What is Reddit's opinion of Divorce and Remarriage in the Church: Biblical Solutions for Pastoral Realities?

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Hi. You may be interested in this resource; it supports what you're saying:

The book "Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible" by Dr. David Instone-Brewer shows that divorce is clearly allowed for abuse and neglect. The problem is that there is not enough written in the NT to understand the context of the time, the context of the few verses that addressed divorce.

Hey! I just made a post similar to yours and I think some of the comments on my post might help you (I posted here as well as r/Christianity). Someone suggested this book which I just bought today. I don't have any wisdom for you, but I hope it brings you some sense of peace to know that you're not totally alone.

Jesus was not unambiguously opposed to divorce.

I imagine you may be referring to Matthew 19, where he is asked if divorce is acceptable for any reason, and he says that adultery is the acceptable reason. But that situation has a lot of context. In that era, there were two main views: that people could get divorced for any reason (including the famous "you burned my dinner" example) and that it required some violation of the marriage covenant (frequently shorthanded as "adultery," but also including abandonment, neglect, etc.). At that time people could choose between the two (e.g., Joseph decided to divorce Mary quietly when he found out she was pregnant when they were betrothed but not married and decided to use the "any reason" option so he wouldn't have to demonstrate unfaithfulness and her reputation wouldn't be as damaged)

So when the pharisees asked him that, the best available interpretation is asking Him, "Is it acceptable for someone to use the 'any reason' rule to divorce someone?" And his response being "No, the violation of covenant rule is the correct one."

Source: Divorce and Remarriage in the Church: Biblical Solutions for Pastoral Realities. Great book.

I feel so sorry for you. Personally, I think that you should separate and get divorced (full disclosure: I'm divorced and happily remarried). Why would divorce send you to hell more than any other sin? What about pride, selfishness, lying, resentment, gossip? Aren't they all as bad as divorce? Often sins of the heart are considered even worse. I'm pretty sure that just as Jesus forgave and accepted the woman caught in adultery, he would forgive someone who is divorced. The only people that Jesus really was angry with and attacked were the hypocritical, sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, religious head honchos. He welcomed outcasts and sinners so much that he was infamous for it.

The book "Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible" by Dr. David Instone-Brewer shows that divorce is clearly allowed for abuse and neglect. The problem is that there is not enough written in the NT to understand the context of the time, the context of the few verses that addressed divorce. Here's how I personally understand it: when a spouse dies, the marriage is over because there is no marriage anymore, the marriage is dead too. But in a marriage where the spouse has not died, if there is no love, no trust, no respect, then that marriage is dead too. At this point you might as well be living in a house with a corpse, the marriage is dead. So I don't see a problem with getting divorced. (In my case we had 15 years of counselling that did absolutely nothing - things just got worse and worse; at least 5 different counsellors and pastors.)

I would also like to make the very important (and non-controversial point) that to forgive someone is not the same as accepting them back into your life and letting them have power over you and wounding you again. A lot of Christians get really confused by this and think that God's command to forgive our enemies and persecutors means that we have to reconcile with them and have a relationship with them. Perish the thought! This is clearly explained in a paper written by a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators http://quarkphysics.ca/forgiveness.doc It's nine pages long, but it's excellent and I haven't read anything better about forgiveness.