God hates divorce, according to the prophet Malachi. And according to Jesus, Moses allowed divorce only because of the hard hearts of people. It seems rather clear that divorce should never be a first option in a difficult relationship. Far too many people divorce for the wrong reasons (just as they got married for the wrong reasons).
But divorce may well be a necessary legal remedy, even for Christians. Think of the woman who is abused by her husband...should she not have the ability to divorce her husband for her safety and the safety of her children? Think of the man whose wife continually cheats on him and has no desire to stay faithful...should he not have the ability to divorce his wife and eventually marry a woman who desires to stay faithful? Think of the spouse whose partner leaves simply because they no longer desire to be married...should the innocent party not have some remedy to end the marriage and move on with their life rather than be dragged down by somebody who has no intention to stay in the marriage?
Throughout my 27 years of ministry I have come across many men and women who have been divorced. None of them enjoyed it. None of them wanted to do it. None of them willingly accepted it. But for each of them divorce was the last option to remedy a bad situation. It allowed them to move on and start over again after years, even decades of hurt.
I'm guessing that few Christians today would think that all divorce should be banned...having had church friends or family members go through it, we have compassion and realize that there are at times necessary reasons for it.
But what about abortion? As my state of Kansas will most likely in two weeks vote to begin a process to make abortion illegal in this state (as many others have done), I've been thinking a lot about this issue. Since many of my fellow Christians believe it is a good thing to ban it, I've been searching the Scriptures to see what God says about abortion...and I've found (here's the dirty little secret) that the Scriptures are silent. There may be a couple of passages in the Old Testament about how God knew a prophet in his mother's womb or how we are made by God. But these are usually calling passages or passages poetically speaking about the love of God for people who are hurting; to use passages like Psalm 139:13-14 ("For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.") as a blanket statement of the sanctity of life at conception is a gross misuse of the Scriptures. As far as direct passages about abortion itself, even as I am guessing it has been practiced since at least the days of the Patriarchs, the Bible says nothing about it. Nada. Zip. Zilch. It's as if God willfully and pointedly chose to stay silent on this issue when he could have said something.
Abortion should never be a first option, and as I said in my last post about how when the fetus becomes viable at about the 5-6 month mark we should protect that child. But before that, the mother (and father) might have to make the difficult decision about whether or not to go through the pregnancy. And while in a perfect world all children would be welcome, we don't live in perfect world with pregnancy any more than we do marriage. We grieve that marriages might end, and we grieve that pregnancies might end. But is it not better to keep that (poor) option open for the sake of those who are seeking to live their lives?
Should a woman struggling to raise three children alone be forced to bear a fourth? Should expectant parents who learn through prenatal testing that their child will live a brutal and painful few years before dying of a terrible genetic disorder have to ensure that child lives out its terrible fate? Should a college student bear the weight of a bad choice on a Friday night for the rest of her life? Should a 10-year-old child who has been raped (a very real story in the news) be forced to endure nine months of a pregnancy? We recognize that all these situations are unfortunate, or worse. We admit that in some of these instances the pregnant woman might well bear some responsibility for getting pregnant. And we genuinely wish that we didn't even have to talk about these things.
But we live in the real world, and in that world divorces, bankruptcies, restraining orders, and the like are necessary. Shouldn't abortion be considered the same way?
