Divorce And Demonization In Christian Community

Divorce sucks and anyone who has gone through the process knows it’s not a pleasant one. You think of the kids and what becomes of their lives after the separation. When there are no kids involved, you think of the life you’ve had together, the one you could have had, and you imagine how, where, and when everything went wrong.

The psychological and emotional traumas that accompany divorce don’t go away so quickly. It leaves most people shattered that the thought of marriage becomes a taboo. No divorce is ever easy and whether it’s worse than staying in a miserable marriage, I do not know.

Several circumstances could lead to divorce and the moment it becomes an option to consider by married couples, that’s the moment they need all the support, advice, and encouragement they can get to help them reconsider or proceed with it in such a way that there’s minimal negative impact on everyone involved.

But this is where we sometimes get it all wrong. Without much knowledge of what those involved are experiencing, instead of counseling, we castigate; instead of compassion, we crucify, and instead of empathy, we demonize. And it’s even sad that we find this distasteful trend in the Christian community.

The Scripture in Malachi 2:16 helps us to understand that God hates divorce, but we know he doesn’t hate the divorcees. Any proof? Remember how Jesus interacted with the Samaritan woman in John 4:4-19, and importantly, the way he handled the case of a woman caught in adultery in John 8:1-11.

Now, these examples are not related to divorce, but are tied to deeds that amount to “sin” – what God hates – and how were these women treated? With love, compassion, and forgiveness. This is the hallmark of Christianity and a benchmark for the church to emulate!

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“Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason? Haven’t you read, he replied, that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So, they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.

“Why then, they asked, did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away? Jesus replied, Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” – Matthew 19:3-9

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A lady shared the message below with a relationship expert on a social platform and the message is probably why you’re reading this article because I thought other divorcees might be experiencing the same demonization in the Christian community, but are either afraid to speak up or don’t have the platform to speak up:

“…When Pastors get divorced, people will say, OMG, the devil is a liar. I got divorced and my church members demonized me. They removed me from every department and WhatsApp group. Our Pastor got divorced based on infidelity, but he is still preaching. Why?”

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Now, there’s no authenticity to this story, but there’s an element of fact in it and a high probability that it could happen in the Christian community. Seeing comments on the shared post, suffices to say, this demonization of divorcees happens in the church community:

“Leave the church. I left mine. I’m in a church where I don’t walk around in shame because I’m divorced.”

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“…that was how they didn’t allow me to join the music department because I got separated from an obviously abusive marriage. I stopped worshipping there.”

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We call this hypocrisy in Christianity and the popular advice is to leave the church. But is leaving the church to join another church the lasting solution?

If it’s a pastor’s marriage that hits the rocks, the devil is to blame, but if it’s the members, they are kicked out of church groups and perceived in a certain strange way. And we easily forget that pastors are not superior to members in the sight of God.

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