Preface
The backstory behind the League of Believers' deep dive on divorce
This newsletter is a draft preface for an upcoming eBook on the scandal of Church-sanctioned divorce. If you haven’t already done so, please check out chapters I, II, III, IV, V, VI, and VII, as well as the afterword, and appendices A and B.
Divorce and remarriage, revisited
The motivation for writing this book is, unfortunately, quite ordinary.
Like most of you, many of our friends and relatives are divorced, remarried, or married to a divorcee. In our experience, intact first marriages are increasingly the exception. This is troubling given that most of these same marriages are comprised of professing Christians.
From anecdotal evidence, we know our family is not unique. As many others have observed, divorce and remarriage are now commonplace among American Christians. We are now witnessing the devastating personal and societal consequences of no-fault divorce play out in real time as this once off-limits practice thoroughly permeates the Church and culture.
This prompted us to start asking some obvious questions.
How did this all happen? And why are an inordinate number of “mixed families” (a euphemism for what used to be termed “broken families”) now found among the ranks of conservative, Protestant evangelicals, of all groups?
Does the Bible itself give Christians license, at least under some circumstances, to divorce and remarry, even while a former spouse is still living and perhaps only a short distance away in the rearview mirror?
And critically, in a time when acceptance of divorce and remarriage among Christians is on the rise, what must the Church do to finally eradicate these pestilential practices? What will it take for us to finally and forever call off our deadly dalliance with divorce?
Wanted for adultery
As we set about to address the decline of the modern American Church, we created a list of what we believed to be the seven deadly sins, if you will, afflicting God’s people today.1 What distinguishes these practices from those that typically draw the ire of conservative religious punditry is that these sins are widely tolerated, if not outright celebrated, among even the most stalwart, Bible-believing Christians. Ironically, and unbeknownst to most Christians, each of these practices has a secular counterpart that most believers spit out at first taste, even while guzzling down the Christian knock-off by the gallon. While the cleaned-up Christian versions of these practices look innocuous, they are anything but.
With very little debate, the top under-the-radar sin on our “most-wanted” list was hands down divorce and remarriage. We speak in detail on the rationale for this choice in the opening pages of the book,2 but in short, those who divorce defiantly and violently rend in pieces what God has united for life (Malachi 2:16; Matthew 19:6; Mark 10:9). To compound this sin, those who unlawfully remarry after divorce, thinking they were free to do so, commit adultery according to Christ (Matthew 5:32, 19:9; Mark 10:11, 12; Luke 16:18).
To make matters worse, on top of all that, today’s leading Christian voices for the most part lend nothing but hearty approval to this behavior (Romans 1:32). Because of this, we do not think it an understatement to say that Church-sanctioned adultery is one of the great scandals of modern Christian doctrine and practice.
To adulterate something is to contaminate its pure, unsullied substance with something filthy and defiling, thereby rendering it impure and unclean. Christians who divorce and remarry during their previous spouse’s lifetime commit a three-fold sin that is not easily remedied.
First, they sin against their own bodies by engaging in sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 6:18). Second, they sin against each other by violating the marriage covenant (Exodus 20:14; Matthew 5:32, 19:9; Mark 10:11, 12; Luke 16:18; Romans 7:2, 3; 1 Corinthians 7:10, 11, 39). Third, and most grievous of all, they sin against their Maker by breaking divinely-ordained creation law (Genesis 2:24; Exodus 20:14). In doing so, they adulterate the God-given institution of marriage itself (Hebrews 13:4), desecrating the sacred image of Christ’s love for His Church that God intended our marriages to display (Ephesians 5:21–33).
Thus, before adultery is unfaithfulness to oneself or one’s covenant partner, it is first and foremost unfaithfulness to God (Psalm 51:4). We take this offense lightly at our eternal peril (1 Corinthians 6:9, 10).
Too far, or not far enough?
Some will undoubtedly claim that our stance on divorce and remarriage simply goes too far. We beg to differ, and will demonstrate in the coming pages that it is the compromised approach of the modern Church, and not our own, that is going too far in presumptuously disregarding God’s holy standards for marriage.
Let’s be frank: Christians nowadays treat marriage contracts like disposable moist towelettes at a barbecue joint, permitting divorce and remarriage for a veritable smorgasbord of tasty excuses. And all this while our country sinks deeper and deeper into sexual oblivion. No more. We refuse to content ourselves with such criminal complicity. We will not be silent.
That’s why we’re issuing a prophetic call for Christians to stop justifying their marital shortcomings. Don't pawn your marriage failures off on God and His word. Your sins will find no quarter there. Stop blaming Him, your spouse, or even your misguided pastor and church friends for your mistakes. Instead, own them. Take responsibility for them. Learn from them. Otherwise, you'll continue to blame others for your problems while remaining willfully ignorant of how you have contributed to the them. As a result, you will become morally calloused and spiritually stunted. Please, drop the act. Repent. Stop defending the indefensible.
This book represents our best effort to defend God’s unbending rule of marriage “till death do us part” and to punch the demonic doctrine of divorce square in the nose. As you will see, we will pull no punches. Our gloves are off. We are throwing down the gauntlet.
Bring it, divorce-defending Christians. Give us your best shot. We will certainly give you ours.
Content overview
After much prayer and research on this topic, we discovered some truths about marriage and the history of divorce in the Church that blew us away. We share our outdated, out-of-step, out-of-touch, and, consequently, desperately needed findings in the chapters that follow.
In chapter I “Yes, God Still Hates Divorce,” we set the tone for the book by stating the problem up front, as well as justifying the need to take an unapologetic, hard-and-fast stand against it, given our current cultural collapse.
In chapters II “The Lord of Marriage” and III “The Apostle, the Fathers, and the ‘Prince of Humanists,’” we reexamine the Lord Jesus’ and the Apostle Paul’s pronouncements on divorce and remarriage, making it clear that they, along with the Early Church Fathers, were staunch opponents of both, a precedent that largely held sway in the Church until the Protestant Reformers broke rank in the 16th century under the influence of Erasmus of Rotterdam.
In chapter IV “The Rule of the “Exceptions,” we take aim at the now sacrosanct, fallen human inventions that are the “divorce exceptions,” showing their Biblical, theological, spiritual, rational, and practical folly.
In chapter V “The Christian Caught in Adultery,” we confront the obvious, but oft denied implications of entering forbidden marriages and consider the cost of following Christ in a Church riddled with divorce and adulterous remarriage.
In chapter VI “Divorced From Reality” we stare unflinchingly into the abyss of easy divorce and expose the lies keeping Christians in the dark with respect to the judgments it brings on individuals, families, and societies.
Finally, in chapter VII “Be Reconciled to God,” we lay out the Christian ministry of reconciliation, discussing its implications for when divorced and/or separated members of God’s New Covenant people can, and cannot reunite in marriage.
The book ends with an extensive and wide-ranging afterword in which we present our general recommendations for Church policy on divorce and remarriage, as well as other take-home messages, exhortations, and parting advice.
The book also contains two appendices. Appendix A is a Biblical and historical overview of the Old Testament’s death penalty for adultery and its implications for Jesus’ purported permission of divorce for sexual immorality in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9. Appendix B is an in-depth discussion of Paul's use of the terms “divorce” and “bound” in 1 Corinthians 7 and its bearing on the so-called “Pauline privilege,” which allegedly permits divorce and remarriage for Christians who have been abandoned by an unbelieving spouse.
eBook format
The draft sections of this eBook were originally published independently in serial form on the League of Believers’ Substack page (garrettpleague.substack.com). These sections were simultaneously sent in newsletter form to our Substack subscribers to elicit feedback on our book as it was written and compiled. Think of this as the book’s beta testing stage.
The current version of the book (version one: “V.1_date.at.publishing”) is simply a compilation of these posts, with additional formatting edits. Think of this as the gamma, or field testing stage. We expect subsequent versions will be released in the coming years, with appropriate explanatory notes accompanying each update.
We have chosen to self-publish this book online as an eBook to efficiently share it contents, free of charge, to the widest readership possible. Substack is currently the world’s leading online platform for showcasing high-quality, independent writing, affording authors complete creative control over their work and its distribution in a way traditional publishers simply cannot match.
We have decided to release version one now, and in its present form, for the sake of expediency in getting the word out on this very timely subject, as well as for the convenience of sharing this series with our readers as a single PDF file that is compatible with all electronic devices and e-readers.
Given the collaborative environment that gave rise to these contents, I, Garrett League, the author of this book, will often switch between the the first-person singular pronouns “I,” “my,” etc. and the first-person plural pronouns “we,” “our,” etc. throughout this book. Although I am certainly speaking for myself, I am also speaking for a league of like-minded Christians, which we hope will include you as well after reading this volume.
Research methodology
In conducting the research for this project, we have sought to use mainly “open access” resources, that is, those that are publicly available to all, for free, online. In some cases, we consulted books that can be affordably purchased from major book retailers. When citing work published in traditionally closed access resources, such as academic journals, we made use of articles that were nevertheless freely available online.
We adopted this approach for both practical and principled reasons, including avoiding subscription paywalls and encouraging transparency and accountability. By using readily accessible online materials and embedding URL links to them in the text of our book, our readers can easily fact-check our claims and analyze our arguments for themselves by examining our sources first-hand.
Wherever possible, we directly examined primary source documents rather than relying on secondary sources. Fortunately, many of these primary documents are also readily accessible in online repositories. However, when appropriate, we also interacted with proper secondary and tertiary documents, including academic articles and reputable scholarly encyclopedias.
That said, we did not discriminate against unpublished works and non-scholarly sources (such as media outlets), so long as their contents were of a high quality and were germane to the topic. Hopefully, the merits of this present work will be judged on the quality of its presentation and argumentation, and not solely on its self-published status, the stigma of which is rapidly fading in our digital age, even as the prestige of the legacy publishers craters.
Acknowledgments
I am greatly indebted to my fellow unnamed co-laborers in the League of Believers for making this book what it is. The insights you have shared and the countless prayers you have prayed both with me and for me have made this ministry’s maiden publication effort truly blessed.
I also want to thank our team of initial beta readers for subscribing to our newsletter and providing feedback on the original drafts of each book section. Your insights, critiques, and encouragements have improved this work substantially.
May the case presented here lead God’s people, by His Spirit, without fail, back to Christ our first love (Revelation 2:4, 5).
Garrett P. League
First comes love, then comes marriage…
…then comes our series on birth control in the Church. It’s time to move on to the next item on our list of “Top Seven ‘Christian’ Practices That Are Bringing God’s Judgment on the American Church.” Like divorce and remarriage, most Christians today wouldn’t bat an eye at using all manner of contraceptive. We hope our series on this topic changes that. Our thesis is a simple, two-part battle cry: contra contraception; pro procreation.
In the meantime, stay tuned for appendices A and B described above, which will be released separately in the coming days.
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See “Top Seven ‘Christian’ Practices That Are Bringing God’s Judgment on the American Church.” League of Believers, 2023.
See “Our greatest spiritual blunder” in chapter I “Yes, God Still Hates Divorce.”