Pornography: Grounds for Divorce?

          In a July 20, 2017 entry on the blog “Gentle Reformation,” the Reverend Barry York posted an article written by Rebecca VanDoodewaard. Its provocative title: “A High View of Marriage Includes Divorce.” Mr. York followed up Rebeccca’s views with his own on July 24, 2017, “What’s A Hurting Wife to Do?” Both blogs make good points, but they also promote major errors.

The Atlantic Presbytery of the RPNCA at its October 2017 meeting received a proposed pastoral letter responding to these two blog articles on “Gentle Reformation.” Presbytery passed the following motions: “1) That this counsel be received and forwarded to the Sessions of Atlantic Presbytery; 2) That the elders of Atlantic Presbytery give comments to the authors within the next three weeks for further re-working of the communication toward its publication on Gentle Reformation blog.”

When the Presbytery communication was later submitted to “Gentle Reformation,” its moderator, Mr. York, declined to publish it except as a comment, which by then would get no notice. The communication furthermore was far too long for a blog comment, so we are publishing it in A Little Strength.

​

I. What is the Essence of Marriage?

          According to the Bible and the Westminster Confession of Faith, marriage is a life-long covenant of mutual fidelity between a man and a woman to live as one flesh, for their mutual benefit, and for the bearing of children (WCF 24.1-2 summary). “One flesh” refers primarily to bodily sexual union (see I Corinthians 6:16-20 for that central meaning, where a man’s resorting to a prostitute is described as becoming “one flesh” with her). Only sexual union, becoming “one flesh,” enables Man to “be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28).” When the first man saw the first woman, he exclaimed over their bodily alikeness, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh (Genesis 2:23).” Physical sexual relations are at the heart of marriage, and licit only within it.

The Scriptures do NOT describe marriage as a relationship in which two become “best friends,” “soul mates,” or “partners with the same life-goals” like some popular books on marriage do (see Bill Edgar’s critical review of Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Bible by Jay Adams, in A Little Strength, vol. 1, iss. 2, p. 8, where he contends that such views draw from Gnostic ideas about soul and body and disarm the Church when confronted with demands for “gay marriage”). Good companionship may be part of the “mutual benefits” of a happy marriage, but it can equally describe the character of friendships or even business partnerships. Two fleshly human bodies joined as one, however, are the heart of marriage.

An ancient, dangerous, and heretical body-soul Dualism undervalues and sometimes denigrates the body. Dualism holds that the material (body) and immaterial (spirit, soul, etc.) are opposed to one another, that material is inherently evil, and spiritual people should look forward to being free of their bodies. Dualism appears when Christians forget that bodily resurrection is our hope, saying instead that their hope is “to die and go to heaven.” Dualism also appears when people evade the clear sexual meaning of “one flesh” union and treat the emotional and legal implications of “one flesh” as primary rather than derivative.

When the Bible warns about a deadly danger to the marriage bond, it teaches that when husband or wife denies bodily sexual access to the other, he or she gives Satan an opportunity – a rare warning in the Bible:

“The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control (I Corinthians 7:3-5).”

In marriage, husband and wife give up authority over their own bodies, which now belong to each other. Co-ownership of their bodies between husbands and wives provides the basis for common ownership of all things, which is also rightly included in the one flesh union of marriage.

II. What Constitutes Adultery Allowing for Divorce?

          Matthew records the Pharisees asking Jesus a debated issue in their day: “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause (Matthew 19:3)?” Jesus answered, “No, it is not. Don’t you know your Bibles? In the beginning, God made them male and female and said that a man should leave his father and mother for his wife and be joined to her, becoming one flesh. The two are no longer two, but one. What God has joined, man should not separate (Matthew 19:4-6 paraphrased).” “Why, then, did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to send her away (Matthew 19:7)?” the Pharisees responded. Jesus answered that the law establishing divorce procedures was because of the hardness of their hearts, but divorce had no place in God’s plan from the beginning. In fact, whoever divorces his wife “except for sexual immorality” commits adultery, and whoever marries her commits adultery (Matthew 19:8-9).

Jesus’ disciples protested this hard teaching and so have many people since then (Matthew 19:10). As the Westminster Confession of Faith observes, “Although the corruption of man be such as to study arguments, unduly to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage; yet nothing but adultery or such willful desertion as can no way be remedied by the church or civil magistrate, is cause sufficient for dissolving the bond of marriage… (WCF, 24.6).”

Does every way that a husband or wife can break the Seventh Commandment, “You shall not commit adultery,” give the other marriage partner just grounds for divorce? Jesus taught that when a man lusts after a woman in his heart he commits adultery (Matthew 5:27-28). Given that searching standard for adultery, nearly every woman, and probably nearly every man, would at some time have just cause to seek a divorce! Here the Westminster Larger Catechism is helpful. In expounding the demands of the Law of God, it teaches that some sins are more heinous (evil) than others. What makes a sin especially evil? “...if it be against the express letter of the law…if not only conceived in the heart but break forth in words and actions….(WLC, Q. 151).”

When the Westminster Larger Catechism enumerates sins that break the Seventh Commandment, it lists the most heinous sins, the ones “against the express letter of the law” that “break forth in…actions” in two distinct groups, put in bold type below. Sins that today are collectively called “pornography” it lists in a separate group put here in italics.

"Q. 139. What are the sins forbidden in the seventh commandment?

 A. The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, adultery, fornication, rape, incest, sodomy, and all unnatural lusts; all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections; all corrupt or filthy communications, or listening thereunto; wanton looks, impudent or light behaviour, immodest apparel; prohibiting of lawful, and dispensing with unlawful marriages; allowing, tolerating, keeping of stews, and resorting to them; entangling vows of single life, undue delay of marriage, having more wives or husbands than one at the same time; unjust divorce, or desertion; idleness, gluttony, drunkenness, unchaste company; lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancings, stage plays; and all other provocations to, or acts of uncleanness, either in ourselves or others."

          Please note: the two groups of sins put in bold print deal with two bodies actually joined together in the flesh. (The Scripture proof text Leviticus 20:15-16 reveals that the delicately put “unnatural lusts” refers to bestiality. “Stews” were the equivalent of today’s “massage parlors.”) All the other sins listed in the answer to WLC A. 139 refer to sins that do not involve contact between two material bodies.

Both the Church and State in the past, when they have considered adultery adequate grounds for divorce, have meant by it only overt sexual acts done in the flesh with another physical being, such as those listed in WLC A. 139. Proof of such acts, of course, was required when the guilty party denied his or her guilt.

III. What is Wrong with VanDooderward’s Pornography Ground for Divorce?

          VanDooderward writes concerning pornography,

“The fourth lie usually involved in this discussion is about pornography. It is often classified as not technically adultery, so spouses are denied the biblical right to divorce. This is mind-boggling. Someone who seeks out sexually explicit material and has a physical response to it is in the same mental, physical, and spiritual condition as someone in bed with a coworker.”

          There are five serious problems with VanDooderward’s calling the denial of pornography’s use justifiable grounds for seeking divorce a “lie.”

1). VanDooderward writes that those who disagree with her classify pornography “as not technically adultery.” Wrong. She attacks a straw man. Pornography use breaks the Seventh Commandment against adultery, not just “technically.” However, pornography use is not as heinous a sin as adultery committed with another physical body, because it does not break the “express” meaning of the Commandment, and because it has not broken into action with another physical being in the flesh.

2). The term “pornography” is ill defined, both in Church and State law. The term itself is of recent origin, based on the word porneia used in Matthew 19:9. The King James Bible translated porneia as “fornication;” more recent English translations use the more general “sexual immorality.” Since neither Church nor Civil Law clearly defines what constitutes “pornography,” treating it as a biblical ground for divorce is dangerous. What standard are elders to use when faced with a wife’s accusation against her husband that he uses pornography? The standard they will use will turn out to be the subjective one of just how bad the pornography and its use seems to them. When a term used for adjudicating the law is unclear, injustice often occurs. The most heinous adultery, involving one physical body having sexual relations with another physical body, on the other hand, is quite objective and provides a clear basis for making legal pronouncements.
 

3). Pornography is not new, even if the word is, though it may be more widespread and addictive in its use than it has been in at least the recent past. The words italicized above in WLC A. 139 cover what people today lump together as “pornography:” “lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancings, stage plays.” If one thinks Internet pornography is more degraded than the “pictures” or “stage plays” of earlier times, it is because one simply does not know how bad they could be. (See – or rather don’t! – frescoes from Pompeii, or Procopius’ descriptions of the youthful sexual exploits on stage of Justinian’s later wife, Theodora {6th C}.) There is no evidence that either State or Church laws ever viewed “lascivious songs, books, pictures, dancings, stage plays” as the sort of adultery that granted to the innocent party valid grounds for seeking divorce. To assert that it is a “lie” that pornography should not be considered a valid biblical ground for divorce unjustly accuses previous generations of church teachers of perverting the Bible’s teaching about divorce.

4). The reason VanDooderward gives that pornography use should be valid grounds for divorce hints at a Gnostic dualism, which teaches that what really matters in a person is what goes on inside the head, so that solitary sexual thoughts and bodily reactions are no different than sexual relations making someone “one flesh” with another being. She wrote, “Someone who seeks out sexually explicit material and has a physical response to it is in the same mental, physical, and spiritual condition as someone in bed with a coworker.” No, he is not in the same physical, mental, or spiritual state as someone in bed with a coworker. He is not “one flesh” with another physical being. No one can become “one flesh” with pixels on a screen.

5). If the sins that break the Seventh Commandment named in the WLC, which today get called “pornography,” justify divorce, what of the other sins the WLC names that break the Seventh Commandment? Do they also give biblical grounds for divorce? On what reasonable grounds can VanDooderward deny someone who claims that a husband or wife’s “idleness, gluttony [and] drunkenness,” or “immodest apparel,” give biblical grounds for divorce? They too involve “mental, physical, and spiritual” conditions that break the Seventh Commandment.

IV. What are the Dangers of Multiplying Reasons for Divorce?

          The temptation to multiply reasons allowing for divorce never disappears (see WLC, 24.6 already quoted). In a society where breaking a marriage covenant is easier than voiding a house-painting contract, the Church must resolutely resist going beyond what the Bible teaches concerning “cause sufficient of dissolving the bond of marriage.” Arguments such as, “pornography equals adultery and so allows divorce,” or related arguments, such as “besides physical absence, desertion can also mean emotional desertion or financial desertion,” provide spurious grounds “to put asunder those whom God hath joined together in marriage.” They also subtly deny the one-flesh physical essence of marriage. In practice they will tend towards the same results that the “no fault” divorce regimen achieves and further devastate families, virtually giving every newly married person a Monopoly style “Get Out of Marriage Free” card on the wedding day.

Those who counsel unhappily married people, in whose marriages sin abounds, rightly feel compassion for them and want their happiness. Marriage is hard. It is “for better or for worse,” and when it is “for worse,” there is true suffering, just as there is suffering when “for richer or for poorer” turns out to be “for poorer,” or “in sickness and in health” turns out to be “in sickness.” Our wedding vows explicitly allow for these bad marital outcomes. Where counseling and church discipline, diaconal help, or medical skill can alleviate them that is good! But hard cases make bad law, and difficult counseling cases lead to bad moral reasoning. Sessions should rebuke, exhort, suspend and even excommunicate men or women who refuse to repent of reading or viewing pornography. Nonetheless, neither the sin nor the ensuing discipline gives Biblical grounds for divorce.

Teaching that widens the door to divorce, or minimizes the fleshly nature of marriage, leads Christians astray. “In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it… (Ephesians 5:28- 29).” A high view of marriage does not trumpet that it includes divorce. “A High View of Marriage Includes Divorce” is a catchy title, but VanDooderward’s blog article makes a travesty of Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees about divorce.

-- General Editor: Pastor Paul Brace, Hazleton PA