The only answer to the problem of remarrying in church

by Mr John Lucas

Fellow of Merton College, Oxford

Three things may be said about the Synod's proposals for marriage in church for those with a divorced partner still living. They are contrary to the teaching of Jesus; they won't work; and they are unnecessary.
        Full discussion of Jesus' teaching may be found elsewhere. Here it is enough to point out that St. Paul certainly thought that the Lord had forbidden divorce and remarriage, and this is the natural impression gained from a reading of the Gospels. The Matthean exception is not reported by St. Mark or St. Luke, and (if it is not a saying of Jesus) it is easier to understand how it came to be inserted in the text of St. Matthew than how it should have been omitted from that of St. Mark and St. Luke. Even among those who support the "remarriage" proposals there are many who concede that Jesus taught the lifelong nature of marriage, but claim that Jesus' teaching should not be taken literally as law. They appeal rather to the spirit of forgiveness and love that characterizes the Christian message, and claim that if Jesus were faced with our contemporary problems He too would exercise a ministry of love rather than be stern and unyielding in upholding the rules.
        This is an argument to which no Christian can turn a deaf ear, but one too that no one should dare to make exclusively his own. We all need mercy. But an easy appeal to mercy can quickly sap the stringency of Christ's call to us, and accommodate the uncompromising demands of God to the comfortable standards of the world. Although the task of discerning the mind of Christ in the moral complexities of the problems we have to face in the world is very difficult, Jesus did take a particularly strong line about marriage, and we need to be very, very cautious about presuming in His name to set aside what He actually taught.
        Some people think that they can continue to witness to Christ' s teaching by saying that marriage is meant to be lifelong, and having said that, by going on to accept that divorces actually occur, and by then allowing divorcees to remarry in Church. They delude themselves. People are judged by what they do, not by what they say. If the Church solemnizes marriages between divorcees, no number of affirmations about lifelong union will cut any ice. For every person who reads and believes what bishops say, there are hundreds who take no notice of clergymen, but would only know that a niece, a neighbour, or a film star got married in Church after a divorce.
        The point of the existing rule is very clear, and easily understood even by those to whom it denies a church wedding. Once the rule is abandoned, however, the Church is faced with the invidious task of selecting some, who are to be allowed a church wedding, and rejecting others, and then with the impossible task of reconciling the latter to its decision.
        Bishops are busy men. To grant or withold permission for a church wedding is inherently contentious. To go into the question properly would take a lot of time they could ill afford. There would be strong pressure, in view of the other calls on their time, to devote less time to remarriage pleas. But it would always be much easier then to say 'Yes' than to say 'No'. 'No' is the difficult decision to reach. Because it disappoints the applicant reasons why he cannot have what he wants would need to be thought out, and if reasons cannot be thought out through lack of time, the only safe answer is 'Yes'. In the United States bishops have said 'Yes' even to sixth and seventh remarriages, and in their Diocesan Magazines have defended their decisions as "responsible." It is likely that bishops would end up acting similarly in England too. Once the rule is abandoned, it becomes very difficult in practice to avoid allowing remarriage in all but the most scandalous circumstances, and the Church's witness to Christ's teaching becomes a matter of empty words, entirely belied by its actual practice.
        Supporters of the "remarriage" proposals do not accept that they will lead to indiscriminate remarriage. They believe that the bishops will be able to sift out the wheat from the chaff, so that only deserving cases will be granted permission. No doubt if the bishops, and the Church generally, devoted sufficient resources to such questions, they could reach reasonable decisions. But still there would be costs. One, which has been much overlooked, is the position of those whose requests are refused. Although there may be reasons, those reasons are not going to seem weighty to the couple concerned - else they would not have asked in the first place. They are going to feel snubbed. They have been weighed in the balance and found wanting. A refusal in a particular case is much more wounding, and will be taken much more personally, than a blanket refusal.
        If the Church does not remarry anyone, I may sound off about its unloving attitude, but I know it is the same for everyone, and although I should like an exception to be made in my case, I can see that it is difficult for the Church, in the face of Christ` s uncompromising words, to make exceptions. If, however, the Church allows a remarriage for the daughter of the treasurer of the P.C.C. who is entering on an ill-advised union with a subordinate of mine, who, apart from ditching his number one, has been the wolf of the typing pool, I shall surely be shocked and aggrieved if permission is refused to me, wanting to share my life with Sheila who is a wonderful woman and has brought up three children unaided, as well as being the mainstay of the choir. The bishop may have his reasons. I may have an ex-wife who has slipped below my threshold of consciousness, or there may be other circumstances. But I shall not find them very convincing, and shall suspect that money talks louder than hymnody, and that the Church has been very unfair. It is invidious to pick and choose. Rather than engender bad blood by rejecting some cases but not others, the Church would commend its pastoral concern better by treating all alike for a reason which all can understand and which none need feel to be aimed personally at them.
        A greater cost of the policy of remarrying selectively would be in the perceived role of the Church. To be able to have a white wedding is a value not only to deeply committed Christians, but to many who have little attachment to Christianity. It is aesthetically more pleasing than a Registry Office wedding. More important, it carries with it a patent of social respectability. Many a mother whose daughter is marrying a divorcee will yearn all the more insistently for a wedding in Church in order to reassure the neighbours that it is all right really. Although the current debate has been almost entirely in terms of the sincere Christian whose teenage marriage came to grief, and who now, having come to Christ wants to embark on a responsible lifelong commitment with another sincere Christian, there is no way of ensuring that only such as these apply for permission. The doors will be open to many, whose motives are mixed, to seek permission to remarry in church. And for them it will be not just a matter of spiritual discipline, but of secular advantage. And if it is a matter of secular advantage, it will raise issues of fairness and justice, which the Church of England is ill-equipped, and traditionally unwilling to adjudicate upon.
        Although the Reformers envisaged the continuation of the medieval discipline of Church courts, they were rapidly dispensed with for almost all cases. The Church of Rome and some Protestant Churches continued to adjudicate on who should have their marriage annulled, who should be admitted to baptism, and who should be admitted to communion, but the Church of England has avoided pronouncing on such questions whenever possible. When it has, (as for instance when the Bishop of Winchester recently excluded a couple from communion in order to avoid disruption of the local congregation) there is public disquiet. The church's stance is not one of cowardice, but of distinguishing its pastoral role from a juridical one.
        To adjudicate who shall and who shall not receive good things is a difficult task requiring impartiality, impersonality and aloofness. We seclude our judges, and fence them around with restrictions and inhibitions to prevent improper pressure being applied to them and secure their evident impartiality. If bishops, or any other church officials, were seen to be dispensers of permits for "church" weddings, they too would need to be aloof. There must not be any occasion, say after a meeting of the Diocesan Committee for Pastoral Reorganization, for a quiet word with the Bishop about the treasurer's daughter. A bishop could no longer seek to be all things to all men. But this is what the pastoral role of the ordained ministry requires.
        The pastor is not impartial, but partial to all his sheep, entering into their concerns, and seeing everything from their point of view. He gives advice, the best he can, but leaves it to each individual concerned to make the decision. If I am in doubt whether to seek for myself or my children the sacrament of baptism, I can consult my parish priest, and he will advise me: but if I reject his advice, he will respect my decision. The case is the same, unless it will scandalize the local congregation, with my decision to present myself at the altar rail. There are ill consequences. Some eat the Body and drink the Blood unworthily. Many children are baptized without any real commitment, even vicarious, on their behalf. But these are concomitants of the Church of England's vocation to be a means of grace to the nation, not an intermediary standing between the individual and God.
        It follows that it would be entirely alien to the Church's ethos to take upon itself the task of deciding who shall or who shall not be allowed to remarry in Church. The question of whether someone should remarry at all is one on which it can give pastoral advice, to enable the individual to take the full point of Christ's teaching, and then to decide in the circumstances of the case whether an admittedly imperfect union would be less good or less bad than a possibly unfruitful celibacy. But the decision itself whether he should remarry at all is one that can, and should, be left to the individual, who is himself answerable to God directly. If he decides that he may and should, the option of civil marriage after divorce stands open to him.
        The question of whether someone may remarry in church is, however, one that the Church must decide, and the only sustainable decisions are either that all may or that none may. To decide that all may could undoubtedly be popular, and bring in more business, but this would show the Church to be the servant of the secular spirit of the age rather than of Jesus who taught in Galilee. To decide that none may is an effective and intelligible witness to its Lord's teaching so that even - indeed, especially - those committed Christians who have responsibly come to the decision that God's will for them is that they should marry again, can understand why none the less they should not compromise the integrity of the Church's witness by seeking to have the ceremony performed in church.

Originally published by Marriage Solidarity

Other articles by John Lucas may be read on his website http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas