Dervish

I was driving home from a thoroughly enjoyable social occasion (a baby shower for two couples) and the batteries had given out on the iPod radio thingemejig so I had Light FM on the radio as is my wont. I chanced upon a discussion of a book called Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery and Desertion. Not having been raised a Christian, my limited knowledge about divorce in the Christian church is as follows: Catholics aren’t allowed to get divorced, the rest can. Apparently, however, there is still some discussion in Christian churches about the status of divorcees, particularly those who are ministers, preachers etc.

Now, of course Jesus, peace be upon him, grew up in the context of Jewish religious law and so his statements about divorce would naturally have to be understood in the context of a discussion with Jewish scholars of religious law. But because Paul made some statements about how it was all legalistic and Christians don’t have to worry about any of that stuff, religious law has tended to have a pretty low status in Christian thinking. It’s one of the common criticisms you hear some evangelical Christians make about Jews and Muslims.

Yet Jesus, peace be upon him, taught his followers to respect and follow religious law and in particular the legislation he brought:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Bible, Matthew 5:17-20)

Because later Christians rejected religious law (but became known for their commitment to ethics and morality) there are a few issues the church does stumble over. Divorce is one of them. Consequently, listening to Christians discussing their fiqh of divorce, I realised how immature (by comparison with Jews and Muslims) their fiqh is. It is a little bit like a muscle that hasn’t been exercised for a long time, in comparison to those of athletes who are constantly training.

I haven’t read the above mentioned book, but from the radio discussion I gathered her interpretation of the fiqh of Christian divorce is that Christians married to non-Christians can be divorced if the non-Christian is antagonistic to the Christian faith however Christians married to other Christians who are abusive, may divorce but may not remarry. The law that stuck out at me though, was a reference to how Christian leaders may only be the “husband of one wife”. When I heard that, my first thought was ‘oh, that’s a limitation on polygyny’, however the author made no reference to that possibility, but rather that it was symbolic of a Christian leader keeping fidelity to his wife and keeping a high morality.

At anyrate, I just found it really interesting to listen to a fiqh discussion on Christian radio, but I don’t envy them their difficulty in trying to interpret Christian shari`a without the tools that Jewish and Muslim scholars have long developed in approaching understanding sacred law.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.