18 February 2003 17:32
written regarding zippy's 021803-0224 post on divorcethat's something that i've wondered about too. i mean, when (if, whatever ;) ) i get married, i'll be taking my vows quite seriously, and "til death do us part" means exactly that to me. and a marriage partner well chosen should be a marriage partner for life, even if major personality conflicts or infidelity later arise. but what if the one partner gives up? "it takes two to tango." a situation like that scares me, simply because it's a possibility. granted, i don't expect to choose apartner who would ever "give up" trying to make a marriage work.. but i can feel for your mom, a situation like that would be agonizing to me.
biblically, i believe that divorce is wrong. however, that doesn't mean a divorced person should be shunned by a church merely because they are divorced, especially if the other partner is being treated normally like you say. ..i tend to look at a divorced person and think "ai, they screwed up somewhere, either they picked the wrong person or they didn't try hard enough." but even if i think that of them, i know perfectly well that i've screwed up times beyond count myself. maybe not on something so momenteous as a marriage, but i've done worse than getting a divorce. so as a christian, i hold nothing against your mom and think she should be allowed to be a close member of the church family, supported and loved without reservation as a sister.
since we're in teh business of gathering opinions, you can opinionate on this one: i don't think she should marry again while your dad is alive. if she did, openly against the church's doctrinal statement (unless of course your church has become liberal enough to start making a more fantastic interpretation of matt 5.32), then that would not be grounds for hate and mistreatment, but it would indeed be grounds for revocation of church membership (i sound like a committee statement.. "kicked out" in your words is so much more descriptive :) ).
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