Christian views on divorce

Christian views on divorce find their basis both in biblical sources and in texts authored by the Church Fathers of the early Christian Church, who were unanimous in condemning the practice.

According to the synoptic Gospels, Jesus emphasized the permanence of marriage (see Mark 10 at verses 1 to 12, Matthew 19; Luke 16:18) but also its integrity. In the King James Version of the Gospel of Mark, verses 11 and 12, Jesus says "Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall put away her husband, and be married to another, she commits adultery." The Gospel of Luke adds that those who marry divorced persons also commit adultery, as recorded in Luke 16:18. 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 states that adulterers "shall not inherit the kingdom of God". Matthew 19:9 does discuss adultery as possible grounds for divorce. Nevertheless, The Shepherd of Hermas, an early Christian work on the subject, teaches that while fornication is the only reason that divorce can ever be permitted, remarriage with another person is forbidden to allow repentance and reconciliation of the husband and wife (those who refuse to forgive and receive their spouse are guilty of a grave sin). This Christian teaching is echoed in 1 Corinthians 7:10–11, which forbids divorce and states that those spouses who have deserted their husband/wife should return their partner; if that is absolutely impossible, the husband and wife should remain chaste.

Both in the Gospel of Matthew and of Mark, Jesus remembers and quotes Genesis 1:27 ("male and female created He them"), and Genesis 2:24 ("shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twaine shall be one flesh."). Paul the Apostle concurred but added an exception, interpreted according to Catholicism as the Pauline privilege; this interpretation of Paul's words teaches that in the case of a non-Christian couple (neither party has ever received the sacrament of baptism) where one of the parties converts to Christianity and receives the sacrament of baptism, that party is allowed to enter into a Christian marriage if and only if the non-Christian spouse departs.

The Catholic Church does not prohibit civil divorce; however, a Catholic may not remarry after a civil divorce unless they have received an annulment (a finding that the marriage was not canonically valid) under a narrow set of circumstances. The Eastern Orthodox Churches permit 'ecclesiastical divorce' and remarriage in church in certain circumstances, though its rules are generally more restrictive than the civil divorce rules of most countries. Most Protestant churches discourage divorce though the way divorce is addressed varies by denomination; for example, the United Church of Christ permits divorce and allows for the possibility of remarriage, while denominations such as the Mennonite Christian Fellowship and Evangelical Methodist Church Conference forbid divorce except in the case of fornication and do not allow for the remarriage of divorced persons.

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