Divorce and the church

[Liz]

Divorce is a very painful business, but for some it can be even more painful to find they cannot be married in church. The Church of England is at present debating a recent report on it's approach to whether or not to marry divorced people in church. How can the church reflect God's compassion and forgiveness, yet stand firm on the sanctity of marriage and the vows of lifelong commitment?

[MissonWorker]

Well I think that if we look at the Word of God we see that God condones to give a writing of divorcement, in the case of adultery. Matt 19:7-8
So if for example the wife has cheated on her husband and leaves and ends in divorce. That woman is not free to remarry before God. However the man is because he did not break the holy commitment he made before God. That man would be free in God’s eyes and should be able to remarry in a Church.
That goes for husbands who have cheated on their wives. The wife is free to remarry. This is what I believe. If the Church doesn’t want to marry people who have broken the marriage vow then that should not be frowned on in my opinion. However in the case were the person was cheated on and left. I think the church should allow them to be married. This however is only my opinion.

[Raymond]

It's referred to as Innocent Party. Jesus seemed to also give a let out clause "save for the case of fornication" which can be translated sexual adultery. In these cases it seems that He gave a concession for divorce.

He also said "Not everyone will be able to receive it (these words) let him who can receive it receive it", so we cannot make a legalistic law out of it.

Raymond