Last night I went over to a friends house to discuss history, aviation, legal issues (one of the guests is a pilot and lawyer) and during that I was asked how much the divorce cost. I told him. He was shocked. I then explained the legal fight lasted four years including an appeal and re-litigation. The family court is a draining, abrasive place.

But we have to live with this.As Mike says.

Christian marriage has been destroyed — by the legal system. At any time a women can say she wants out and with the help of lawyers and a biased legal system hit the jackpot gold with a settlement. She has everything to gain financially and nothing to lose. The legal system doesn’t care whether your marriage is Christian or not, your behavior was red pill or blue pill or whether your relationship was egalitarian or complementarian.

Now we are told we must conform to the laws. Consider today’s reading.

Romans 13:1-7

1Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. 2Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; 4for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. 6For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. 7Pay to all what is due them – taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

We are told to obey authority. To stay within the speed limits, to pay our taxes, to keep the laws. To do good. Now, if we take Christ seriously and the idea of Christian duty seriously, there is no harm in this. We are not in front of the family court because divorce is rare. We are not suing each other because we are not lying and stealing from each other.

This is no longer the case. We are more than flawed, we are fallen.

This has some consequences, in my life and in others.

You see, the other thing that happened yesterday is one of the few men I know who is righteous — a wonderful secular Iranian man — asked me when I would re marry. I don’t have any partner: the last time I went on a date was about a year ago. Put simply, I am not going to put my boys through another separation and divorce, even though I would dearly like to be with someone. I need to know, to know fully, that I will NOT end up separated before I commit. The risk is too high.

I’m not the only person like this. But we are getting shamed, and accused of being what we are not. From the same thread as before the owner of CMDN swats the current meme out of the park… (I am quoting from two comments here)

If you are Christian man who happens to be single, then you are looked at with a skewed eye by many in the church. I actually had my new “Christian” doctor ask me if I was a homosexual because I was not married. Also, why is it that so many Christian women choose other worldly or secular men and then complain that there are no Christian men to date or marry

“I actually had my new “Christian” doctor ask me if I was a homosexual because I was not married.”

I was asked the same by a church elder, who also kept suggesting that because I sat beside the same 2 guys in church (the single man row – nobody else would speak to us) that I must be in a gay relationship with one of them!

I am fairly clear on what the principles we should live by in the greater world.

• We are to be in the world but not of it.
• We are to conform to the laws and regulations — except where they directly tell us to do what is against scripture.
• We are not to look to the wider culture or the courts but to the church for guidance on how to live our lives and run our families. We are, in this respect, to listen to the Anabaptists, and keep ourselves away from them.
• Our example and our lives will then be visibly different and a witness to a fallen world.

For one of my friends mentioned last night he is moving to the capital, which he described legally (and socially) as a target rich environment. He is a player, and people there party every night.

But we should not be living by those rules. Not individually, and not as a congregation or kirk.

The family court can and will destroy your wealth and your children. If you can at all, avoid it.

NOTE.

I’m clearly using male examples here — I am not female. However, I know of many women who are struggling with raising their children as a consequence of divorce, where they were not the one who ended the relationship. This system hurts both women and children, and places us in thrall to the whims of our spouses and the judicial system — it hurts both men and women.

The good news is that both men and women are starting to realize this. The bad news is that the church has forgotten to teach this.