Marriage breakdown, separation and divorce are seldom experienced without deep sadness and mental, emotional and psychological trauma. Aside from the collapse of a relationship with the person previously understood to be a lifelong partner, separation and divorce bring in their wake the need to make arrangements regarding any children from the marriage, and also to agree a financial settlement with the former spouse. These can be emotionally draining and time-consuming processes, involving contact with solicitors and conversations and correspondence with the former spouse or their representatives which would once have seemed unimaginable.
For Christian ministers and clergy, the trauma of marital breakdown can often be made more severe both because of the teaching which all churches uphold about the permanent, lifelong and exclusive character of Christian marriage, and because of the exemplary quality of (especially) the ordained ministry. Divorce can feel, for the ordained, like a double kind of failure: failure in terms of what the Church teaches, failure as a Christian minister and teacher.
The teaching of the Church of England on Divorce
Canon B30 (‘Of Holy Matrimony’) states that the Church of England affirms ‘according to our Lord’s teaching that marriage is in its nature a union permanent and lifelong…’ Section 2 of this Canon further affirms that the teaching of the Church of England on marriage is expressed and maintained in the marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer, and in the liturgy of the Church of England the marriage vows clearly express the intention of marriage being lifelong (‘so long as you both shall live.’) The words spoken by the priest after the nuptial blessing confirm this clear sense that marriage is intended to be lifelong – ‘Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder.’
Without compromising its teaching that Christian marriage is ‘in its nature’ lifelong, the Church of England has, after much debate, now accepted that, sad as this is, marriages can break down. It has further accepted that, even for clergy (including bishops) a further marriage can be possible, and can be solemnised in church, where a former spouse is still living – providing that enquiry has been made into the circumstances surrounding the ending of the first marriage and the inception and coming to fruition of the subsequent relationship. They reflect the Church of England’s emerging view that where a marriage has failed, a fresh start is possible. In part (and perhaps in origin) this development came in response to the reality of civil divorce; one party may, as a point of fact, cause a marriage to end in law, even against the wishes of the other.
However, it would be wrong to see the Church of England’s developed position as one purely of pragmatics: it has evolved alongside a deepening theological sense that Christian marriage does not continue as a reality in, as it were, ‘shadow form,’ when the marriage has ceased to exist in any meaningful and lived-out sense. The Church of England has reached a view closer to that of the Orthodox churches, in which it can be said that a marriage ‘was’ but ‘is’ no longer – the marriage has, it can be said, ‘died’ – than that of the Roman Catholic church, in which a marriage, once validly contracted, is, in the strict sense, indissoluble. (Annulment according to Roman Catholic canon law does not dissolve a marriage, but declares that a true marriage did not ever exist.)
Divorce as a Christian Minister
What of the second challenge, that of the exemplary quality of the Christian ministry, especially as it relates to the ordained? That exemplary nature is clearly taught in the Church of England’s ordinals (both that appended to the Prayer Book and in Common Worship) and is enforced in various ways through canon law and statute – the Clergy Discipline Measure, for example, putting the clergy in a separate legal category from those who are not ordained.
Here, all clergy may feel the pain of divorce when reflecting on the exemplary quality of their ministry. Clergy may draw parallels, not without Scriptural foundation, between the domestic household and the household of faith; the sense that because of marriage breakdown one is no longer qualified to be a ‘spiritual’ father or mother can be very real. There can be self-doubt and equally (and unkindly) the reality of having to live with others drawing that conclusion. That clergy marriage breakdown is so often played out with parishioners and the public privy to personal trauma which, for those in almost any other occupation, will remain largely private, only adds to the sense of shame which clergy may experience. Sensitivity to this must form part of the pastoral support offered in these sad circumstances.
Here we need to remember that, while the Church of England rightly enjoins the clergy to an exemplary quality of life, and enforces discipline where there has been serious lapse, ordination does not guarantee – and the Church does not claim this – that life will be free from trials, sorrows, challenges and failures. Nor does the Church claim that ordination confers freedom from sin or imperfection. Indeed, the reverse is true: Christ’s ministers can expect to share His sufferings, to accept the Cross – for, where the Master is, there shall the servant be also. Marriage breakdown and divorce are undoubtedly times of sharing in the Cross for those who experience them. The same promise that, as we share Christ’s sufferings, so shall we share in His resurrection, is held out to those who have experienced divorce as to those who have undergone others among this world’s trials. Christian hope is certainly not to be denied to those who are Christ’s ministers! As the apostle writes – ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.’ (2 Cor 5:17 ESV)