Hard words, hard cases

As a counterpoint to the previous article on divorce, the following is an interview with Andrew Cornes about Jesus’ teaching on divorce and remarriage, and the pastoral realities of applying it in practice. Andrew has long held to the view that marriage is an indissoluble union, and that divorce apart from the grounds of adultery (and remarriage under any circumstances) is sinful. He wrote extensively about the biblical and theological reasons for this in his 1993 book Divorce and Remarriage: Biblical Principles and Pastoral Practice. Tim chats with Andrew about his reading of Jesus’ teaching on the matter, his reflections on the implications that teaching has for the church, and the reactions of people over the years.

Tim Thornborough: Andrew, tell us a little about your life and ministry.

Andrew Cornes: I was ordained at 24. I worked as a curate in York and at All Souls, Langham Place in Central London, and then I was rector of a church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, before taking up the post here in Crowborough in the south east of England.

My own marriage experience is actually relevant to this whole question of divorce and remaining single after divorce, because, for me, the big, big question was whether I should be married or remain single. I married at 36, which was a bit of a surprise to me—I didn’t expect to be married at all. I remain astonished, and grateful, that anyone would consider me marriage material.

And the Bible has very positive teaching about singleness in 1 Corinthians 7 and Matthew 19 in particular. Intriguingly, both these passages are in a context in which divorce is also talked about—in which remarriage is forbidden at least to some and perhaps to all. Marriage was a choice I needed to think about, because I could see the immense value of singleness. I think some of the difficulties people have with Jesus’ prohibition of remarriage is that we have such a weak theology of singleness. Our problems with divorce and remarriage wouldn’t disappear, but I suspect that if we had the Bible’s view of the single life it would be a whole lot easier for us to come to terms with Jesus’ uncompromising teaching in this area.

TT: You articulate your convictions about divorce and remarriage in Divorce and Remarriage. At what point in your ministry did these convictions arise?

AC: I always felt that the Bible’s teaching on divorce and remarriage was an area that Christians conveniently passed over, but after I went to America my concern grew. Unusually for the episcopal church in America, Pittsburgh was a very conservative diocese, but there was an enormous laxity on the issue of divorce and remarriage, even amongst evangelicals. Virtually all American Episcopals use the lectionary, and a little group of local ministers met every week to look at the passage for the next Sunday together. One week Matthew 19 was on the agenda, and I asked each person how they were going to preach on it the following Sunday. Every single one was preparing to duck the issue. Divorce was just too hot to handle!

The problem wasn’t just at a local level either. The denomination had a complex method of applying for permission for a remarriage, but in practice it just went through ‘on the nod’. So when I returned to the UK I gave myself to thinking about this issue in a focused way.

Leaving the church in the US had been a traumatic experience for my wife and I, and put considerable strain on our marriage. I was doing all the research during the time when our marriage was at its most difficult, and I would say our marriage was partly saved through constant exposure to Jesus’ teaching. Every day I was coming up against ‘no divorce, no divorce’ and therefore that option just didn’t figure in the possibilities for me.

TT: What kind of reaction did your book get from other ministers?

AC: Overall I received a lot of encouragement. Some ministers have been convinced, some haven’t, but people universally have been encouraging, particularly for the attempt to marry the biblical understanding with the pastoral outworking.

I receive many invitations to speak on the subject, and I always ask to give two lectures or talks, one on the biblical principles and one on the pastoral outworking. As you can imagine, the groups I speak to always include a considerable number who are divorced. After the first talk on the biblical principles there is some sort of great collective gulp, and often a lot of quite fierce questioning. But after they’ve heard the pastoral practice part there is normally a great degree of sympathetic warmth, whether
or not they are fully convinced.

I do think it’s essential to hold the two things together, a warm pastoral understanding with personal generosity, and a determination not to water down the Bible’s teaching. It is about speaking the truth in love. This can be difficult because what is not a matter of debate is that Jesus’ basic stance is that a divorced person is not to remarry—that is unquestionably his default position. The only question is: are there exceptions?

TT: Was Jesus’ attitude to divorce the same as the Old Testament’s?

AC: Definitely not. When Jesus made it clear that people should not divorce, the Pharisees object that Moses allowed them to. He replies that Moses did indeed permit divorce, but that in the beginning marriage was for life. Husband and wife leave father and mother and “become one flesh”. Jesus adds: “So they are no longer two but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

Moses did allow divorce, but this permission was only given because their hearts were hard. Jesus rescinds the permission (except in the case of adultery) and says that followers of his must return to God’s purposes at the beginning. Divorce is no longer allowable.

It was recognized for centuries that Jesus does not allow divorce in the same way that the Law did. It’s only recently that Christians have tried to say that Jesus was no stricter than the Law on divorce and remarriage.

TT: Do you think divorce carries with it the right to remarry?

AC: This is another way in which Jesus differs from the Old Testament and Jewish custom. Among the Jews, if a divorce was permissible, so was remarriage. But when Jesus says—as he does constantly—that remarriage is adultery, he shows that legal divorce does not dissolve the marriage in God’s eyes.

Adultery is sexual intercourse where one or both parties are married. That is why in Mark 10 Jesus says that when a divorced man remarries, he commits adultery against his first wife; in God’s eyes he is still married to her. In 1 Corinthians 7:11 Paul, quoting Jesus, says that only two options are open to the divorcee while their divorced partner is still living: they “should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to” their spouse.

TT: Any pastor dealing with the pain and hurt of divorce is tempted to look for a get-out clause. Why is it important to be so inflexible on this issue?

AC: If you take the position that when divorce is due to adultery you may remarry, you are tempted to extend that allowance to other situations, for example, in the case of a divorce where all communication has broken down. You start saying, “Well, yes, Jane, I will remarry you because you’ve had such a hard time”. Then when you talk with John, who has suffered as well but much less so, and tell him that you can’t remarry him, you’re an impossible situation. He says “Why have you remarried her and you won’t remarry me?” Gradually, gradually, you get to the position where you allow everybody to remarry.

TT: And you’re basically taking the position that any remarriage is in effect adulterous?

AC: Yes, at least that the wedding itself is an act of adultery…

TT: But not the ongoing relationship?

AC: The Bible tells us what to do and what not to do. It rarely tells us with absolute clarity what to do if we’ve done something we shouldn’t have. In the case of marriage, we do have teaching in both testaments about what happens if you marry someone who is not a Christian. In Ezra and Nehemiah, the answer seems to be divorcing your pagan wife. But in 1 Corinthians 7 that doesn’t seem to be Paul’s approach. Paul says, “I’m going to tell you the general position about divorce. This is not me speaking, this is Jesus speaking, and the answer is: no divorce, or if you do divorce, be reconciled or remain single.”

Then he speaks “to the rest”. What I think he means here is “Now I’m coming to your specific situation that you wrote to me about. I haven’t got anything to say from the Lord Jesus, but I’m giving my opinion as one who I think is trustworthy on this.” And then he says exactly what Jesus has said do not divorce your unbelieving partner.

Jesus says very clearly that remarriage after divorce is adultery. But we don’t have him or anybody else saying how we deal with people who have remarried against the specific command of Christ—either knowingly or unknowingly. We haven’t got any authoritative instruction over what to do in that situation. Some people think that this is a case of a vow that should never have been entered into. Well, I agree that it should never have been entered into, but they believe that it should therefore be repudiated. So once you come to recognize that you shouldn’t have married your second wife, you must then divorce her. That’s not my position. My position is that you have entered into the marriage covenant with a second woman or man. You shouldn’t have, but you have. And it’s the lesser of two evils to remain within that covenant than to repudiate it.

I think there’s an analogy here with 1 Corinthians 7. You entered into a marriage covenant with a non-Christian. You should never have done that if you were a Christian, but you did. Paul explicitly says you should not repudiate that marriage. I’m assuming that his ruling takes into account not only a situation where a couple get married when they’re both non-Christians but also when one is a Christian and has married a non-Christian. He says, “No, stick with your marriage”.

I think that this is also an analogous situation with the Old Testament equivalent of polygamy. We often think that this is an issue that now only applies to societies where polygamy is permitted, but I think the Old Testament stories have an enormous amount to say into our situation. It shows what a catastrophe multiple marriage is against the creation ideal of ‘one man, one wife, for life’. But it also shows the need to remain committed to those with whom you have entered into a vow.

TT: But when you use the ‘lesser of two evils’ argument, you open a door for relaxing the ‘no remarriage’ rule. What about the person who divorces, but who is obviously ‘ungifted’ for the single life? Paul says it is better to marry than burn with passion. Is that not the lesser of two evils?

AC: I think we’ve got to be very careful not to use that argument to justify easier lives for ourselves. Pastorally, I think we must recognize the immense healing that a second marriage often brings, particularly after a traumatic end to a first marriage. For example, we have a man with a very complicated past—he’s riddled with guilt because of what’s happened. Then he meets a woman who, knowing his background, falls in love with him and is prepared to marry him. What an immensely positive statement this is to him.

She is in a more ‘normal’ situation. Her first husband wasn’t a Christian and the new man is. There is relief, healing, and joy there for somebody finding happiness in a new relationship. For men particularly, who have been sexually active within a relationship and know the pleasures of marital sex, it feels there is a terrific void. So to be able as a Christian to be sexually active again, guilt-free in their minds, is wonderful. I want to acknowledge all of that.

However, if remarriage after divorce is forbidden by Jesus, then it is an evil. You cannot say that the absence of companionship or the absence of sexual fulfilment is an evil. So on the one hand you have an evil, a disobedient remarriage, which produces a number of goods; on the other, a good thing, singleness, which has some negative repercussions. You have to say that, however big the desirables are, obedience to Christ must win every time.

TT: Your approach puts Christians in a peculiar situation. A divorced friend decides to get married, and up to the moment they tie the knot you are pleading with them to stop. Then as soon as the ink is dry on the licence you suddenly encourage them to be faithful as a married couple. It feels weird from my perspective. It’s probably pretty weird from their perspective as well.

AC: I know exactly what you’re talking about. However, I don’t think it is quite as simple as saying “Wonderful, now you’re married we are 100% behind you”. First of all, because I think they have done a wrong thing. Even though they now need to be supported in the marriage that they have entered into, I would think several times before immediately putting them into any significant ministry in the church. The second thing depends on their standing within the church. In other words they might be very fringey and perhaps not even Christians. It also depends on how they have responded to our seeking to dissuade them from the remarriage.

So to give the example of the couple I mentioned before. He clearly knew that he was doing the wrong thing and, in that circumstance, what I hope was gentle but clear discipline was exercised. They were not able to receive communion or to be involved in any ministry within the church for a significant period of time. We have a group at church that works on discipline and, after a couple of years and after working through the issues with the couple, we rescinded those bans.

I can also think of three couples at church who divorced due to adultery, and they’ve taken the question of remarriage seriously. They have read Scripture, read Christian books on the subject and so on, and have come to the conclusion that Jesus’ exception applies not only to divorce but to remarriage. That is a position that is not mine, but which I accept is arguable from Scripture. I think “Well, you’re in love, you want to get married, I’m not sure you’re in the most objective of moods”, but where they have taken this seriously I have said, “Right, we cannot remarry you, but no discipline is appropriate. You’ve come to a serious conviction from reading Scripture. I must respect that. This is an area where Christians disagree.”

TT: How do you think holding the line of no remarriage plays out in the long term for a church’s health, and evangelistically?

AC: There have been a few who left the church because of our stance over divorce and remarriage. We’ve had an even smaller number who have left when we have tried to exercise discipline over remarriage, but in this day and age any church discipline is so countercultural that it normally results in people leaving the church. We have had more people leave over discipline for sex outside marriage than over discipline for remarriage. People don’t like to be disciplined, however gently we impose it.

Within the community it’s a little bit harder to gauge. Crowborough is a small community of 23,000. Many people know what our stance is, and, inevitably amongst non-Christians there is some feeling that it’s old-fashioned, ridiculously hard-line and so on. But I do think overall there is considerable respect for a church that is willing to have convictions and stand up for them.

Problems within the church about our stance are more frequently from those who are not divorced or remarried than from those who are, because those who are divorced are people with whom we have spent time thinking through the issues together, and hopefully in a genuinely pastoral manner. They have heard both the biblical clarity and the compassion and pastoral sensitivity and recognize both.

Early on in my ministry here a non-Christian rang me up and said in a belligerent tone, “One of us is divorced; will you marry us, or not?!” He had obviously got hold of the idea that the answer was going to be ‘no’ but thought it was worth trying all the same. I was feeling my way and said, “I’m very, very sorry. My understanding is that Jesus says this is not appropriate and so in conscience I can’t do it.”

“Well then, will you give us a service of blessing?”

“I’m sorry. I just feel if we can’t offer you a marriage then it wouldn’t be appropriate to offer you a service of blessing”.

He replied, “Well, I’m very glad to hear it! It seems to me complete hypocrisy not to offer a marriage but to offer a service of blessing.”

TT: You have a very beautiful building for weddings, and so this represents a potentially enormous evangelistic opportunity that you are passing up.

AC: I don’t know I would say it was one of the great evangelistic opportunities, to be honest. I think funerals are far more so. Still, if Jesus has forbidden something then the evangelistic potential cannot be what overrides the prohibition. A lot of the same issues are there in the homosexual debate. There would be arguably a great evangelistic opportunity in celebrating civil partnerships or homosexual marriages. But Jesus has forbidden that, so I can’t do it.

There are many homosexuals who are in the same position that you were talking about earlier. They are people needing acceptance, companionship and sexual fulfilment, but one and all they have to say to themselves: this is not open to me. We’re not asking of the heterosexual Christian anything different. Sure, there are some homosexuals who are able to live with their celibate homosexuality with comparative ease, but there are some who are utterly eaten up by it. Pastorally, one may want to approach them in different ways and seek to help them in different ways, but the answer to “Is a sexual relationship open to me?” is the same. I want to give exactly the same reply to a divorcee. Some divorcees say “I never want to get married again” and live with their singleness without issues, and there are others who find it indescribably difficult, but Jesus’ response to them is, in my opinion, the same: “I will give you my strength in your weakness to say: this is not an option for me”.