A common stand taken by many churches is that they may not. The usual 'reason' given takes the form of a question, "What will people think of the church whose pastor is a divorcee?" It is often argued that the holiness of God, which the church is supposed to reflect, will be jeopardized if a divorcee were to lead or pastor the church. So strongly is this view held that some churches actually have a clause in their constitution that bars divorcees from being nominated for office.
Despite its appeal—who would want to jeopardize the holiness of God and tarnish the reputation of the church?—this view of the matter raises some serious questions both with regards to its theological foundations and its pastoral implications.
Let us begin by looking at the nature of a divorce. It is, as we have already made clear in our discussion on Scriptures' teaching on divorce, that it is hateful to God. No matter how divorce is viewed from other perspective, divorce is a sin. We cannot, therefore, discuss the subject without the holiness of God being a prime consideration.
Having said that we must also recognize that divorce is a peculiar kind of sin. When a person steals, e.g., he alone becomes the thief; unless another person joins him knowingly in the act. Divorce, however, is peculiar in that it takes only one person to commit it to produce two divorcees, one of whom may very often have been actively and strenuously opposing it. Like all sins, people caught up in divorce may be equally sinning, or they may be the sinning or the sinned against. More so than in other sins, we need to distinguish between these categories in the way we respond. Take my friend Ben, one of the most Christ-like pastor I know. His wife Lin made off with her lover and—despite and against Ben's generous forgiveness and repeated plea for reconciliation—divorced him. Can Ben be held guilty of the sin and now be disqualified from his office as a pastor? Ben is a 'sinned against' divorcee, the victim of a sin, not its perpetrator. Surely to insist that, since Ben is now a divorcee, he can no longer remain a leader or pastor because God's holiness has to be preserved is to transgress that holiness in the worst logically contorted way imaginable! It is the darkest form hypocrisy drapped in gold. Furthermore, does not, in fact, the compassion of Christ demand that we should come alongside Ben, the victim, and help bind up as best we can the painful wound of his broken marriage? And does not discharging him from his office amount to rubbing the salt of criminal rejection into that wound, a repudiation of the love that Christ commands us to show?
Leaders in the church will, of course, always be concerned about the reputation of the church. And rightly they should. More than her reputation, however, is the demand of our Father to pursue after justice. People who do not care to know why the church has a divorcee pastor will not care anyway. But those who do find out, for example, why Ben remained the pastor despite being a divorcee will see a church living out the power of the gospel. Conversely, those who discover a church that would discharge Ben from his office will recognize that it cares more about how it looks than what it preaches. Our Lord Jesus cared little about what people thought of him; for him the will and pleasure of the Father overrides every other consideration. We, his disciples, can do no less. It is the Father's pleasure that we pursue justice and learn to discern between those sinning and those sinned-against, like Ben, and to thus act according.
Divorce, in that it is hateful to God, is a sin. But it is not the unforgiveable sin. If it is forgivable, does it not imply that there can also be restoration? The forgiveness that is not open to the possibility of complete restoration has not understood itself. This is the heart of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This theological affirmation implies, therefore, that we cannot speak truthfully about forgiveness and still insist that divorcees—even those 'sinning' ones—cannot be pastors or leaders in the church.
As in all other aspects in the church's pastoral management of sin, we need to distinguish between the categories of sinners. There are unrepentant sinners. With them the church must maintain the open arms of grace-infused discipline. They may even be excommunicates, but the message to and our attitude towards them must always be this; there can be forgiveness where there is repentance. 'Sinning' divorcees who remain unrepentant must know that this is where the church stands. The church that, e.g., has a leader who lives with his mistress is an abomination. On this there can be no compromise.
On the other hand it is the responsibility of the church leadership to be always on the lookout for sinners who show, both in their declaration and in the manner of their life, that they are indeed repentant and to restore them to the fullness of the church's life. This is what it means to be shepherds of the flock;
Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
Lk 15:4-7
This parable of Jesus suggests that, rather than excluding sinners like 'sinning' divorcees from the possibility of leadership, the repentant divorcee who is restored to office should be the joy of church-leadership (though we can be sure—pride being so much a fact of us—most of us will not imagine that there will be more rejoicing when one of them come back into office than ninety-nine of us who have happy marriages). The parable even suggests that we should make such a matter a priority, leaving the ninety-nine who behave so will in the open country of our congregation, to seek that one out. I recognize, of course, that most readers will object that this parable has to do with the lost who needs evangelizing. But is that not also the broken and sinning divorcee? What is so theologically special about divorcees, we should ask ourselves, that we pigeon-hole them into a different box of sinners for treatment? They are sinners just like the rest of us!
Here, perhaps, it may be useful to line up the divorcee against the gangsters, junkies, and murderers. Notice how we rejoice when a gangster who had murdered any number of persons, served his time, and had come to know Christ, and have a powerful testimony of God's power to transform! How many of them go on to be welcomed into our pulpits and to be leaders in the church! Is it not the acme of hypocrisy that this same privilege of restoration is withheld from the sinner who has made a failure of his/her marriage? Why is murder a lesser evil?
Is it possible then that our refusal to privilege repentant divorcees with all the fullness of restoration in the church has nothing to do with the theological nature of their sin, but with our pride—yes, we did not make a mess of our marriage, we have been faithful, they were not— and with our desire not to be inconvenienced by the raised-eyebrows of those who think highly of themselves, fearful of the scandals that are not of the cross.
If there is nothing in Scriptures to suggest that divorcees are different from other sinners, and if there is everywhere in Scriptures to require us as Jesus' disciples to seek out, to forgive, and to restore all and any who are lost but repentant, then we cannot with a clear conscience ban divorcees who have repented and evidence such repentance in their life, from positions of leadership. To do so is to repudiate the gospel in all that it proclaims.
In real life, however, right theology is not everything. We need to heed the voice of wisdom as well. There is no question whatsoever that restoring a repentant divorcee to all the privileges of membership in the church, and particularly of leadership, is an especially difficult task. The leaders of the church desiring to be faithful to such a restorative work of God will have to risk their own reputations on behalf of that repentant divorcee. They will have to give an account, first, to the congregation why they believe that that divorcee has repented, which inevitably will require them to face up to the challenge of those in the congregation who are always "wiser," "more spiritual," and "holier" than the leaders. There is always the likelihood that their desire to do right by God and the repentant divorcee will go unappreciated. Foremost of all, they will be charged with ignoring the holiness of God, what, for thinking that divorcees should enjoy the grace of restoration. All these, we can see, add up to a great deal of "I can do without them" even though we know it is not an attitude that should drive Christian leadership. Here the elders of any church where in which this unfortunate situation should happen must weigh their hears before God, and ask themselves if they are prepared to pay the price for doing what is right. Here too the divorcee who is seeking to be restored to leadership must ask himself if he is right to put the leaders of the church to such a heavy task. Here only wisdom from the Holy Spirit can decide for them.
Low C.H.
©Alberith, 2013