A Question of Propriety

Yesterday a wedding took place. Before thinking that weddings take place all the time and that this is routine, I might point out that the bride is now a bride for the third time, a product of two divorces. The groom hooked up with his new bride while he was still married to another woman, and they established a residence together before he was divorced. During this time their children were presented to this new life together as “normal”.

The groom moved from the church his family attended and began attending another church not far away in the same town of the same denomination, the church his new girlfriend also attends. He has since become a member of that new church, and the pastor performed the wedding ceremony. Exactly how much this pastor knew of how their relationship came to be is not known to me, but I have a difficult time believing that if he had conducted premarital counseling sessions with these people he could not have discovered that by any description, this was and is an adulterous relationship.

While some may argue that he was merely performing the duties of his ministerial office and that the judgment to withhold his services is his alone, I would suggest that his greater responsibility would have been to refuse to perform the ceremony and tell them precisely why he would refuse. The greater duty of his office would be to administer the Word of the Lord to the entire congregation; instead, he offered to this couple and to his congregation the word of the world and our society which has grown more and more accepting of divorce and adultery.

This bothers me on a profound level because while I serve a small congregation as a part-time local pastor, my family is very much involved in the ministries of this church as is the couple who just got married. The congregation seems to have accepted this couple as legitimate while my perspective maintains that they are still in an adulterous relationship and that their marriage should be null and void in the eyes of the church and that their relationship is a means of "leaven" by which the entire congregation or those who are weak in the faith can be caused to stumble.

I recognize that there are many divorced and remarried Christians, including many of the clergy, but where is the line by which we determine that we will defend the integrity of the Scriptures no matter the cost? Or am I missing something that by the presence of the pastor, that which was once adulterous is now sanctified and holy?

It is my contention that this pastor has committed a grave disservice to this congregation by showing very publicly that if one is not satisfied with one’s spouse, one can “test the waters” while married, get another spouse if it works out, and then come and be blessed. This, to me, is a very bastardized and perverted concept that should be very foreign to the church especially since is it a direct reflection of worldly values, of the same world we should strive to reject.

Divorce is a reality, and I firmly believe that there are some divorces which are justified such as when abuse is present or when one partner continually violates the sanctity of the marriage bed by sleeping with others. Whether they are free to remarry according to Scripture may be the point of contention even though St. Paul suggests to the Corinthians that if the non-believer walks away, the believer is free to remarry. This is the premise of the Catholic practice of annulment, to make a determination of whether a holy union ever existed.

I am not suggesting that those who choose to end their marriages are forever condemned. I recognize that there are details of broken relationships that I am not qualified to address on any level. This particular relationship, however, is blatant because these persons are personally known to me, and this separation has been extremely contentious (I will refrain from other details to avoid naming the persons involved).

I do ask for a little perspective. There must be a dividing line by which we and those to whom we minister can tell the difference between that sanctified life which Christ calls us to and the life of this world we are challenged to reject.