List of churches which have taken concrete action on divorce.

In my post back in September on divorce and the impact it has on children I promised to create a separate post to acknowledge those churches which had made solid headway on the issue of divorce:

I’ll devote a separate post to sharing these success stories, so please include the name of the church and the (low) congregation divorce rate you were able to achieve. 

Marriage is sacred to the church, and solving the crisis of divorce is a matter of great urgency to churches across the country.  This is the post I will place those examples in.

These aren’t the lukewarm churches which want to talk about the issue but not take concrete action.  These are the churches on fire with the spirit which have converted their fire into real results and are eager to tell the world about this.  Check back often as I will update it whenever a new example is offered in the comments section.

While we are waiting for the examples to flood in, I thought the following totally unrelated video might help pass the time:

This entry was posted in Church Apathy About Divorce, Marriage. Bookmark the permalink.

51 Responses to List of churches which have taken concrete action on divorce.

  1. Will S. says:

    OT, sorta: how odd the poster shows a grasshopper picture to accompany the cricket chirping, but then, grasshoppers are better-looking creatures than crickets, I guess.

  2. Will S. says:

    (By poster, I meant the person who posted the clip above at YouTube.)

  3. Tarl says:

    I hope someone can come up with an example — because I will attend that Church!

  4. The Deuce says:

    Well, remember that story I told about the woman in my parents’ church who taught at the same school as my mom and left her husband, then neglected to marry her live-in boyfriend lest she lose out on alimony? Excommunicated.

  5. cybro says:

    I have been to one single church where the head priest gave a sermon that all the priest at that church will no longer be performing weddings unless they can be convinced the marriage will last. He did state that a 70% divorce rate was unacceptable in our society and they were not going to be a part of the problem any longer. Hallelujah but sadly that was only one church in the traditional catholic church comunity that regularly gets trashed by the media and the catholic church at large as a bunch of extremist. Go figure. I suggest you men stay away from marriage until all churches start kicking some bitch ass on this issue.

  6. Badger Nation says:

    Ahhhhh I see what you did there Dalrock!

  7. terry@breathinggrace says:

    Hmmm…

    My church isn’t on the list! It’s okay, though because I’m not at all convinced that it should be, although we regularly are reminded of the seriousness of the marriage vows we take. There is however, a noticeable ansence of the correlating issue: the gravity of the sin of divorce.

    I guess what would be helpful here is what you would consider “concrete action against divorce.” I truly believe that many churches don’t know exactly what that should look like.

  8. terry@breathinggrace says:

    I meant a noticeable absence of teaching on the gravity of divorce. I hate typos, yet I post so many!

  9. dragnet says:

    LOL. When I read this post I honestly thought you’d at least have a couple churches in mind to list in the comment section….but apparently not.

    I was raised Baptist (the hardcore kind) but have been out of the church since I was 18 (now 27). In recent years I’ve considered going back…but I can’t find any compelling reason to aside from my own internal motivation. I honestly haven’t noticed any difference between the Christian women I meet and any other women. Or between the church and most other secular social institutions.

  10. Thag Jones says:

    I guess what would be helpful here is what you would consider “concrete action against divorce.”

    Yeah, what would this look like?

    I know that my church (Catholic) requires that the couple takes a marriage prep course and to book the church a year in advance, which presumably gives a good bit of time to make sure it’s a serious commitment. They also offer counselling for troubled marriages, so I suppose that might be what you mean by concrete action against divorce. The associate pastor told me that they don’t don’t recognize civil divorce but they will do annulments in some cases. Seems pretty much in line with what’s in the Catechism. The problem is that now the church has to bow to the state where marriage is concerned and most of them have given up on sacramental marriage.

  11. Badger Nation says:

    “I honestly haven’t noticed any difference between the Christian women I meet and any other women. Or between the church and most other secular social institutions.”

    This was a huge debate at the Halo this week. Seasoned gamers will tell you that by and large religious girls are just as susceptible to game as secular ones, sometimes even easier if you find one you can work the contrast-repression angle with. SolomonII extracting naked photos from the deacon’s daughter is exhibit A. (I also can’t count the number of Catholic women I know who swear off birth control because the church says so, but have premarital sex which the church also looks down on).

    Except for a small minority unusually dedicated to the cause, young women are young women, subject to the same social and attraction triggers that PUAs learn to push with great skill. I long ago gave up the notion I would find a “better” woman in a church – I can just find a woman who gets up early on Sundays.

    Churches are in a real prisoner’s dilemma – they can cater to their customers (mostly women), or they can toughen their message and the women will stop coming, and either way the guys are at home watching NFL football.

  12. Badger Nation says:

    “which presumably gives a good bit of time to make sure it’s a serious commitment”

    I doubt this works the way it sounds. Have you ever met someone who stayed with somebody else when they didn’t want to, for months or even years? I have, several times. Sometimes it’s about not having a good reason to eject, sometimes it’s not having any other options, but I don’t believe time is a good marker of commitment seriousness.

    “The associate pastor told me that they don’t don’t recognize civil divorce but they will do annulments in some cases.”

    This is a really breathtaking statement. They don’t “recognize” civil divorces? What does that even mean? If two people get a civil divorce, they’re divorced – what is he going to do, lasso them with his vestments and pull them back into the church? I understand the right to re-marry in the Church may be suspended, but what does that matter to someone narcissistic enough to hack a frivolous divorce in the first place?

    It bothers me when preachers advise against prenups and things like this on the basis that it shows lack of faith in marriage. I think they are playing an ostrich game, “if I pretend I don’t see it no one will notice.” The horse is out of the barn, they need to wake up and understand that divorces are happening all around us, and they need to be honest with their parishoners about the legal risks, not just the spiritual ones – they can’t pretend the couples they are counseling won’t go out into the world and be touched by secular madness.

    “Render unto Caesar” does not apply here because divorce is not something that “happens” to a marriage, something forced on people like taxes or conscription. Marriage and divorce are both willed by at least one person in the marriage.

    I think it’s time American pastors got out of the state marriage game entirely – stop the “by the power vested in me by the state” part of the process. If you are an actor of the state, you are an officer and a pawn of whatever the state has done to the institution of marriage. You don’t have the right to say “I don’t recognize civil divorce.” I just find that massively hypocritical, like waving the troops away to war but not being there when they come home wounded.

    Frankly, I also think it’s time churches began having divorce ceremonies. If the couple won’t show up, “honor” them in absentia. If someone committed misconduct that broke the bond, speak it from the pulpit.

  13. Thag Jones says:

    what is he going to do, lasso them with his vestments and pull them back into the church?

    I don’t think that’s what he meant so much as from the POV of the church, assuming the couple entered into a Catholic marriage, they are still married in the eyes of God and if they choose to separate, they are supposed to remain chaste (I know, not likely, but strictly speaking….) and also that they will not be able to remarry in the church. I am paraphrasing what he said because I don’t remember the exact words.

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  15. Dalrock says:

    @Terry
    I guess what would be helpful here is what you would consider “concrete action against divorce.” I truly believe that many churches don’t know exactly what that should look like.

    Isn’t that the problem?

    I have shared my own view of what concrete action is, including this quote from Old Rules or New:

    “I’ve offered space on this blog to any congregation which wants to proclaim that they are living under the old rules and not the new. Since nearly every congregation will claim it is living under the old rules, I’ve asked the churches to provide their low divorce rates along with the name of the church. Bike Bubba referenced a great Demming quote on a post which I think applies perfectly:

    In God we trust, all others must bring data.

    Many of the commenters to this blog have described how they themselves live under the old rules. Fewer have described churches where it could be said the congregation still lived under the old rules. But none have been able to name a specific congregation eager to show the world that it still lives under the old rules. I believe that such congregations exist; I’ve even seen one. But they are on the fringe of Christianity.”

    By the way, I hope I’m being clear enough that I understand that Christians like you and many others really are honoring marriage, even where the church itself and so many others aren’t. I admire your faith and your passion about marriage. I also admired your recent passionate defense of your husband.

    Also, thanks for the link to your friend’s announcement of her book. It sounds like she will help a lot of women.

  16. Tarl says:

    What about Mormons? Any Mormons out there able to shed light on the official LDS position (theoretical and actual) on divorce?

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  18. Philip says:

    http://lds.org/family/proclamation?lang=eng

    here’s some concrete action.

    and yes tarl I’m mormon. We believe that divorce is not something to be taken lightly at all and that a father and mother are obligated by solemn vows made together to strive to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. That link will tell you more about what we believe about the family!
    =)

  19. Dalrock says:

    @Philip

    As I wrote in another post, Most churches speak like Christ and act like Oprah when it comes to divorce. I can’t tell from that page if the Mormon church is different or not. This is why I am looking for a church which cares enough to track this themselves (so I can list it). From just a little searching, it seems that the estimates for Mormon divorce rates range from 13% to 30%.

  20. CSPB says:

    This is GOLD!

  21. David says:

    Wow Dalrock, you continue to rock (pardon the pun). I’m new hear so I am slowly digging through everything I missed before this chance discovery.

    How true with the “Most churches speak like Christ but act like Oprah when it comes to divorce”. As a practicing Catholic, I was appalled by my parish’s total apathy to my soon-to-be-ex-wife’s Eat/Pray/Love awakening. When I asked about how this is congruous with Church doctrine, I got a shrug of the shoulders and a tepid “sorry”.

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  23. Wolfe says:

    The Catholic Church is pretty damn serious about divorce. Of course, such a large church will have some branches (particularly in the West) that are lukewarm in practice. But overall, you have a church that will automatically excommunicate a man or woman who remarries (they don’t recognize the divorce, and remarriage is a grave variation of adultery). The last countries to hold out against legalized divorce did so under Catholic pressure. In the two most recent countries to legalize divorce, Chile and Malta, the Church went down fighting to keep divorce illegal to the very end. The only country wherein divorce is illegal (the Philippines) is a Catholic majority country.

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  26. red says:

    “he Catholic Church is pretty damn serious about divorce.” LOL. They may be strict about divorce but I see Catholic churches around here full of single mothers with 4+ kids from different fathers. It’s just serial monogamy without the formal marriage contract.

  27. Pingback: Warn men: Beware Christian marriage doublespeak and hair trigger for wife initiated divorce. « Patriactionary

  28. TGOM says:

    A little bit late to the party, but perhaps check out the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, if you can find one. It is about as close to Puritanism as you can find in modern day America.

  29. Pingback: Warn men: Beware Christian Marriage Doublespeak and Hair Trigger for wife Initiated Divorce – By Dalrock | Christian Feminism Watch

  30. Asinus Spinas Masticans says:

    The Orthodox Church allows divorce and remarriage, but you don’t want to go to an Orthodox second marriage ceremony. It is more like a funeral than a wedding.

    Priests marry once. Period. If your wife dies or leaves and you want to remarry you choose between the woman and the priesthood. Period.

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  32. R.C. says:

    As I understand it, the Catholic view on marriage is pretty tough, and it goes like this:

    1. There are two kinds of marriage, civil and sacramental;

    2. If a person is in a merely civil marriage, then in God’s eyes their marriage is a bit half-assed and not really what He inteneded or meant by “Christian marriage”;

    3. It is possible to obtain a divorce from civil marriage, because in civil marriage, it is man’s law which has “put the two together,” and man’s law can also put them assunder;

    4. In a sacramental marriage, divorce is impossible because “what God has put together, no man may put assunder”;

    5. Therefore, if one enters into a sacramental marriage, one is married to that person in God’s eyes until one of you dies;

    6. Therefore, if one enters simultaneously into sacramental and civil marriage (as is generally the case), one can obtain a civil divorce, but that does not make you divorced in God’s eyes;

    7. Therefore, the church will not allow you to re-marry in the church, since they do not support bigamy and your original sacramental marriage only ends if your former spouse is dead;

    8. Therefore, if one obtains a civil divorce and a new civil marriage, it is adultery in the eyes of the Church, and you are considered to be living in a state of sin, and are forbidden to receive communion until and unless you put aside your new civil wife, or at best live “as brother and sister” with her (i.e., no sexual relations);

    9. All of this, when taught to the faithful, is couched in pastoral, soft-spoken, Hallmark-card language dripping with condescension and touchy-feely weasel-wording…but it is in fact the teaching of the Church;

    10. One can, if one wishes to re-marry in the Catholic Church, argue that one’s original marriage was non-sacramental, and that one is therefore free to enter into a sacramental marriage and have that marriage “convalidated” (deemed sacramental) in the Church;

    11. This argument is not automatically accepted by the Church; instead, a tribunal is convened to judge it, and an investigation, which can last from months to years, is conducted to determine whether the original marriage was or was not sacramental; and,

    12. Reasons for deeming an original marriage non-sacramental include: (a.) One or both spouses were below the age of consent; (b.) There is reason to believe their consent was not informed consent; (c.) There was no intent to be open to children; (d.) There was no intent to be sexually exclusive; (e.) One or both spouses were unable to give consent for some other reason; e.g. mental illness.

    It seems to me that if this teaching were firmly and fiercely taught and implemented among Catholics by the Catholic clergy, then:

    (a.) There’d be fewer half-hearted Catholics, and possibly fewer Catholics overall; and,
    (b.) Catholics would very rarely divorce.

    So the Catholic Church qualifies, in Dalrock’s view, as a church that’s serious about marriage…or at least it would qualify, if it would sternly live up to its own teaching and risk alienating people in the process.

  33. Dalrock, the church isn’t supposed to be an executioner, nor a jailer. Christian churches are explicitly forbidden from the kind of thing you seem to expect. The most they are allowed is to put a person, leading a sinful life, out of the congregation.

    My church’s members refused to let me join the church because I was living with my ex-wife, but that’s as far as it went or could go because the very purpose of that congregation was to support each other in living as good a life as each member could – and none were without sin. I was still permitted to attend services. They knew I was doing the best I could and I knew they couldn’t sanction what I was doing.

    Would you rather be a Muslim? They go in for ‘enforcing’ marriage and whatnot.

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  36. Dan says:

    The Catholic Church does a pretty good job. Basically, they say, if you get a divorce you cannot get remarried in the Catholic church. If you get divorced and remarried you are committing adultery and are not eligible for communion. If you want an annulment, it is difficult and you have to go through a tribunal. The result is a divorce rate that is massively below the national average and far below that of most Protestants. This is an astonishing achievement considering that the Catholic Church covers such a sweeping range of society. What else could they do, besides excommunicate someone?

    Here are the stats:

    http://brewright.blogspot.com/2006/11/divorce-rates-by-religious-affiliation.html

    Divorce rates by religious affiliation & attendance. General Social Survey, 2000, 2002, 2004 (N= 5,963)

    58% Non-active Black Protestants
    54% Non-active Evangelicals
    51% No religious beliefs (e.g., atheists, agnostics)
    48% Non-active other religions
    48% All non-Christians
    47% Active Black Protestants
    42% All non-Christian religions
    42% Non-active Mainline Protestants
    41% All Christians
    41% Non-active Catholics
    39% Jewish
    38% Active other religions
    34% Active Evangelicals
    32% Active Mainline Protestants
    23% Active Catholics

  37. myth buster says:

    To understand how gravely the Catholic Church treats remarriage after divorce, you must understand that the teaching of the Church is that someone who, in a sacramental marriage, divorces a spouse (or even was divorced by a spouse against his/her will) and then attempts to remarry while the first spouse still lives, is to be DENIED THE LAST RITES unless he/she swears off sexual relations with the paramour. The same penalty applies to someone who willfully enters into marriage or remains married and sexually active with a divorce(e) (unless the first spouse has since died). If you, having lived as an adulterer/adulteress by willfully entering a sham marriage, refuse to confess that lifestyle to be the adultery it is and promise that, should you recover, you will never again have sexual relations with that or any other paramour, the priest is not to absolve you, nor anoint you, nor give you Holy Communion even as you draw near to death. If you are in such a sham marriage now, repent while you still have breath in your body, and cease to live in adultery.

  38. Dalrock says:

    Mythbuster,

    The Catholic Church does take a hard line on the surface at least. The problem as I understand it is while one hand is sternly wagging a finger, the other is handing out annulments. I know of two fellow bloggers who had the Catholic Church summarily end their long time marriage by providing the wife with the expectation of (and following through with) an annulment. I don’t have the link handy but can find it for you showing that something like 80% of the WW annulments for Catholics are given in the US, which has roughly 6% of the world’s Catholics. From where I stand (the US), the Catholic Church isn’t really that strong on marriage after all.

  39. van Rooinek says:

    …a new civil marriage, it is adultery in the eyes of the Church, and you are considered to be living in a state of sin, and are forbidden to receive communion until and unless you put aside your new civil wife, or at best live “as brother and sister” with her (i.e., no sexual relations);

    As I understand it, living “as brother and sister” is only encouraged if the illicitly remarried couple has had children; they are counseled to stay, in effect, “socially married” for their kids sake, to give them a stable home. But, they need to terminate their sex life as it is adultery. This must be very tough and I suspect many such couples “slip up” now and then, even with separate bedrooms et al.

    In the absence of children, actual separation is presumably preferred, for just that reason.

    Thorny question… if an ex-spouse illicitly remarries, and later repents — but, has kids with the 2nd partner and thus ends up in that “brother/sister” situation above… may that ex resume sex relations with the first, original, “real” spouse? “Gee, your 3rd baby looks just like your 1st husband!”

  40. Matt says:

    Roman Catholic doctrine requires the wife to submit to the husband:

    “The same false teachers who try to dim the luster of conjugal faith and purity do not scruple to do away with the honorable and trusting obedience which the woman owes to the man. Many of them even go further and assert that such a subjection of one party to the other is unworthy of human dignity, that the rights of husband and wife are equal; wherefore, they boldly proclaim the emancipation of women has been or ought to be effected. This emancipation in their ideas must be threefold, in the ruling of the domestic society, in the administration of family affairs and in the rearing of the children. It must be social, economic, physiological: – physiological, that is to say, the woman is to be freed at her own good pleasure from the burdensome duties properly belonging to a wife as companion and mother (We have already said that this is not an emancipation but a crime); social, inasmuch as the wife being freed from the cares of children and family, should, to the neglect of these, be able to follow her own bent and devote herself to business and even public affairs; finally economic, whereby the woman even without the knowledge and against the wish of her husband may be at liberty to conduct and administer her own affairs, giving her attention chiefly to these rather than to children, husband and family.”

    http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii_en.html

  41. Kate says:

    Hi Dalrock! Long time lurker here, first time commenter. First off, let me say I love your blog (Its the only manosphere blog I feel comfortable recommending to my mom lol). I realize this post is super old and I doubt anyone will read this, but I thought I would mention it anyways. Everyone should really check out the Orthodox Christian Church (Other names include Eastern Orthodox, Greek/Russian/Serbian/Romanian/etc… Orthodox). While on paper Orthodox divorce rules do not seem as strict as Catholic ones, the reality is that divorce is only allowed under very limited circumstances. In fact, the only circumstances that I know of are for legitimate adultery and legitimate abuse (sometimes). Because I was raised in the Orthodox church, I have never had to take the red pill- I was born with it. Celibacy before marriage is expected for both men and women- and those who do not remain celibate must confess to a priest and refrain from taking communion for a while (I don’t know how long… I only know that I was told not to take it for a week when I kissed a rando while drunk- and that was only kissing!) I remember my first day of youth group when I was thirteen we had a debate about the difference between men and women in the church and my priest said something along the lines of- “Women and men are not equal. They each have important but different roles to play in the church. Women will never be priests in the Orthodox church.” Furthermore, men in every Orthodox church I have ever attended actually equal or even outnumber women. In the church I currently attend, young men in my age group (late teens/early twenties) far outnumber the young women. Finally, not only is wifely submissiveness taught in official church doctrine- it is taught in church services as well. Of course there are going to be exceptions since we live in the US, but these exceptions are condemned by the church as a whole.

    [D: Welcome Kate.]

  42. Kate says:

    Here is a quote from the Orthodox Church of American Regarding divorce: “the Orthodox follow Christ in recognizing it as a tragedy and a lack of fulfillment of marriage as the reflection of divine love in the world. The Church teaches the uniqueness of marriage, if it will be perfect, and is opposed to divorce absolutely.
    If, however, a marriage breaks down and collapses, the Orthodox Church does in fact allow a second marriage, without excommunication, that is, exclusion from Holy Communion, if there is repentance and a good chance that the new alliance can be Christian.
    More than one marriage in any case, however, is frowned upon. It is not allowed to the clergy, and the service of second marriage for laymen is a special rite different from the sacrament as originally celebrated”

  43. Jonathan says:

    Old post by Dalrock, but I can actually answer this.
    I am a member of The Village Church, located in Flower Mound, Texas. Although we haven’t sought out growth (the lead pastor regularly encourages people to go somewhere else if they are just going to consume on Sundays, not get plugged in, etc), we have several campuses and somewhere over 12,000 in regular attendance (not sure of exact number).

    The church has a pre-marital counciling program that they try to put every couple through (last I knew, it was backlogged). We also have a formal reconciliation program in place for marriages that are on the rocks. You don’t just walk up front to join – you have to take a class and sign off on some agreements/commitments to become a covenant member.

    We do church discipline. It’s not fun or a thing that we want, but at the same time I was happy to see it. At the covenant member meeting tonight for our campus (main, attendance around 5,000/week), 7 people who were members or long-time attendees(/involved) had their formal removal from the body. This was done in accordance with I Cor 5 and after having followed the processes described in Matthew 18 [both chapters were read by the campus pastor when intro’ing this section of the meeting tonight] with significant involvement from pastoral staff. All 7 were in the process for over a year, so this was not done lightly. 5 men, 2 women.

    They didn’t go into many details, but 4+ of the 7 were removed due to refusing to go through, or quitting, the church’s marital reconciliation process, and unrepentantly refusing to follow the Bible and the authority of church leadership in regards to not divorcing except for Biblically sound reasons.

  44. amartinchatt says:

    I don’t know what their divorce rate is, but Fr Josiah Trenham from St Andrew Orthodox Church in Riverside, CA is a hardliner about Biblical views on marriage. He’s not one for soft secularized Christianity. Actually, Orthodox Christianity is the only large branch of Christianity in America that has more men than women. We have the reverse problem of other denominations.

    As much as I dislike him, John McArthur has pulled up a lot of Biblical evidence that women shouldn’t work if possible. http://www.gty.org/resources/questions/QA188/is-it-wrong-for-wives-to-work

  45. T. says:

    I can give one example of churches trying to do something about divorce. It came from a LCMS congregation which one of my pastors used to come from. They didn’t succeed, but at least they tried.

    A very prominent member in the church wanted to divorce her husband because she’s “not happy” (no-fault). The church proceeded with church discipline. They were about to excommunicate the woman but at the last minute, she resigned and joined a more liberal congregation within the synod, taking one third of the church members who supported her along. There was nothing the faithful congregation could do after that, and they suffered a bad split as a a result. Such is the price that must be paid today.

  46. Rob s says:

    The Orthodox Church has a very low divorce rate – I’ve seen figures for 14% in the Greek Orthodox Church, and I would suspect lower for the russian branches (which tend to be even stricter). Of course, there may be many people who have orthodox marriages then only civil divorces without seeking divorce or annulment from the church – but to do so almost always means they are not really practicing. If a couple divorces they are generally excluded from communion (which in strict churches means they have to leave the sanctuary before the preparation of the gifts) for some time; this is also the case if for a couple living together out of wedlock.
    Dalrock, I would encourage you to learn more about the Orthodox Church. I’ve read a lot of your articles on church apathy about divorce, it’s preaching feminism to its mostly female members, it’s ambivalence if not outright rejection or reversal of traditional gender roles, how Christian girls generally have no more self control than secular ones, how the church tells men to man up and marry those ex-sluts, and so on. These are all true in most of Protestantism and much of Catholicism, but almost completely absent in every orthodox parish I have ever visited. It is the only church I have seen that openly rejects the ways of the world. It is also the only church with as many or more men than women.

  47. ACThinker says:

    I think focusing on divorce is a little off.

    Let me explain by way of analogy – Marriage is building a home, divorce is destroying one. We shouldn’t be focusing on coming up to the guy who has had is home destroyed and saying “and now pay a fine.” We should be instead focusing on the aspects of “here let me see your house plans and building materials – yeah, you need to get better plans/material, here is how.”

    So the question Dalrock should be asking is which/what church, either at the parish level, or higher is doing something to make better men and women with better plans to build that better home? And I’d agree I’m not seeing it. No Church, no local parish, no mega church, etc is helping to sufficiently form the materials needed for a man or a woman. Part of it is if you have a man who understands the CHRISTian ideal of dying to self, he ends up with a woman who doesn’t get it, and wants it to be about her. The reverse is also true she is willing to sacrifice, but he ignores her only wanting to satisfy his biology.

    Very few however even understand the idea of dying to self, let alone how to do it. It is as if Americans have a swim team where a few people know what swimming is, but nobody actually has the skill. It is no wonder we are all drowning.

    The problem really comes down to our fallen nature is one of each individual wanting to “do it my way” which will not work in a marriage. Each must adapt and change, and our culture even our Christian culture sources (*Fireproof* anyone?) want the other to remove the spec, or to help them remove the spec, and ignore the plank in their own eye. – I think in another blog post – and I’ve just started reading a bunch today – Dalrock reference that ‘the Christian women don’t want to change.’ Which is the source of a lot of their issues – but the men don’t want to change either.

  48. Trinity Reformed Baptist Church in Hamilton, New Zealand has no members that I know of who were divorced after becoming Christians. We don’t often preach on the severity of divorce because it is taken for granted in our church and we preach expositionally rather than topically; however when divorce passages come up, they are expounded faithfully and in no way glossed over or minimized to avoid discomfort.

  49. Josh says:

    Perhaps the only one I know of is Bethel Baptist Church pastored by Kent Brandenburg in El Sobrante CA.

    Kent teaches no-divorce and no remarriage, and I believe has acted on it in the past. He was the first person I came across teaching this and combining it with a strong stand on church discipline.

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