the hell out of people that we have often forgot the actual good news of Jesus' vision for a humanity of love and compassion. That's right, love, compassion, goodness, empathy, joy, forgiveness, and all those other wonderful spiritual powers given to mankind by a loving and compassionate God. If the Church has a job, it is nothing less and nothing more than to promote and nurture these spiritual powers ( the early Christians called them "virtues" ) that can transform not only individuals and families, but also whole communities and nations. This was Jesus' vision about God's Realm or Kingdom. A society of love & compassion. 

You cannot create a healthy relationship, family or community through strict rules, laws or codes, or commandments. Love is non-commandable. True Humanity is non-commandable. Even Jesus' so-called commandments were not so much commandments but invitations to embrace wholeness. He constantly encouraged and inspired people to rise above their circumstances and take upon themselves the glorious image of God. He never barked any orders. The only "commandment" he really gave was "to love one another". 

As Krossa explains, "Love is perhaps the most essential emotion for healthy human development. But it is impossible for love to exist in vertical relationships. Love can not be expressed through vertical forms of relating (superior/inferior, dominant/subordinate, or leader/follower relationships). Love only operates as genuine love in truly horizontal relationships where there is absolutely no coercion or threat from a superior. Love by its very nature requires freedom for spontaneous expression and can never be brought forth by command or coercion. Love as a truly human emotion is essentially grounded and developed in freedom which is the essential nature of humanity..."

Marriage is basically a relationship between two people. Promoting healthy marriages is then all about promoting healthy relationships. The Church is called to nurture healthy attitudes that will enable people to develop and sustain healthy relationships: "It is only possible to become fully human in relationship with others. It is in relationships with other people that we learn what it means to be human and to relate as truly human. In relationships with others, we learn to love, to forgive, and to tolerate diversity. We learn to identify ourselves as human and we learn to respond and act humanly from the inspiring example of others. Relationships or relating is the essence of human existence. There is no true human life aside from relationships with other humans" (see: What It Means To Be Human)

Life After Divorce

Life goes on. 

This does not mean divorce is a good thing. It just means that we are called to move on despite life's tragedies, whether they be death, divorce, separation or any other traumatic experience. We are also called to learn from our past mistakes and become "better" people. Many Christians become disappointed with God because after they acknowledge their errors, God does not miraculously mend their broken relationships. Even though they repent, say from being abusive, their wives still want to divorce them. God, it seems, does not intervene miraculously either to prevent or to cure broken relationships. Could it be that this is the price we pay for enjoying what theologians call "freedom of choice"? Bad things happen all the time everywhere around us. God does not stop (this is a great mystery) such tragedies from occurring, after all, we all die one day, and we are all separated in this life from our loved ones, but God sure does comfort and strengthen every human spirit during its short journey through the valley of tears until we all return back to God.

What can the Church do for those in it's care who happen to fall victims of tragedies like divorce? The answer of course is compassion, compassion and more compassion!

Dr. William Willimon says: "Unfortunately, the church’s good intentions in regard to marriage have often resulted in bad dealings with divorce. While denouncing divorce, we have expended too little effort on improving the quality of marriages, preparing people for marriage, and supporting couples in the midst of marital difficulties. We must admit to the hypocrisy of condemning divorce while at the same time condoning as “marriage” a relationship that is little more than a cynical armistice, a mutual state of boredom, an arrangement of legalized prostitution, or an excuse for the continued subjugation of women. Too often we have been blind to the difficulties in marriage, treated divorced persons as pariahs and, in general, approached the subject with the attitude that “nice people like us don’t get divorced.” But very many “nice people” in the church are getting divorced. If marriage involves a creative, courageous, demanding, risky act, then it also contains the possibility of failure. The acknowledgment of that failure is called divorce, and it is a tough decision to live through..."

He adds: "Our word to divorced persons must be that the failure and evil inherent in divorce (or any other human separation) would destroy us were it not for the fact that God keeps his promises and continues his love even when we break our promises and our love fails. The past cannot be erased, but it can be forgiven. Even the most grave wounds can be healed. Life’s painful actions of “last resort” can be done not by rationalizing away the difficulties of the moral situation but by firmly relying on the grace of God. “Love God and sin boldly,” Luther says. " ( see: The Risk of Divorce )

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For Views On Marriage and Divorce
From the Orthodox Church, The Catholic Church
 & The Protestant Church.
Click above

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For further reading on issues like marriage and divorce (mainly from a Protestant point of view) I have singled out some reading material from some mainstream sources.

More Protestant Resources/Articles

What Children Need to Know When Parents Divorce William L. Coleman
When read with a caring adult, this book can be the first step in bringing kids of divorce toward much-needed emotional healing...

Helping Children Survive Divorce Dr. Archibald Hart
Divorce doesn't have to cause harsh consequences that plague children all their lives. Learn what you can do to help children cope with the end of a marriage..

Life After Divorce Bobbie Reed
If you have to go through it, grow through it. Bobbie Reed did. She turned her divorce into a dynamic ministry to single and single-again adults. Here's her advice.

Divorce Recovery A Christian Ministry by Life Care.

MarriageDivorce.com A Christian Ministry concerning Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage – Christian Marriage Restoration.

 Theological Foundations is a marriage and theological reformation ministry offering teaching and resources to the Church.

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The Adults Only Sex Page Index
Introduction

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