GIVING & SHARING NEWSLETTER September,
1994 No. 29
Armstrong’s 1953 Article,
“Divorce and Remarriage”
Giving & Sharing is pleased to reprint
the classic doctrinal article, “Divorce and Remarriage,” by Herbert W.
Armstrong, originally published in 1953. The article was withdrawn from publication several years before
1974, when the Worldwide Church of God drastically changed its teaching
relative to marriage and divorce. Many
people today who have become part of the Church of God since the early 1970s, have
never read this important material. We
are reprinting “Divorce and Remarriage,” so that this basic Bible truth will
not be lost. Please read it with an
open mind.
It is interesting to note that this
article has been totally misinterpreted by some. Herbert W. Armstrong’s “Divorce and Remarriage” article does not
justify setting up a church judicial system to decide on the validity of
members’ or prospective members’ marriages.
Yet during the 1950s and 1960s, that is exactly what the Radio
(Worldwide) Church of God did.
Prospective members were sometimes denied baptism if the ministry
decided that their present marriage was adulterous, and they refused to
separate. Members whose cases were
taken up by the Church sometimes found that the process was less than uniform,
and even arbitrary. Sometimes, a
“liberal” WWC minister would undo a previous decision of a “conservative”
minister. This demonstrates that there
were divergent opinions of the simple divorce and remarriage teaching. There is nothing in the Bible, nor in
Herbert Armstrong’s public writings, to justify a judicial system of
administration of the doctrine of marriage.
Actually, the ministry should strongly proclaim the Truth, and
disfellowship members only in flagrant cases of sexual sin and rebellion. Thankfully, this kind of Church judicial
system of the administration of the doctrine of divorce and remarriage is
almost entirely extinct today.
In reaction to this ungodly
administration of bondage, the Worldwide Church of God then went to the
opposite extreme, but this was a second erroneous position. In 1974, the Church’s teaching on “Divorce
and Remarriage” was drastically changed.
If a member’s mate was, or became, a nonmember, the Church member was
given full permission to divorce and remarry.
The marital state of a new member, no matter how many previous marriages
and no matter what the circumstances, was by Church fiat declared to be valid
in God’s sight. Any kind of “fraud” was
grounds for annulling a marriage with the right to remarry. This new doctrine was a total repudiation of
the 1953 article, “Divorce and Remarriage.”
Instead of correcting the faulty administration (Church-enforced
judicial system, which included investigating and prying into people’s private
lives), the Church threw out the baby with the bath water, and changed the doctrine
itself! This modern view demotes
marriage from a divine institution to merely a temporary agreement regulated by
the state. In contradiction to Luke
16:15, 18, this view says that whatever “marriages” the state “legalizes,”
are acceptable to God. The Worldwide
Church of God, and almost all its offshoot groups, hold this diabolical
view today.
Herbert Armstrong did not follow the
teaching of his own 1953 article. In
1977, Armstrong married a divorcee, claiming her first marriage had been
annulled. In 1982, the couple engaged
in a bitter divorce suit. In 1984, the
divorce was finalized. Yet regardless
of Armstrong’s personal lifestyle, the Truth of the Almighty is not dependent on
how he did, or did not, live up to it.
A third erroneous position is held by a
couple of splinter groups from the Worldwide Church of God. They teach, with no scriptural support, that
nonsexual “fraud” is grounds for annulling a marriage. For example, if a man insisted that his
bride be German, and she deceived him, and they lived together as man and wife
for years, and had several children, then he, according to this erroneous
teaching, upon discovering that she had deceived him, could divorce her and
remarry. Another example is drunkenness
which does not surface until some time after marriage. The sober mate would not have married the
other if he/she knew of the other’s problem with alcohol. Therefore, it is reasoned that when the
truth comes out, the sober mate has the right to divorce and remarry. These groups also claim that they,
and not us, are adhering to the teachings of the 1953 “Divorce and Remarriage”
article. Herbert Armstrong’s 1953
article does not support their position.
In summary, we have discussed the
following three erroneous D&R views:
|
Worldwide Church of God pre-1974 Correct Doctrine taught, but
not consistently practiced, and enforced by an arbitrary Church government
with conflicting interpretations. |
Worldwide Church of God, and Most Splinter Groups
Since 1974 Wide-open permissiveness,
almost anything goes. |
A Couple of Splinter Groups Divorce and remarriage
permitted for nonsexual fraud, which has no scriptural support. |
Supported by the Bible, Herbert
Armstrong’s 1953 article on Divorce and Remarriage is like a beacon in today’s
sea of easy divorce and rampant remarriage. There are few, if any, Biblical topics more important, and
essential to the gospel message, than a correct teaching, and loving
application, of the doctrine of marriage and divorce. May the Eternal help us to live up to His precious Truth! Ω