Wives Adrift: A “High View” of Marriage Includes WHAT??

by Standerinfamilycourt

Who could ever forget the young Iranian-American pastor’s wife who traveled the country and courageously spent so much time in front of the powerful in her devoted effort to win her husband’s release from a cruel foreign prison as his health hung perilously in the balance?   Naghmeh has shed her covenant surname in the past year in response to her freed husband’s divorce petition.    As Pastor Saeed approached his sudden early-2016 release, tragic new allegations started to pour out of his wife, of abusive treatment by him toward her that dated back,  she says, to shortly after their wedding, of his addiction to pornography that began prior to his arrest and continued during the imprisonment, of adultery committed on the eve of his arrest in Iran,  and of restraining orders and legal separation papers filed in their home state, seemingly before the plane carrying him home to the U.S. had even touched down.    How did a man manage to continue as a pastor when his wife was filing for protective orders against him even several years ago?

By her own Facebook declaration, Naghmeh had fallen under the influence of an unbiblical “abuse” ministry which calls itself A Cry for Justice.  The purpose of this “ministry” seems to be to persuade wives who suffer any sort of actual or imagined abuse to file a unilateral divorce petition (which Naghmeh did not actually do, but instead she provocatively filed for a legal separation as her husband was enroute home)–and to feel no biblical remorse or concern for the soul of their spouse in doing so.  Further, if their church leadership disagrees with this course of action for any reason, they are to be deemed “misogynistic” and dismissed from any further authority or influence in the “victim’s” life.    {Core message:  this is too hard for our all-powerful God to handle in the time frame we desire, so by all means, make eternity-altering decisions based solely on your emotions, and take “justice” into your own hands.  (Love,  satan.) }

So appalled was “standerinfamilycourt” after viewing this group’s media pages, that a blog post was started, revised, torn up, started again — but alas, the timing didn’t seem quite right to expose the evil proselytizing of ACFJ while the raw emotions were carrying the day for this pair, without coming off as insensitive to the tragedy unfolding in the Abedini family.   The preservation of individual covenant families will always be far more important than anything “7 Times Around the Jericho Wall” will ever have to say on any topic.

Eighteen months later, we see this from a very wounded wife whose husband has effectively been biblically-disqualified for now, by satan’s schemes, from carrying on in his calling:

NaghmehPost
The article to which Naghmeh refers in her post appears on a blog page called Gentle Reformation (describing itself as “a cooperative effort by friends in the R&P faith-Reformed and Presbyterian-to speak the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in its many applications through the media of the internet“).    Written as an interview with Rebecca and William VanDoodewaard: she an author and he a seminary professor, it was entitled:   A High View of Marriage Includes Divorce“.     It was gratifying to see several members of the covenant marriage standers’ community gently correcting the fallacies in Naghmeh’s post, and correctly pointing out that only death, not divorce, will ever dissolve her holy matrimony covenant.   This is especially encouraging in light of Naghmeh’s page-following which currently stands at 81,611 souls.

Notwithstanding the fact that both of these denominations, Reformed and Presbyterian, labor under the exegetical falsehoods of the marriage clauses of the Westminster Confession, it seemed interesting to dissect this blog to see how it is that they figure something which Jesus declared man-made, and which He personally abrogated from the law of the  Old Testament, was somehow deemed “necessary”  to a “high view” of the holy ordinance which God defined, with indissolubility being one of the two essential attributes (Matthew 19:6) from the beginning.     Perhaps even more interesting is to investigate exactly what else these folks deem a “high view” of marriage to entail.

This exchange begins:

“God hates divorce, doesn’t He? Absolutely.  Isn’t the gospel about forgiveness and love? Yes, it is. And pastors and elders can use these two truths in isolation from the rest of Scripture and biblical principles to deny people divorce for biblical grounds. “But marriage is a precious thing,” one pastor told a woman whose husband was in prison for pedophilia. “It would be a wonderful picture of God’s grace to move on from this and focus on your marriage,” another one told the husband of an adulteress. “We’re working with him; he’s really struggling, and so you need to forgive him,” a session tells a woman whose husband has been using pornography for years.

“Evangelical and confessional churches are striving to maintain a high view of marriage in a culture that is ripping the institution to shreds. So extra-biblical barriers to divorce can be well-meant. They try to protect marriage by doing everything possible to avoid divorce. In doing so, they not only fail to keep a high view of marriage. They also spread lies about the gospel, divorce, the value of people, the character of God, and the nature of sexual sin.”

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   We can’t say it often enough:  Marriage heresy is born out of  (and actually gets its oxygen from)  the failure to grasp the crucial concepts of one-flesh and unconditional covenant that Jesus was describing in Matthew 19:6.    Any attempt to defend marriage permanence on any other basis falls flat against the emotionally-charged  arguments that are the very calling card of satan’s serial polygamy surrogates.    The aim, of course, is to loudly distract from the clarity of actual scriptural instruction, God-breathed and divinely given for a particular situation, because of a culturally distasteful (or doctrine-discrediting) element therein.    Both principles, one-flesh and unconditional covenant, are mutually exclusive of the man-made doctrine of “biblical grounds” for marriage dissolution--unless the divorce in question is a repenting divorce from a man-joined unlawful union with somebody else’s God-joined spouse.   It then becomes unnecessarily debatable who exactly it is “spreading lies” about the gospel, divorce, the value of people, the character of God, and the nature of sexual sin.

Evangelical and “confessional” churches (we suppose that’s those who follow the morally corrupt WC)  are actually maintaining the lowest possible view of marriage, perhaps the lowest since the days that Jesus and His cousin sharply rebuked Pharasaical  Israel over the same issues.     Evangelical churches fell into this apostasy about 50 years ago, and “confessional” churches have been practicing it since their mid-17th century inception.

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That said, let’s get into the “meat” of the VanDoodewaards’ argument, which is organized as four “lies” they endeavor to debunk.   The problem is that their own perceptions of each “lie” entail many more lies of their own when faithfully tested against scripture:

The first lie is that forgiveness means that the offended party is bound to continue living with the guilty party once there’s an apology.

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  SIFC:   While it’s entirely possible that pastors and church counselors who are either ignorant of the supernatural dynamic of one-flesh principles, or who erroneously define them, or who outright reject them as inconsistent with their “pastoral” dogma, may indeed give erroneous advice of this nature, but that does not mean that Jesus or Paul or Peter taught that an abused or at-risk party is bound to continue living with an abuser, as has been charged here  of those who are calling out this militant disobedience to scripture.   The additional problem is that the VanDoodewaards are here speaking merely of an offended party having a “right” to haul their one-flesh into a pagan courtroom for a “dissolution” certificate, and they are  implying that it’s acceptable in the sight of God to uproot one’s family just because one feels “offended” by their spouse.    Here we’re straying off into the subjective realm of “emotional abuse” (the fruit of self-focus; the idolatry of self-worship) where offense is purely in the eye of the beholder — which is very dangerous and unjust territory indeed.     Just because a person is “offended” does not mean their own heart attitude is at all acceptable to God.   Hard-heartedness (especially toward our one-flesh spouse) will cause a person to also harden their heart toward God — Who is also a holy Member of their unconditional marriage covenant.   (Yes, we unapologetically call it unconditional).

Hear what the Apostle (and the Holy Spirit) actually had to say on this point:

 But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband  (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife.
– 1 Corinthians 7:10-11

The poison-pill in this scripture, and deemed to be “misogyny” and “injustice”  by these “ministries”, is the remain celibate or else be reconciled commandment to which man has been trying for centuries to insert exceptions that the Holy Spirit apparently “omitted”.     It was likewise the “unbearable” poison-pill as perceived by the Reformation humanists, including John Milton, Martin Luther, John Calvin and Erasmus Desiderius.      This is not to say that there’s any evidence that Naghmeh is currently pursuing an illicit relationship, but her promotion of heretical “ministries” is surely coming as a stumbling block to many desperate, estranged spouses.    It is not compassionate, nor is it “merciful” to encourage anyone to saw chunks off the literal cross that we are called and allotted to carry as individual disciples, for this runs the tragic risk that our lightened and abbreviated cross will some day become too short to span the fiery gap over the perdition of self-worship (idolatry) into the kingdom of God.   


Wives in particular are told that God requires that they forgive a repentant spouse, which is true, and that this means that they need to stay in the marriage, which is not true.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:  Scripture tells us that the option to “choose” whether or not to “stay in the marriage” is not actually ours to make, be we a husband or a wife.   We ARE in the marriage, like it or not, until the physical death of one of the marriage partners, if we are indeed married in God’s sight.   The VanDoodewards are here conflating the biblically-allowed practice of a reconciliation-purposed season of separation, as God’s best for both spouses, with the purely man-made (and forbidden) practice of dragging a one-flesh spouse into a pagan courtroom to extract from them their property and God-assigned parental rights, based purely on our own allegations, where we know in advance that no evidence of those allegations will ever be required of us under our nation’s immoral “family laws”.    

It’s like saying to parents who discover that the babysitter molested their children: “Oh, but the sitter said sorry. It would be unloving to not ask them to watch the kids again. You need to demonstrate your forgiveness.” The argument is that Jesus forgave you and took you in: why can’t you do the same for a spouse? Because I am not God: I am human, too, and can’t atone for my spouse’s sin in a way that can restore an earthly marriage.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   We here encounter satan’s other timeless calling card:  the classic and spuriously-chosen false analogy.   Our relationship with the babysitter is not a supernatural and inseverable one-flesh relationship, nor an unconditional covenant relationship.   Therefore, forgiving and continuing to employ the babysitter can indeed be separate considerations, for they are not supernaturally joined to us for life, nor are they morally-bound to carry out an essential gender-specific role in the emotional wellbeing of our shared progeny, perhaps for generations to come.

It is godless to simply wash our hands of the soul of either person, whether they are our spouse or the babysitter.   The crucial difference is that living in permanent state of irreconciliation with the babysitter is unlikely to threaten his or her soul, while living in a permanent state of irreconciliation and estrangement with our one-flesh, joined-for-life, covenant partner is highly likely to damage or destroy that person’s soul along with the souls of our children and grandchildren — the very reason God hates the treachery and violence of man’s divorce of the spouse of our youth.        

Sacrificing a person to save a relationship is not the gospel. The gospel is that Someone was sacrificed to free us from sin and bring us to God. We cannot always bear the relational punishment for someone else’s sin.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   The first premise that needs to be closely scrutinized here is, what is meant by “sacrificing a person”?   What is exactly being “sacrificed” here?    Their feelings and emotions?   Their self-actualization?   Their self-esteem?   The ease and comfort of their life on this earth?     All of these things are purely humanistic,  and if they are derived from disobeying God’s commandments, instead of being found complete in Christ, they are God-substitutes.   In other words, the are idolatry.    Idolaters, we are are told twice by the Apostle, have no inheritance in the kingdom God.    Paul sternly warns us:  “Do not be deceived.”     Jesus, in fact, did bear the relational punishment for us.   How dare we mock His blood by claiming it’s not necessary or possible (under His supernatural enabling) to do the same for our one-flesh?     It’s not as if this undertaking was of our own accord, rather than divinely-commanded!  (See 1 Corinthians 7:11 above.)
The sacrifice we ought to be focused on is the sacrifice  of eternal souls, not the sacrifice of temporal comforts.   That’s the gospel!

As a matter of fact, the supernatural one-flesh entity is of itself a spiritual weapon deliberately designed by God, as is the three-way unconditional covenant to which GOD HIMSELF remains a party, even if both spouses choose to bail out.    That’s the primary reason why Paul can make the truly remarkable statement in 1 Corinthians 7:14:

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. 

Instead of self-actualization, the primary purpose of holy matrimony is for both spouses to help each other, and the generations of their progeny, to achieve their inheritance in the kingdom of God against the vast list of wicked desires along the way that would cause them to be deceived into forfeiting the same.    This divine purpose of true holy matrimony is to stand firm for a lifetime against satan and all of his wicked mouthpieces who would be so brazen as to suggest otherwise.
 

We can forgive them, and will if we are a Christian….Forgiveness is always the Christian thing to do, and it simply means that the guilty party is forgiven, not absolved from all earthly consequences.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   Here comes satan’s third unmistakable calling card:  the mixture of a small nugget of truth with a massive pack of lies.   Read on….(by the way, we are never called to deliberately inflict those consequences on the offender by our own self-serving choices and actions that directly disobey Christ’s very clear commandments.)

…but that doesn’t mean we have to live with them.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   Very true…see 1 Corinthians 7:11.   In fact, married disciples with a prodigal spouses may be called to a very long season of standing celibate and being a lighthouse for others, including their children and grandchildren.

You can forgive someone and divorce them.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:  Very untrue.   What did Jesus say?

He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart MOSES permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning IT HAS NOT (ever) BEEN THIS WAY.
– Matthew 19:8

Jesus had just taken the divorce-happy Pharisees, with their similar network of wicked, man-manufactured laws, not back to the law of Moses’ wickedness-management found in Deuteronomy, but back instead to the other famous writing of the same Moses — Genesis 2:21-24.   

Scripture commands forgiveness where there is repentance

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:  Very untrue.   What did Jesus actually say?

Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions.
– Mark 11:25

Scripture actually commands of mortal men and women unconditional forgiveness, while leaving room for God to impose any consequences on them.     Forgiveness hinging on repentance is a prerogative  reserved for the Most High alone.   

…but it never requires that a relationship be continued in the way that it was before covenant was shattered.

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC:  An unconditional covenant to which the Lord of Hosts, the God of Angel Armies is a direct party cannot possibly be “shattered” — it can be violated and badly-bruised, but according to the word of God, the only thing that actually breaks such a covenant is physical death.    These authors show profound misunderstanding of  the nature of God’s covenants, as well as the integrity of His character in His acting within them.    

This lie of “forgiveness” places the burden on the innocent party. The sinner gets counsel, support, help, and prayer, while the sinned-against gets pressure, guilt, and a crushing future.  Acceptance is often labelled the “Christian” thing to do.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   The only reason this appears to be true is directly due to the disobedience and carnality of the contemporary churches who should be faithfully obeying the commandment to apply church discipline, according the instruction in Matthew 18:15-18 and 1 Corinthians 5.    Their failure to do this does not create a license for us to willfully disobey Christ’s clear commandments to us as individuals.    What’s being overlooked here is that God’s justice doesn’t always occur within the time limits we arrogantly set for Him.    What’s being overlooked is the bounds of  our job versus the power and remit of the Holy Spirit to change hearts, ours and our spouse’s.

As for this burden on the innocent party,  what did Jesus say?

 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
– Matthew 11:29-30

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.    The “burden” that is alleged here to be wrongfully transferred to the victim is actually transferred to the holy and all-powerful Third Participant in the unconditional covenant of holy matrimony,  making this a false charge, and essentially calling God a liar.

 

Since Christ gave divorce as an option in some circumstances, divorce can be the Christian thing to do, too.

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC:  There are no circumstances where Christ gave divorce as an “option”.    There are, however, circumstances where Christ gave man’s divorce as a commandment:   to  repent of an adulterous civil-only union with somebody else’s God-joined, estranged spouse.   This is the sole instance where man’s divorce is the “Christian thing to do”, because several souls are in danger of hell otherwise, including one’s own.

The second lie is implied: God hates divorce more than He hates abuse and sexual sin. To put the lie a different way, God loves marriage more than He loves the women in it.

FB profile 7xtjw SIFCWe assure the readers: this implication is exclusively that of these authors, and does not necessary represent the opinion of the Most High.     After a long season of depravity, a penitent Solomon found out what really “yanks God’s chain”, to-wit:

There are six things which the Lord hates,
Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that run rapidly to evil,
A false witness who utters lies,
And one who spreads strife among brothers.
– Proverbs 6:16-19

(We would humbly suggest that both the “Reformed” authors, and all those who harken after them, have committed some of these abominations just in the course of this article, not the least of which are:  misrepresenting the word of God, and coming between one-flesh covenant partners with their heresy.)

While God created marriage, loves marriage, and says that it is a picture of Christ’s relationship with the church, Jesus didn’t die to save marriage. He died to save people. He sacrificed His life to protect His sons and daughters, and hates when they are abused, violated, and humiliated, particularly in a relationship that is supposed to picture Christ and the church.

This fact is especially true for women, who suffer at the hands of men whose actions mock servant leadership and so blaspheme the name of the Christ whom they are called to represent.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   Pssst…The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!  For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Who, therefore, said retribution was to be left in our own hands?  Certainly not Jesus!

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.   Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
– Matthew 5:10-12

Do any of us dare to re-manufacture Jesus Christ to our own specifications?

Denying a woman legitimate divorce allows an unrepentant man to continue in this abuse and blasphemy.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   Biblically speaking, this would only be true of a woman who is in a remarriage which Jesus repeatedly called adulterous, and the man-part is true of her adultery partner to whom God’s hand has never joined her at all.   This is the only woman “entitled” to a legitimate divorce (and only because this never was a “marriage” in God’s eyes to begin with).   This man is the true mocker and blasphemer so piously referenced above.   

If we want to value and treat marriage rightly, we need to think about Jesus!

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:  No arguments here, provided the “Jesus” in question is the real Jesus of the bible.   This would be the Jesus who proclaimed man’s divorce not only immoral but actually impossible with regard to God-joined holy matrimony unions.

His care for His Church is not an abstract idea. We see it lived out in the gospels every day in purity, tender care for widows, and intolerance of the Pharisees who thought they could be right with God while checking out beautiful women at the market. Christ’s love for His church found very concrete expression on the cross—willingness to die to save His beloved people. Yes, God hates divorce. And there are some things that He hates even more.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC: Repeating a false premise does not render it true …As already discussed above.

The third lie is that divorce is an unclean thing

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SIFC:  Man’s divorce is of no effect at all, clean or unclean, with regard to God-joined holy matrimony.    It is a clean thing indeed (repentance) with regard to legally terminating non-marriages, that is with regard to disentangling from legalized sodomy, from legalized adultery, and from whatever legalized abominations lie ahead as further foul fruits of the Protestant “Reformers” heinous acts redefining of marriage back in the 16th century.

…often the fault of the innocent party.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:  The innocent party remains accountable to obey God’s laws regardless of the degree of abuse or suffering that has gone before, or that which results as a consequence of obeying Christ.   The purported efforts to “dissolve” holy matrimony are always satan’s fault, but he’s limited to working through disobedient and / or deceived human instruments.   

This is a misunderstanding of divorce. Divorce is not the innocent party ending a marriage. Divorce is the innocent party obtaining legal recognition that the guilty party has destroyed the marriage.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   Well and good, but nothing is actually dissolved in that event.   God word couldn’t possibly be clearer that only death “destroys” holy matrimony, regardless of what man’s paper says.

So often, we see the divorcing person as the one who ends the marriage—they are not! Where there has been sexual unfaithfulness, abuse, or abandonment, it is the guilty party who ended it by breaking covenant.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC : 
  See above.   Who misunderstands man’s divorce?

While legitimate divorce is not mandatory, it is a biblical option, on moral par with maintaining the marriage.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:  On the contrary, the only legitimate use of man’s divorce is not, in fact, “optional”.   It IS mandatory.    Jesus and Paul both made very clear that everyone who dies in the immoral state of being legally “married” to the God-joined spouse of another living person (that is, adulterersMatt. 5:32b; 19:9b and Luke 16:18b)  will wake up in hell.

The 1992 report by the PCA study committee on divorce and remarriage comments:

It is also interesting to recall in this connection Jeremiah 3:8, where Yahweh is said to divorce Israel for her spiritual adultery (idolatry):―“I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries.” If God himself can properly divorce his bride because of adultery, then, given Christ’s unqualified adherence to the authority of the Old Testament, it seems difficult to conclude that Jesus would not have had similar words on his own lips. (218)


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SIFC:  
The biblical illiteracy of the above statement is truly breath-taking!  It reflects not only (a probably feigned) ignorance of Israel’s culture and history, but also an arrogant presumption that most of us won’t open our own bibles and keep reading past verse 8 to verse 14 where the same Lord tells Israel, “Return to me, for I am your husband.”     God did NOT drag Israel into a courtroom to economically and morally abandon her!    He temporarily severed the kiddushin betrothal that existed between them until she repented.   Both modern history and the totality of prophecy clearly shows that God did not “divorce” Israel.  To say otherwise is crass Replacement Theology, which is one of the many wicked heresies of mainstream denominations.    Furthermore, we have no need whatsoever to speculate what Jesus might have said because we know precisely what He DID say (repeatedly) .

The church needs to be clear about this: legitimate divorce is holy and biblical if God Himself can speak of initiating it.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   This is shameful direct slander of God, because Jesus made it more than abundantly clear that only man initiated divorce, not God.    Matthew 19:8.

 

Divorce does not end a covenant.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   Correct!   Only death dissolves an unconditional covenant in which God is a participant.


It protects the spouse whose covenant has been violated—a picture of covenant protection in the face of human unfaithfulness.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   Correct again!  The only biblically lawful form of man’s divorce legally disentangles a covenant spouse from an immoral but legally-sanctioned relationship with someone other than their true spouse so that the violated rights and wholeness of the covenant family can be restored in this life.   Happens all the time, actually.

Always discouraging divorce, always making it a last, desperate option that really fails to show gospel power, implies that we know more about marriage than God does and value it more highly. If there are legitimate reasons for divorce, then making divorce look like a lesser option is wrong. God allows it: who are we to discourage people from choosing a biblical option?

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   The only legitimate reasons for man’s divorce have already been discussed above.

The fourth lie usually involved in this discussion is about pornography. It is often classified as not technically adultery, so spouses are denied the biblical right to divorce. This is mind boggling.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   Moot point.   Covenant spouses are divinely denied the “biblical” right to divorce for ANY reason, because only death, not adultery nor pornography, dissolves the covenant.    Aside from that, Jesus said:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’;  but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.  If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
– Matthew 5:27-28

So, Jesus also equated head-lust with adultery, as the authors correctly do, but this still does not create any biblical right to man-made divorce as a remedy for pornography addiction any more than adultery does.

(The rest of this section goes on to elaborate how heinous and destructive porn addiction is, and nobody would disagree, so we will skip all that, except to mention the dishonesty of the authors in  implying that not to obtain man’s  divorce from such a person is somehow “countenancing” the addiction and is “reflecting poorly” on the gospel.   The two matters are not objectively related, and one of them isn’t even a reality in the kingdom of God.)

Do you see how these lies, sometimes borne out of a desire to protect marriage, actually bring about a low view of marriage? By granting, supporting, and even facilitating a biblical divorce, we take a stand to say that we can forgive without being forced to live with people who have shattered us.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   This is dishonest and conflates terms again.  It is not necessary to obtain a false court statement purporting to “dissolve” what God’s word repeatedly tells us only physical death can dissolve, in order to enter into a protective separation where safety and peace compels it.    No paper ever protected anyone from anything, ever.    There is no such thing as a “biblical divorce” unless it’s repenting of a biblically-unlawful union, one that violates any aspect of Matthew 19:4-6.

This protects marriage by allowing the innocent party to leave a relationship that has been broken. By backing biblical divorce, we protect women whom God loves, showing Christ’s love when spouses have not. This protects marriage by refusing to allow sinners to abuse the institution with impunity.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:   Contorted reasoning, not too unlike what was recently offered up by a Catholic author in his ridiculously untenable effort to morally  justify the abomination of church-granted  “annulment” (the arrogant practice of retroactively issuing an ecclesiastical  paper which presumes to inform God whom He did and did not supernaturally join as one-flesh).
This Catholic deacon wrote:

“Annulments Serve the Truth of Indissolubility
It’s going to sound counterintuitive, but the Church’s annulment process exists to preserve the truth of the indissolubility of marriage. This sacred truth is so important that an explicit process to determine whether marital consent should be declared `null’ is absolutely necessary. Why? To maintain the other side of that coin—those occasions when marital consent cannot be declared null.”
Deacon Jim Russell, Archdiocese of St. Louis,  Crisis Magazine, July 5, 2017.

If “annulments”  are so “necessary” to uphold the indissolubility of holy matrimony, why is there no mention of this practice in the New Testament nor in the historical accounts of the 1st through 4th century church?    Similarly, why is there no sanctioned or approved mention of the practice of obtaining a government-issued “dissolution” paper in scripture in order to uphold the “honor” of holy matrimony, especially in light of the clear commandment which Paul gave in 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 ?   

I’m sure there’s a formal label for this fallacious form of debate, because it insults the reader’s intelligence, but SIFC is not intelligent enough today to recall what this maneuver is called.    The general outline of this fallacy of logic goes like this:

“It is a valuable service we do, to mint counterfeit $20 bills, otherwise you’d have no way to verify that your authentic $20 bill is authentic. “

 

By publicly stating that sexual sin and abuse, not wounded spouses, ends marriages, we hold the marriage bed in honor. This protects marriage by creating a holy fear of violating it.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:  By publicly stating that sexual sin and abuse, not wounded spouses, “ends” marriages you are denying the biblical truth that only physical death ends marriages.      By promoting serial polygamy, you are pretending to hold the marriage bed in honor, but you are actually desecrating it.    Such things are heart issues, and by encouraging people to do what Jesus Christ clearly forbade, taking our own vengeance, you flatter yourself that you are “creating a deterrent”, but what you are actually doing is interfering with true discipleship while causing real souls to hang in the balance.

By offering biblical divorce, the church affirms that pornography is depravity, and will not be countenanced by Christ’s church. Naming and disciplining sexual sin as the evil it is and offering divorce to the innocent party makes the value of marriage clear as we refuse to see it damaged, abused, or treated lightly.

FB profile 7xtjw SIFC:  Sorry, but man’s divorce is certainly not the remedy prescribed by Christ nor by the apostles.   This is:

 “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.  But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed.   If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
– Matthew 18:15-17

 “I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindle not even to eat with such a one.  For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”
– 1 Corinthians 5:9-13

Because of the inserverability except by death, of the one-flesh entity created by the hand of God, and because of the indissolubility of the three-way covenant in which God remains holy Participant even if both spouses abandon it,  man’s divorce is of no effect in the kingdom of God, but EXCOMMUNICATION is of very real effect,  for both Jesus and Paul would not have explicitly prescribed it.  Wives were never called to take their own revenge or rise up legally against the worst of husbands.   Proper resorting to the criminal justice system where necessary, submitting to biblical church discipline (if offered — which we know cannot be assumed)  and protective separation while caring for the soul of that prodigal spouse is what godly wives are called to do.

Yes, some of the godless rage against the evangelical church coming from militant feminist / humanist theologians like the carnal VanDoodewaards and from groups like “A Cry for Justice”  certainly seems justified in a sense, but make no mistake,  the remedy they demand for it is of satan.   Where was the leadership of Saeed’s home church in Boise years before her husband went to Iran, when his desolate wife was finding it necessary to file a domestic violence restraining order (a public record) ?    What was their excuse for leaving him in the position of a pastor under those circumstances, with apparently no church discipline invoked at that time?

 

Developing and maintaining a high view of marriage does a lot. It protects women and children, often the people most hurt by sexual sin. It keeps us from falling into sin ourselves: the higher our view of marriage, the less likely we will be to dabble in something so devastating. And a high view of marriage honors the One who created it for our good and His glory—the One who promises to judge the adulterer and the sexually immoral.

FB profile 7xtjw  SIFC:  Agreed, which is why we reject carnal, humanistic solutions and follow only God’s written instructions.    There is no such thing as a “high view of marriage” without submitting to its no-excuses attribute of indissolubility, because every kind of adultery sends people to hell.   Yes, God promises to judge the adulterer and the sexually immoral, but the objective should be to promote the offender’s repentance so that they don’t die in that state and so that they escape that eternal judgment in favor of the loss of lesser crowns.    At the same time, all biblical care needs to be taken to avoid turning the innocent spouse into just as vile an adulterer.

Please pray for all members of the Abedini family, keeping in mind that the real enemy is satan, his demons and his “mouthpieces”.    Pray, too, that the Lord would remove all unsavory, unwholesome  company from the lives of both spouses ( 1 Corinthians 15:33) and that Holy Spirit conviction also would fall on all those Naghmeh is influencing during this season in which she herself has fallen under the demonic power of her wicked influencers.

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men [ and women] as these.   For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the  knowledge of the truth.
– 2 Timothy 3:1-7

 

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7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |  Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!

Our Response to “Don’t Divorce…” (Dr. Diane Medved) as Reviewed by Mike McManus – Part 2

DontDivorcePt2by Standerinfamilycourt

OUR RESPONSE TO PART 2

It seems, to the seasoned covenant marriage stander community, that Dr. Medved’s book is one casting about for an audience that probably doesn’t exist, despite its wholesome message.   This seems to be attributable to the mythical premise of the “low conflict” struggling marriage, which those of us who have “been there” know probably doesn’t exist, as we commented in our response to Part 1. Many excellent points were made in McManus’ review with which we cannot argue at all, so our approach will be to touch on the handful with which we cannot completely agree:

RE: Some church members seem almost determined to divorce. They are unhappy and think that if they end their marriage, they can find a better mate. What should a pastor say to them? Or what should he say to a spouse whose partner wants out?

OUR SUGGESTION: Ask a very vital question: whether either partner has a prior estranged living spouse.

If the answer is yes, resolve not to stand in the way of separation and repentance from this adulterous union, and give them a copy of Have You Not Read?” by Ohio pastor Casey Whittaker.    Explain that pastoral accountability before the Lord (and theirs as disciples) is to encourage reconciliation of the original covenant union, and full chastity until such time as the Lord enables it.

If the answer is no, share Matthew 19:6, 8 with them and explain that man’s divorce is never God’s dissolution. Explain that if either of them remarries, they are at high risk of going to hell, since Jesus defined the state of ongoing adultery in terms of marrying a divorced person whose spouse is still living.   Explain the process of church discipline according to Matt. 18:15-18, and explain that it will be carried out if there occurs an adulterous violation of the marriage covenant. The church member who is determined to divorce is, more often than not, already in an adulterous relationship.    At that point, Satan is in control and spiritual warfare, plus effective church discipline is going to be needed.   Most churches will not willingly carry out this non-optional pastoral responsibility, and when they do, it’s typically in defense of the adulterous remarriage rather than the God-joined covenant union which may have occurred before a person’s conversion.   When they do carry it out, it’s all too easy for the offenders to simply go down the street where few or no questions will be asked and where the true word of God is unlikely to confront them.    In the rarity that the church member is determined to divorce because they want their covenant family back, and they realize from God’s word, rightly divided, that their soul is hanging in the balance so long as they remain in their adulterous faux “marriage”, they are likely to be met with the misappropriation of Malachi 2:16, and undeserved censure.

 

RE: If your partner wants to leave, ask some questions: “What can I or we do to make our marriage more satisfying to you? Are you attracted to someone else? What can I improve about my habits or behavior that would show you I value you?”

This is sound advice only if this is a God-joined covenant union, and not its remarriage counterfeit, following a prior divorce on either side. Such an approach, however, in the event that it fails may make the actual biblical prescription – the exercise of church discipline, more difficult for the prodigal spouse to endure later without bitterness. If there is another person involved (which is the case far more often than not), don’t expect to be told the truth even if the prodigal spouse had previously been a very truthful person.

In the case of a remarriage, there is no way such questions can or should overcome either the Holy Spirit-inspired restlessness that could be pushing a person who is somebody else’s spouse toward repentance, nor the innate character flaw that creates serial infidelity in an unregenerated person, which is a heart issue that only God can change, and when He does, it will be for the benefit of the true spouse.   It is normal for 60-70% of serially-polygamous unions to break apart, and if they did not, many more people would perish in hell.

RE: Dr. Medved’s further advice….”take small incremental changes, and ask your partner if he/she sees improvements. Increase the number of favorable emotions, gestures and interchanges. Increase the percentage of your time together that is close and supportive.   For example, have a weekly date – doing something you both enjoy.”

Many Christian couples were doing all of these things habitually, yet one spouse still was pulled toward an adulterous relationship outside the marriage.   Certainly, these things should be elements of any marriage, but the societal and legal incentives toward literal spouse-poaching are such that by the time it’s noticeable that something is amiss, it’s often too late for the onset of these suggestions to make any difference. In fact, even getting sufficient time with a prodigal spouse to accomplish any of these will be such a challenge that it will create a contentious situation in and of itself.   What we see playing out these days is exactly as Jesus described would be happening during the wicked last days:

“Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.  Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.  But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.” Matthew 24:11-13

The danger comes when the suggested efforts are rebuffed, and the spouse who is committed to the marriage is then tempted to believe they’ve done everything they possibly can to save the marriage if man’s divorce occurs despite their efforts.    The following is an except from the author’s  introduction to the book, which illustrates our point well:

There’s a pattern here: One person’s not happy or sees an opportunity with someone else. The other one is rejected, with no recourse except for “mopping up” therapy and the consolation of friends.

I’m thinking of Jacquie, who thought she had a secure, happy marriage to Kevin. She taught part-time at a preschool, securing reduced tuition for their daughter and son, and was taking college classes for her teaching credential. She was the mom who brought decorated cupcakes for holidays; she was the teacher who decorated the classroom with kids’ photos and her own drawings of book characters. And she was the wife who arranged her schedule to be home to greet her husband when he arrived.

Until the afternoon he told her about his other relationship and started to pack, blindsiding Jacquie and blasting apart her world. She had no clue. He’d been emailing, texting, and ultimately hooking up with a client, and she’d missed it all, blithely trusting him, immersed in the sweet innocence of her child-centered world.

“Isn’t there anything I can do?” she pleaded when he told her. “You’re just going to leave our family and go off?” That was exactly the plan. I call it “chop and run,” a common and cruel tactic, very effective because the chopper can escape discussion, tears, and negotiation. He was out, and his blameless, loving wife, who’d done nothing but provide a wholesome, happy home, was suddenly thrust into single parenthood. Kevin paid the bills and gave Jacquie the house and tore her heart out every time he came to the door with the kids—especially when she could see his new love interest waiting in the car. That divorce served no purpose other than fulfilling Kevin’s selfish quest for excitement.

All their friends treated the split matter-of-factly. “Kevin dumped you for a girlfriend? Gosh, Jacquie, that’s awful. What a turd. You need anything? Maybe our kids can get together next week.” Yep, that was as much as they could do. In our no-fault culture, fulfilling one’s desires is legitimate. Just go for it; this is your only life. Outsiders didn’t want to get involved in Jacquie’s and Kevin’s “personal business.” Maybe Jacquie didn’t give Kevin what he needed.

Except that she did. He’d never complained or asked her to behave differently. Their disagreements were few and quickly resolved, mainly because Jacquie willingly adjusted to please him. Kevin wasn’t looking for someone new, but when the opportunity arose, he just responded to the advances made. And while he loved his kids, his need to be there for them didn’t seem as urgent as grabbing the brass ring dangling in front of him. They’d be all right. After all, Jacquie was such a great mom.

This “great mom” was devastated. She’d been living in a fantasy world and didn’t even know it. She was rejected because of Kevin’s narcissism and desire for fresh sex and adoration, but also because he knew he could take off to pursue excitement and nobody would censure him. Everybody would be an “adult.” The lawyers would meet, they’d sign the papers, and that would be it. As long as he acceded to Jacquie’s demand for custody and financial support, he could move on and see his kids on Saturdays—he could “have it all.”

Again, in the case of a true covenant marriage, it may be unavoidably necessary to stand celibate for a number of years, understanding that the concept of divorce is entirely man-made and dissolves nothing, and that God Himself has covenanted with the sacred union (Malachi 2:13-14) so He will defend it in the spiritual realm toward restoration.   The reason is exactly as described in Ephesians 6, we fight not against flesh and blood but powers, principalities and dark forces in the heavenly realms.   Contrary to the heretical belief rampant in the contemporary church, no amount of man’s paper ever converts adultery to holy matrimony.   One glaring area of omission and naivete by both Medved and McManus is their apparent lack of awareness that it’s not at all unusual for an adulterous estrangement with abandonment to go on for several years before a divorce petition is filed by the offending spouse, if the non-offending spouse is obeying God and not dragging their one-flesh partner into a pagan courtroom under any circumstances.

 

RE: If there are no children, divorce simply entails a division of assets. If children are involved, there is also a division of time and money far into the future. Holidays, birthdays and family celebrations require planning.

This analysis is a bit too simplistic.   If there are no children, there may still be adult children, and the very same issues will ensue for the next generation, plus a few more.   If, on the other hand, the marriage was actually childless, the divorce still entails elements far more priceless and irreplaceable than merely dividing physical assets.   For Christ-followers, it entails the burden of the battle for the very soul of our one-flesh life partner, that entails all-out spiritual warfare which is exhausting on a daily basis, and often goes on for many years.

If there are either minor children or minor grandchildren, there is the additional issue of dangerous, immoral exposure to an adulterous relationship and the imperative need to tell the children why the relationship is immoral, rather than giving in to the extreme societal pressure to treat it as the “new normal”.   Children need to be told this in an age-appropriate way, such as telling the story from the bible of the beheading of John the Baptist for rebuking the adulterous “marriage” of Herod and Herodias.   Brace for the wicked, howling censure of society after doing so, but it is far better to fear and obey God, rather comply with the sinful mores of men.   Children need to learn that adultery cannot be legalized in God’s eyes, that it will lead to an eternity in hell if it is not ultimately repented of by termination of the relationship, and this is why mom or dad or grandma or grandpa is never going to remarry while their original marriage partner is still living.

RE: In her landmark book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, Judith Wallerstein interviewed 131 children from 60 divorced families over 25 years, with intensive interviews every five years. She was surprised to discover that repercussions of divorce hit hardest when children became adults.

Very true, and no different than we are warned of in the bible concerning generational sin, so the content of Judith Wallerstein’s book should come as no surprise.   No doubt the Old Testament scourge of concurrent polygamy had similar effects, as we see played out in the lives of Jacob’s and of David’s children. A more recent book, Primal Loss, by Leila Miller explores the emotional turmoil of 70 interviewed adult children of divorce in depth of detail and in their own words.

The primary value in books like Medved’s will be with non-adulterous families.   By that we mean, the rare troubled marriage where there is no extramarital activity going on, and the marriage itself is not a remarriage where there is an estranged prior spouse who is the true one-flesh companion of one of the remarried partners.    Unfortunately, that is not the situation that predominates today in a society so immoral that leader-sanctioned adultery predominates both inside and outside most churches.      Where there is a threat from an extramarital relationship, or the assumed “marriage” was adulterous from its inception due to an undissolved true holy matrimony covenant, God’s accurate word must be brought to bear instead, before there can be a positive impact.   It will be interesting to see in the book whether Medved is aware of the fact that 80% of divorces granted today are forced divorces where one partner objected, as McManus correctly pointed out in his review.   That automatically makes Medved’s audience only 20% of the pool, and as we pointed out, the remarried portion of that 20% segment should not be discouraged from moving toward a repenting divorce, and the rebuilding of their true family.

The primary danger in books like Medved’s is that the victims are being blamed rather than the system being adequately reformed.
It will not do to tweak an unconstitutional law in a way that benefits only a small segment of society while leaving the 1st and 14th Amendment violations on the books for everyone else, and which does nothing to reform the corruption in the churches that arose as as a result of illicit doctrinal efforts to accommodate the immoral law .

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7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |  Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce!
 

 

 

 

Our Response to “Don’t Divorce…” (Dr. Diane Medved) as Reviewed by Mike McManus – Part 1

DontDivorcePt1by Standerinfamilycourt

Our friends at the Illinois Family Institute recently posted an endorsing review penned by marriage advocate Michael McManus founder of the organization called Marriage Savers, of the new book, “Don’t Divorce: Powerful Arguments for Saving and Revitalizing Your Marriage”  by Dr. Diane Medved.     Michael is a journalist who has for several years travelled the country and lectured in churches with various strategies for reducing the overall divorce rate among families with minor children.   Diane is a PhD clinical psychologist and the wife of cultural media critic Michael Medved.     Both of them are certainly knowledgeable about the toxic effects of unilateral divorce on the lives of children long after they reach adulthood,  and on society as a whole.    However, both of them treat unilateral divorce as a “given”, an immoveable mountain that must be appeased and “managed” rather than picked up and thrown into the sea.    Both became interested in the topic due to forces external to their respective marriages, and (significantly), neither has ever experienced any serious threat or disruption so far to their long, happy marriages.    Hence, both the book and the review column are written based solely on vicarious experiences.   The world looks substantially different when you are bearing the heart-crushing burden of soul concern for your one-flesh, however, according to the biblical warnings.     (As I understand it, the Medveds are Jewish, and Mr. McManus is an evangelical, and possibly a Calvinist one.)

In fairness to Dr. Medved, “Standerinfamilycourt” has read only a few reviews of the book and watched a couple of interviews, but has not actually read the book.    This response is solely based on the content of McManus’ recent review in his column, Ethics and Religion  in Parts 1 and 2.

OUR RESPONSE TO PART 1

The advice in this article to repair one’s marriage at all costs is excellent — provided that the “marriage” in question doesn’t fit the description of ongoing adultery that Jesus repeated without “exceptions” on three different occasions, in Matt.5:32b; Matt.19:9b, and Luke 16:18b where He says that EVERYONE who marries a divorced person enters into this state of sin. For this very reason, some 50-60 years ago, most pastors and all but the most liberal denominations would never have permitted such a wedding.
Unfortunately, given the statistics cited within, and the relativistic outright moral collapse of the church in this realm, Jesus’ description fits at least 40% of today’s “marriages” where warm bottoms are occupying church pews and bolstering the offering plates.  But far more unfortunately, Paul warns at least twice that those who die unrepentant in this state of sin will forfeit their inheritance in the kingdom of God. You’ll never hear this from behind a pulpit, but Jesus Himself gives what amounts to the same warning at least twice, and in far more blunt fashion. (See Matt. 5:29-30 and ignore the man-inserted headings intended to chop up what Jesus was saying, as though this was a separate thought from His “next” topic, divorce. Ditto when you read Luke16:18-31 – about as graphic as Jesus could possibly have been on the matter, both making Paul’s twin admonitions in 1 Cor. 6:9-10 and Gal.5:19-21 seem pretty bland in comparison.)

A good rule of thumb is to never give a divorced-and-remarried couple (where there is at least one living, civilly-estranged true spouse) any family advice that wouldn’t also be perfectly suitable for all of the souls involved in a homosexual “marriage”. It is never good for the children to see what Jesus plainly called adultery normalized in the day-to-day life of their parents, especially in the name of Jesus, and it’s not good for society as a whole. Far better for the mother of children, who misguidedly “married” another woman’s God-joined husband, to exit that illicit union and marry an eligible widower or never-married man, (if she herself is not estranged from the true husband of her youth).   A growing number of men and women we counsel with are coming to the truth of what they’ve done, and are terminating their adulterous unions, some of which involve non-covenant children born thereto. We always strongly advise them never to do this unilaterally (as the immoral civil law permits), but to heed Paul’s instructions in 1 Cor. 6:1-8 to stay out of pagan “family court” by separating under a responsible financial plan, then being patient until they are able to arrive at a mutually-filed petition with terms and ongoing responsibilities mutually agreed, even if their church is not supportive. Though many such men and women could righteously go on to marry a never-married or widowed person, the vast majority are reluctant to even have the appearance of remarriage adultery on them ever again.

McManus and his Marriage Savers organization, with whom we’ve previously corresponded, has for years advocated a tweaking of the unilateral divorce laws to restrict so-called “no-fault” grounds to households where there are no minor children. That may seem like a good, humanistic quick-fix, but Christ-followers should have some major issues with that approach, including:

(1) the ridiculous implication that covenant grandparent marriages are less valuable to a profoundly broken and crumbling society than parent marriages and therefore less deserving of the 1st and 14th amendment protections that ALL marriages should be enjoying.

(2) this approach seems less likely to encourage a biblical solution to the homes where there is documentable abuse or unfaithfulness, that is, separating (rather than divorcing — since only death actually “dissolves” a true marriage) remaining unmarried or being reconciled (1 Cor. 7:11) and relying on the biblical process of church discipline (Matt. 18:15-18).   In the absence of availability of “no-fault” grounds due to the presence of children, this will increase the focus on fault-based cases with the objective of adulterous remarriage. Churches should be materially caring for these families as necessary to keep them out of adulterous remarriages, and should be encouraging more criminal enforcements in such cases.

(3) By the statistics cited within, there are some 800,000 U.S. marriages a year that have suffered the impairment of precious 1st amendment freedom of conscience and free exercise of faith protections, as well as child and property confiscation where there is no objective fault, in violation of the 14th amendment protections which invariably result from forced “dissolution”.   McManus’ proposal might shave off as many as half of these on a postponed basis, but might also discourage natural or adoptive parenthood under the law of unintended consequences, just as today the unilateral dissolution laws are discouraging young marriage altogether, and instead encouraging cohabitation–as many studies are now showing.

(4) The very concept of “low conflict marriage” is for all practical purposes bogus if one spouse is serious about wanting out.
God Himself called all attempts at covenant marriage dissolution treacherous and violent! If there is either adultery or financial covetousness stealing away the marriage, as is typically the case, this is actually a high-conflict situation, but even high conflict doesn’t invalidate the married-for-life indissolubility of that union, as McManus’ concept seems to imply.   Often such profound conflict, especially in an environment of ready, unilateral access to man’s “dissolution” papers, is neither loud nor outwardly violent in the conventional sense.

If churches truly came to grips with the biblical fact that our nation’s profoundly immoral civil “family” laws (and their own inexcusable complicity with those laws) has literally sent millions of unwitting souls to hell over the past 5 decades who thought they were “saved”, would we really be talking about merely “tweaking” these laws? Would we not instead be packing the church buses with people and signs, as we did a mere 3 or 4 years ago in an attempt to stave off the state sanction of sodomy, sending them to march relentlessly under the rotundas of our state capitol buildings and outside the state supreme / appellate courts until every one of these wicked laws was repealed?  Sadly, we seem to have had our answer this past 2017 legislative session, when courageous young lawmakers in two states both managed to get their repeal bills past a pair of hostile committees, only to die on the floors of both GOP-dominated legislatures for want of a floor vote.   Meanwhile, the idolatrous silence of the churches in both states was deafening, while the family policy groups allowed the deluge of vicious and false press opposition to go completely unanswered, even on their own webpages and blogs – “crickets” there, too.   Given the still-perishing souls that will result, how will they ever answer to God for this massive sin of omission recently committed?

If we realized the cumulative impact (compounded by borrowing costs over nearly 50 years) that these immoral laws have had on state and federal budget deficits, as social costs are passed from the moral offender straight to the backs of the taxpayers – a combined total of a quarter of a trillion dollars per year, according to a 2008 study by the Institute for American Values (http://www.americanvalues.org/search/item.php?id=52), would our priorities as responsible conservative political groups still be on the symptom issues such as bathrooms and marijuana, or would they be at least partially redirected to eradicating the underlying cancer?   We will be writing to Mr. McManus again. Yes, it may be admirable and tempting to take “practical” steps to cut the fiscal damage in half, but what will a man give for his soul?

Next post:  Our response to Part 2

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7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal Unilateral Divorce!