Our catholic friends who are crunchy call those who have divorced and remarried adulterers. And they quote this passage. This passage is here, and we need to take it seriously. There is some hyperbole here: enucleating one’s eye and cutting one’s hand off is a quick way to cripple oneself.

And lust is all around us. Our society switches from talking about pornography as an addiction and the need to be modest to saying that women need not consider modesty, and that the ghey parade can include salacious acts. Which the debased enjoy, and the non debased feel righteous about.

What every man learns to do, very quickly, is to not look. To consider many women as his sisters. For if he does not, in this time, he is a criminal. Indeed, the puritan secularist consider all unwanted male gaze as a crime.

We need some liberty. Modesty is being appropriate: most sensible women know this. They know that clothing can distract and flatter and how tone things down for work and what to wear in the gym. Moreover, to go to girls gyms or places where the lust is not there: you don’t have the energy in the middle of a crossfil workout. Most of the time I’m staring at a bar, or trying not to meet pukey.

For Christ said these things, including the one about oaths. The Quakers were strong on that one. We need to be strong on both.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

(Matthew 5:27-37 ESV)

I’ve said this before. I’m divorced. The Pro Photographer is divorced. And no, we don’t live together. Marriage should be honoured. Divorce should be rare. And we need a way forward. The Reformed suggest that divorce should be for adultery and abandonment against the clear counsel of the elders, and the reasons for divorce should not be expanded.

But we have fallen. We have tolerated and expanded the reasons for divorce: from the wife who has been beaten into a pulp to emotional abuse to delaying spiritual development to being hurt. The trouble is that we are now in the position the Jews were in. In ancient times, a man could write a certificate of divorce (a get) for any reason. Today, it is generally the woman who does so — and there are Rabbis who make a living trying to extort a get from the man who wants to return, so she can marry and be seen as virtuous.

What do we need to do? Well, firstly, telling us guys to just marry up won’t work. Firstly, it is using marriage as a cover for unrighteousness. We need to learn this from the Catholics if nothing else: marriage must be held in high esteem. I have had one divorce. I have one set of children whose spiritual and moral condition I have to consider before my happiness. I need not another. When the woman and man both have been single long enough to repent and reform and hate divorce — the reformed say that the guilty party is accounted as dead and you can remarry. (Yes, Mundabor, I’m paraphrasing the Westminster confession, which is fairly AntiPapist. Deal with it).

Secondly, we need to deal with the fact that it is dangerous to date. Brother Scott is Orthodox, but his idea of courting makes sense for the young. I’d suggest that the older ideas of Balls where the eligible are invited works better. Even Roosh talks about how the best place to meet people for long-term relationships is within the circle of family and friends: the tribe. For the current rule is that if a woman regrets the date or the sex (and in our society dates are foreplay) then it is rape. This puts women and men at moral risk. Let’s bring back weekly dances. (Live music is better: bumper stickers will be issued) Let us get families involved in choosing whom you are with: mothers and fathers have a few scars, and can pick the sociopaths, particularly if they are pretty.

What the smartest young men are doing is playing games. It is safer, and morally neutral. They are not damaging their souls as their parents have. Because the risk is too great, and the rewards of dating the current crop of princesses too little.

Thirdly, let us kick the state and family court out of church life. We will not be able to do anything about the laws: the family court is a fascist industry. But we can counsel lawyers not to get involved in divorces. We can discuss setting up trusts where divorce has penalties, We can marry within the church and not licence them. We can deal with our own difficulties using church discipline. And we can then fight the family court, using appeals as needed. For it is an enemy.

Because the way our society is going leads to destruction. Far better is to marry once, and spend one’s life building up the man and woman you married, so they are presented to Christ in perfection.

Then those of us who are broken, by the spirit, can be a warning in our pain. For Christ will heal us.