No Obama, None of the Time

By Phillip Ellis Jackson
Intellectual Conservative

In a world where you can believe what you want to believe because you want to believe it — and your beliefs can be shared by others who want to believe what you want to believe too — there’s no room for genuine dialogue and debate.

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Now, we all know that differences exist in every election, and the political rhetoric that gives expression to these differences can at times be extreme. Pacifists routinely get tarred as Unpatriotic Pinkos, just as law and order proponents get unfairly labeled as the New American Gestapo. Exaggerations and excesses are as much a part of this country’s political dynamics as motherhood and apple pie. To rail against these as injurious to the very system that gives them voice in the first place is to understand nothing about how politics is actually conducted in the real world, with real people.

But, it’s also true that at some point a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind. Exactly when that threshold is crossed isn’t always clear, but like the Supreme Court which can’t define pornography but knows it when it sees it, that threshold exists. Bill Clinton helped cross one line by making “penis” a word of common, every-day usage, where previously an endless series of euphemisms were employed when publicly speaking about it. Now, thanks to Bill and Monica and a box of cigars, even fifth-graders can talk openly about the exit point of the male reproductive system, oral sex, and a myriad of other once-forbidden topics without the slightest hint of social inhibition.

And so it is with politics in general. Questioning one’s patriotism once merited a full-blown investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Now, thanks to the excesses of McCarthyism, it’s just the first arrow in the political quiver of both the Right and Left which simultaneously condemns Code Pink and General Petraeus as disloyal subversives.
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To illustrate what I mean, we first need to recognize a tendency that misinforms a lot of political analysis. When thinking about the world in which they live, people tend to mark the beginning of history with the moment of their own birth. Those for whom the Great Depression was the defining experience of their lives never quite saw the country the same way as those born in the post-WWII era. Baby Boomers like myself, whose perspective was shaped by the fifties and sixties, carry a different image of the country from those born into a post-Carter world of high technology and seemingly endless economic growth.

Each of these generations, and sub-generations in between, measures the flow of history from their own starting point. Forget about the fact that politics in the 19th century was in many ways infinitely more brutal than it is today. I wasn’t around when Grover Cleveland ran for president, so it’s not a touch point for me. My point of reference is Kennedy-Nixon. For others it’s Carter-Reagan, or Bush-Gore. In doing so we arbitrarily pick an election and use it to evaluate the propriety of all future presidential campaigns. It’s the same reasoning science uses in demonstrating or refuting man-made global warming. Start with the 1880s (an exceptionally cold period), and everything that follows is warmer. Start with the 1990s (where temperatures reached a peak), and the last 10-15 years have been “cooling.”

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The Internet has forever transformed American politics in some good, but many bad ways. It’s beneficial in that it’s a source of alternative information that keeps the Dan Rathers of the world from perpetrating election year hoaxes on the American public. And, it’s an excellent way for like-minded people to come together in like-minded ways to pursue like-minded goals. But the yin to this yang is that instead of isolating the real kooks as non-Internet modes of communication tended to do (it’s not quite as gratifying to wait days or weeks for a letter to be returned, or a magazine to arrive — assuming one kook could easily find another kook to communicate with in the first place), the Internet has made it possible for kooks everywhere on the planet to get together in real time and operate in a virtual world of their own making.

Almost anything can be said on the Internet without fear of retribution or condemnation. The person saying it doesn’t need to reveal their identity, and can lie about their age, gender, even nationality. In this medium facts are no longer immutable anchors of information, but wholly fungible delusions that assume concrete status if and when enough people choose to believe them. Not only was Bush personally behind 9-11, no plane flew into the Pentagon that day. So, where did all the passengers on that plane go? Modern-day “facts” don’t require coherency or consistency, so the answer is “Bush was behind 9-11.” That’s all the response required to end the discussion, and move on to another delusional topic.

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Things will change only when reality slaps us in the face again, and we no longer have the luxury of playing in the fantasy worlds of our own creation. The same people who supported “torture warrants” in the aftermath of 9-11 now decry the lack of due process afforded to non-uniformed military combatants captured in the Middle East. Slam another plane into a skyscraper, set off a bomb or two in a major American city, and the people today who condemn warrantless wiretaps will clamor for the political heads of those in power who “didn’t do enough to protect us from our enemies.”

Watching this spectacle unfold will be the American public who, except for the hardest of the hard-core kooks, will at least temporarily return to the real world and look for real solutions to very real problems. Their only hope is that in the intervening time we haven’t elected a bunch of kook-supported clowns to office who wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to confront a real problem other than to pander to the world community, or talk it to death with meaningless rhetoric. (more)

How To Engage in Politics Without Losing Your Soul

Smartchristian.com

1 - Christians must never allow ourselves to equate the biblical Kingdom of God with any human political party or nation (John 18:36; Isaiah 9:7; Matthew 6:33, Philippians 3:20, Revelation 11:15). As Christians we must be diligent in maintaining and perserving the distinctiveness between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world. We must never fuse the two. The great “utopian illusion” that easily enters our politics is that peace, harmony, and prosperity for all can be brought about in the world through human political means.

2 - Christians must never allow ourselves to elevate a specific politician to a messianic or savior status (1 Peter 3:15). In our entertainment and celebrity culture, it is becoming more common for people to infuse politicians with almost a messianic or savior status. In other words, people begin to believe a politician’s extrordinary promises and that they actually can single-handlely produce almost supernatural social results. As Christians, we have one Lord, and we must resist all attempts to exalt any human politician to unrealisitic heights.

3 - Christians must not just vote, but more importantly, we must pray for our government and the leaders of all political parties (Matthew 5:44, 1 Timothy 2:1-2). In our polarized political society, many Christians are tempted to bless the politician or political party they support, and curse the other one they don’t. How unbiblical! The Bible is clear, we are to pray for all political and government leaders, even our political enemies.

4 - Christians must always remember that our ultimate security is in Christ and in the unshakeable kingdom of God, no matter what presidential candidate or party wins (Hebrews 12:26-29). One of the dangers that many Christians seem to often fall into is that we begin to elevate the outcome of presidential elections to an apocalyptic status. In other words, if our presidential candidate or party does not win, we begin to see it as the end of the world. This is what I call the “Y2K complex.” When we allow ourselves to understand politics in apocalyptic terms, we at the same time express an unbelief in the sovereignty and Lordship of God over his creation and human history. Yes, elections have real consequences for people, but in the larger scheme of history, don’t worry, no matter who becomes our president, God is in contril and will take care of things.

5 - Christians must never allow ourselves to bring the divisiveness and polarization of political parties into the church, the family of God (Romans 16:17, 1 Corinthians 1:11-12). We cannot allow partisan politics to divide the body of Christ. Invidual Christians have freedom of conscience before God and the Bible, and as a result, we must accept the fact that there will be diversity of political opinions in the church. We must never allow diverse political perspectives cause conflict and divisions in the church.

6 - Christians must never allow ourselves to demonize or dehumaize another person - no matter what politician it is - because every single human has been created in the image of God (Colossians 3:8, Matthew 7:1, James 4:12). Christians must not engage in demeaning and judging other people, no matter whether we agree with them politically or not.

7 - Christians must never engage in angry confrontational arguments, instead of being open to learn through civil debate and dialogue (James 1:20, Philippians 2:14-16, 2 Timothy 2:14). When we interact with other people with hard-core dogmatic positions, we demonstrate an ugly pride that demeans the character of Christ. As Christians we must humble ourselves, understand that as humans we are limited in our understanding, and that we all can learn more about the very complex issues that face our nation. Christians must always engage in politics through a path of reason and civility.

8 - Christians must never allow ourselves to become so intertwined so closely with one political party that we forfeit our independent identity as followers of Christ. When we do, we lose the prophetic voice to speak and clarify biblical truth to all politicians and political parties (1 Timothy 3:15, Ephesians 4:15, Romans 3:4).

9 - Christians must never allow ourselves to engage in partisan politics by supporting divisiveness between races, between male and female, between rich and poor, and between the young and old (Matthew 5:9, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19). Electorial politics is all about dividing society into specific voting blocks. And as a result, politics usually divides our society, instead of uniting it. Christians must always function as peacemakers and reconcilers in the public square, and resist every temptation to join the political tactics of dividing people for political gain.

10 - Christians must not allow ourselves to fall into the trap of simply cursing the darkness through negativity, instead of constructively engaging our world as perserving salt and illuminating light (Matthew 5:13-16). The cultural and missional mandate of kingdom Christians requires us to stop cursing the darkness and start lighting more candles that reflects God’s truth, compassion, and love.

Getting Poverty Wrong

By Steven Malanga
City Journal

Obama suggested that some black poverty today can be attributed to the “legalized discrimination” that existed in America prior to the civil rights laws of the 1960s, which, in his telling, prevented black families from accumulating “wealth to bequeath to future generations.” Obama seemed to suggest that families in America escape poverty by patiently accumulating wealth and passing it on to future generations—when in fact millions of Americans of all races leap out of poverty within a single lifetime through their own initiative, not their inheritances. We are long past the time when the legacy of Jim Crow laws and other forms of official discrimination can explain black poverty rates.
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Yet both candidates are largely missing the point. While they insist that strengthening labor unions or protecting homeowners from foreclosures will alleviate the hardships of the poor, the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census remind us that the breakdown of the traditional two-parent, married family is a far greater contributor to poverty in America than many of the supposed shortcomings of our economy. It’s hard to imagine that America will make much more headway on reducing persistent poverty until it halts this long-term trend.
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The economic impact of this breakdown has been profound. Researchers estimate that the entire rise in poverty in America since the late 1970s can be attributed to “changes in family formation,” a euphemism for the decline of families headed by two married parents. The latest Census data illustrate the problem. Only one out of ten American kids living in two-married-parent families is in poverty—and about one-third of these families are recent immigrants whose poverty is temporary. By contrast, 37 percent of children living with single mothers are impoverished.

Marriage seems to be the defining characteristic of economically successful families. With out-of-wedlock birth rates in America soaring, so that many traditional families aren’t so much breaking up as never getting started, the percentage of children living with cohabiting parents is growing. Yet these kids are three times more likely to be in poverty than the children of married parents. The data actually demonstrate that poverty rates for families headed by two unmarried parents more closely resemble the poverty rates of single-parent families than those of two-married-parent ones.

Part of this shocking difference owes to what City Journal contributing editor Kay S. Hymowitz has called the “marriage gap” in America (“Marriage and Caste,” Winter 2006). Hymowitz describes how better-educated, higher-income men and women are now more likely to delay having children until they’re married, while lower-income, less-educated men and women are more likely to cohabit and have children out of wedlock.

But even these demographic facts don’t completely explain the widely varying poverty rate between married and cohabiting parents. Studies that adjust for parents’ educational levels still find that a family headed by two unmarried parents is twice as likely to wind up in poverty as one that married parents head. Something about the marriage certificate—a sense of long-term commitment, family stability, perhaps—makes an economic difference. Research shows that married workers exhibit more job stability and make greater wage gains than cohabiting parents, a sort of “marriage wage premium,” as some economists dub it.

Such factors also help to illuminate economic disparities along racial lines in America. As the latest Census statistics illustrate, family formation differs widely by race. Nearly nine in ten Asian children, for instance, live with two parents, as do 78 percent of white kids. By contrast, 68 percent of Hispanic children and only 38 percent of black children in America reside in two-parent families. A black child living with a single mother is nearly three times more likely to live in poverty than a black child living with two parents, the Census data show, yet 50 percent more black children are living with single mothers than in two-parent married families.

Given that a significant body of research now shows that children raised in two-parent, married families do better in school, are less likely to wind up in jail, and are less likely to end up on welfare, the startling racial divide in marriage tells us that a new generation of children, especially blacks, are growing up destined to struggle academically, in the job market, and in forming their own families. And policy prescriptions like a higher minimum wage or tax credits are unlikely to help many of these kids. What they mostly need is another parent—usually a father. (more)

General Stark's War

By Mark Steyn
The New York Sun

in amongst the autopilot hooey the Stark raving madman did use an interesting expression: "the war on children".

One assumes he means some illegal Republican Party "war on children". On Thursday Nancy Pelosi, as is the fashion, used the phrase "the children" like some twitchy verbal tic, a kind of Democrat Tourette's syndrome: "This is a discussion about America's children… We could establish ourselves as the children's Congress… Come forward on behalf of the children... I tried to do that when I was sworn in as Speaker surrounded by children. It was a spontaneous moment, but it was one that was clear in its message: we are gaveling this House to order on behalf of the children…"

Etc. So what is the best thing America could do "for the children"? Well, it could try not to make the same mistake as most of the rest of the western world and avoid bequeathing the next generation a system of unsustainable entitlements that turns the entire nation into a giant Ponzi scheme. Most of us understand, for example, that Social Security needs to be "fixed" – or we'll have to raise taxes, or the retirement age, or cut benefits, etc. But, just to get the entitlements debate in perspective, projected public pensions liabilities are expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 per cent of GDP in the US; in Greece, the equivalent figure is 25 per cent – that's not a matter of raising taxes or tweaking retirement age; that's total societal collapse.

So what? shrug the voters. Not my problem. I paid my taxes, I want my benefits. In France, President Sarkozy is proposing a very modest step – that those who retire before the age of 65 should not receive free health care – and the French are up in arms about it. He's being angrily denounced by 53-year old retirees, a demographic hitherto unknown to functioning societies. You spend your first 25 years being educated, you work for two or three decades, and then you spend a third of a century living off a lavish pension with the state picking up every healthcare expense. No society can make that math add up. And so in a democratic system today's electors vote to keep the government gravy coming and leave it to tomorrow for "the children" to worry about. That's the real "war on children" – and every time you add a new entitlement to the budget you make it less and less likely they'll win it.

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I'm in favor of tax credits for child healthcare, and Health Savings Accounts for adults, and any other reform that emphasizes the citizen's responsibility to himself and his dependants. But middle-class entitlement creep would be wrong even if was affordable, even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover it every month: it turns free-born citizens into enervated wards of the nanny state. As Gerald Ford liked to say when trying to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." But there's an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn't big enough to get you to give any of it back. As I point out in my book, nothing makes a citizen more selfish than socially equitable communitarianism: once a fellow's enjoying the fruits of Euro-style entitlements, he couldn't give a hoot about the general societal interest; he's got his, and who cares if it's going to bankrupt the state a generation hence?

That's the real "war on children": in Europe, it's killing their future. Don't make the same mistake here. (more)

Race: One Nation, Indivisible

By Ward Connerly
Hoover Digest

Too often the race dialogue centers on what “;white America” must do, totally neglecting the role of black people.
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Why did the voters of Washington ignore the advice of politically correct big corporations, politicians, the media, and race advocates, who hid behind the moral fig leaves of “diversity” and “inclusion,” and end the system of preferences and de facto quotas that has come to define affirmative action?

Preferences based on race and ethnicity diminish the value of the individual in ways too numerous to mention.

The answer is simple. There is a deeply rooted culture of equality in America that transcends political correctness, partisanship, and ideology. We can trace this culture back to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

This culture of equality was underscored by Abraham Lincoln: “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” When Martin Luther King Jr. led the nation through the tumultuous civil rights era, beginning with the public bus boycott in Montgomery in 1955, he invoked that culture of equality in calling on America to “live out the true meaning of your creed.” The principle of equality has been embraced by liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans alike, from Lyndon Johnson to Ronald Reagan.

The debate about affirmative action preferences is fundamentally about the rights and responsibilities of American citizenship. It is about whether we will have a system of government and a social system in which we see each other as equals. Although often lost in the rhetorical clamor about its benefits, race-based affirmative action as a concept is, at its core, a challenge to the relationship between individuals and their government. It is a direct threat to the culture of equality that defines the character of the nation.

Those who support affirmative action programs contend that such programs are necessary to provide equal opportunity for women and minorities. The argument is routinely advanced that without affirmative action women and minorities will be subject to the vagaries of the “good old boys network” and will be denied the opportunity of full participation in American life. But when you strip away all the rhetoric about “leveling the playing field” and “building diversity,” preferential policies reduce themselves to two essential questions.

First, are white males entitled to the same assertion of civil rights and equal treatment under the law as women and minorities? Second, how much longer is the nation going to maintain policies that presume that American-born black people are mentally inferior and incapable of competing head-to-head with other people, except in athletics and entertainment? We cannot resolve the issue of race in America without coming to terms with these two questions. And we certainly cannot reconcile the conflicts about affirmative action preferences without answering these questions. More than anything else, however, the debate about race-based preferences has focused the nation’s attention on the politics of race.

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American society was conceived and has been nurtured through the years as a society of individuals. At the center of our society is the concept that we are all a minority of one. Obviously, policies that herd the American people into groups, or political enclaves, are in direct conflict with the spirit of individualism that characterizes the nation. The phrase “people of color” has come to describe the way in which race and ethnicity are being politicized in America. Implicit in this phrase is the coalescing of minorities into a coalition or political caucus, which, together with white women, constitutes a power base of sufficient magnitude to preserve race- and gender-based preferences and to achieve other political benefits for the coalition.

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When Thomas Jefferson and the other founders laid out this adventure, they gave their new nation a moral blueprint to make the adventure a success. The centerpiece of that blueprint is our system of moral principles. Moral principles do not change with the seasons. That is precisely why the founders proclaimed that certain truths are “self-evident” and “endowed by our Creator.” They are not meant to change or to be bargained away. Our inalienable rights are the centerpiece of that moral system, and the principle of equality is central to our system of rights.

But what can the average citizen expect from such a morality-based society? The citizens of America present and future had (and have) a right to know what benefits would obtain from an adherence to fundamental moral principles. The founders did not disappoint. They envisioned a more perfect union with freedom, liberty, justice, and equality for all Americans.

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So equality is directly linked to our freedoms and to our system of liberty and justice for all. Giving someone a preference, lower academic requirements, contract set-asides, or employment quotas betrays that system. Preferences based on race and ethnicity diminish the value of the individual in ways too numerous to mention and have consequences far beyond their effects on the nation’s character and the harm that they do to those who are not the beneficiaries of such policies. Preferences unwittingly damage the perceived beneficiaries more than one can ever imagine, despite the denials of preference advocates. This occurs in two principal ways.

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We must end the preferences that differentiate on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender. Only by doing that can we rededicate our nation to the principle of equality.

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The second effect is equally as consequential: preferences create their own “glass ceiling.” I don’t know why the defenders of such policies fail to acknowledge or admit the enormous effect that such policies have on the attitudes of others. Does it ever occur to them that the reason black people and other “minorities” are not considered for more upper management positions, even in corporations that pound their chests about “celebrating diversity,” is that such corporations still consider “minorities” to be inferior and noncompetitive for higher positions? Giving people who are classified in a certain group a “leg up” stems from the view that those individuals have limited capacity and cannot succeed without someone else’s generosity. Simply put, affirmative action marginalizes its beneficiaries. (more)

The Magic Prayer

By Greg Koukl
Stand to Reason

For some Christians, the "sinner's prayer" has taken on an almost superstitious quality. If we can just get our friends or loved ones to repeat the words, they're in. Merely reciting the prayer, however, is no guarantee without these three assurances of salvation.

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It goes something like this: "Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. I believe that you died for my sins so I could be forgiven. I receive you as my Lord and savior. Thank you for coming into my life. Amen."
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On occasion, though, I've noticed an almost superstitious disposition towards the sinners prayer. Frequently when I ask if a particular person is a Christian, the response I hear is, "Well, they prayed the prayer." It's as if the words were magic, and if we can just get someone to recite them we've accomplished our goal.
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The focus of evangelism should never be praying the prayer, but following Jesus. When we emphasize deciding for Christ instead of living for Him, we often get spiritual miscarriages instead of spiritual births. Our sense of safety can't come from simply saying a magic prayer. How, then, do we know if we belong to Christ?
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Our confidence in the security we have as Christians comes from three sources. First, we have the objective promises of Scripture. The apostle John's guarantee is characteristic, "These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life."[1]

This concept is so foundational its repeated many times in the New Testament:

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3:36 "He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."

John 5:24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life."

John 6:40 "For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him, may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."

Rom. 10:9 "If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved."

Our second source of confidence in our salvation is entirely subjective. Christians have an ineffable awareness that they belong to God. This comes from the witness of the Holy Spirit to our inner man.

Paul's teaching on this is well known: "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God."[2]

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Some people put the greatest emphasis on this subjective element, but the Scripture emphasizes it the least. The reason is, I think, because it's the most unreliable. It's possible to have tremendous inner tranquillity even when in extreme danger. Conversely, even the sturdiest spiritual warrior experiences periods of dryness, emptiness, and doubt.[4]

The third and most telling evidence of salvation is a holy life of persevering faith. John says bluntly, "The one who says, 'I have come to know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar."[5]

Paul tells Timothy, "Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things; for as you do this you will insure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you."[6] He later warns, "If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us."[7]

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This is why the teaching of James is so important. Paul's instruction on justification by faith alone is so radical it can be mistaken for license, a charge he defends against in Romans 6:1-2. There's no such confusion with James, though. To paraphrase James 2:26, "The human body without the breath of life is nothing but a corpse. The same is true for anyone who says he has faith, but doesn't back it up with a changed life."

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What makes a person sure his fire insurance is in force? If all he can say is "I prayed the prayer," he's in trouble. If he's not actively following Jesus, I can give little assurance. People grow at different speeds, but there must be evidence of a life being transformed at some level.

If you want to lead someone to Christ, forget the magic prayer. There's no precedence for it in the Bible, anyway. In the New Testament, baptism served the function of marking the entry of a person into the Body of Christ.

Rather, enjoin the one who is spiritually hungry to satisfy his appetite day by day by following the Savior. Give him some guidelines on how to do that. Tell him about prayer, fellowship, and Bible study. Instruct him in forgiveness, regeneration, and justification.

Don't let him forget, though, being born again is the beginning, not the end. (more)

What God Has Joined

By David Instone-Brewer
Christianity Today

What does the Bible really teach about divorce?
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The New Testament presents a problem in understanding both what the text says about divorce and its pastoral implications. Jesus appears to say that divorce is allowed only if adultery has occurred: "Whoever divorces a wife, except for sexual indecency, and remarries, commits adultery" (Matt. 19:9). However, this has been interpreted in many different ways. Most say that Jesus allows divorce only for adultery. But some argue that Jesus originally didn't allow even that. Only in Matthew does he offer an out from marriage: "except for sexual indecency." Beyond what Jesus says, Paul also allows divorce. He permits it for abandonment by a nonbeliever (1 Cor. 7:12-15). Many theologians add this as a second ground for divorce.
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One of my most dramatic findings concerns a question the Pharisees asked Jesus: "Is it lawful to divorce a wife for any cause?" (Matt. 19:3). This question reminded me that a few decades before Jesus, some rabbis (the Hillelites) had invented a new form of divorce called the "any cause" divorce. By the time of Jesus, this "any cause" divorce had become so popular that almost no one relied on the literal Old Testament grounds for divorce.

The "any cause" divorce was invented from a single word in Deuteronomy 24:1. Moses allowed divorce for "a cause of immorality," or, more literally, "a thing of nakedness." Most Jews recognized that this unusual phrase was talking about adultery. But the Hillelite rabbis wondered why Moses had added the word "thing" or "cause" when he only needed to use the word "immorality." They decided this extra word implied another ground for divorce—divorce for "a cause." They argued that anything, including a burnt meal or wrinkles not there when you married your wife, could be a cause! The text, they said, taught that divorce was allowed both for adultery and for "any cause."

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When Jesus answered with a resounding no, he wasn't condemning "divorce for any cause," but rather the newly invented "any cause" divorce. Jesus agreed firmly with the second group that the phrase didn't mean divorce was allowable for "immorality" and for "any cause," but that Deutermonomy 24:1 referred to no type of divorce "except immorality."

This was a shocking statement for the crowd and for the disciples. It meant they couldn't get a divorce whenever they wanted it—there had to be a lawful cause. It also meant that virtually every divorced man or women was not really divorced, because most of them had "any cause" divorces. Luke and Matthew summarized the whole debate in one sentence: Any divorced person who remarried was committing adultery (Matt. 5:32; Luke 16:18), because they were still married. The fact that they said "any divorced person" instead of "virtually all divorced people" is typical Jewish hyperbole—like Mark saying that "everyone" in Jerusalem came to be baptized by John (Mark 1:5). It may not be obvious to us, but their first readers understood clearly what they meant.

Within a few decades, however, no one understood these terms any more. Language often changes quickly (as I found out when my children first heard the Flintstones sing about "a gay old time"). The early church, and even Jewish rabbis, forgot what the "any cause" divorce was, because soon after the days of Jesus, it became the only type of divorce on offer. It was simply called divorce. This meant that when Jesus condemned "divorce for 'any cause,' " later generations thought he meant "divorce for any cause."

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Although the church forgot the other cause for divorce, every Jew in Jesus' day knew about Exodus 21:10-11, which allowed divorce for neglect. Before rabbis introduced the "any cause" divorce, this was probably the most common type. Exodus says that everyone, even a slave wife, had three rights within marriage—the rights to food, clothing, and love. If these were neglected, the wronged spouse had the right to seek freedom from that marriage. Even women could, and did, get divorces for neglect—though the man still had to write out the divorce certificate. Rabbis said he had to do it voluntarily, so if he resisted, the courts had him beaten till he volunteered!

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Divorce for neglect included divorce for abuse, because this was extreme neglect. There was no question about that end of the spectrum of neglect, but what about the other end? What about abandonment, which was merely a kind of passive neglect? This was an uncertain matter, so Paul deals with it. He says to all believers that they may not abandon their partners, and if they have done so, they should return (1 Cor. 7:10-11). In the case of someone who is abandoned by an unbeliever—someone who won't obey the command to return—he says that the abandoned person is "no longer bound."

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Putting all this together gives us a clear and consistent set of rules for divorce and remarriage. Divorce is only allowed for a limited number of grounds that are found in the Old Testament and affirmed in the New Testament:

• Adultery (in Deuteronomy 24:1, affirmed by Jesus in Matthew 19)
• Emotional and physical neglect (in Exodus 21:10-11, affirmed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7)
• Abandonment and abuse (included in neglect, as affirmed in 1 Corinthians 7)

Jewish couples listed these biblical grounds for divorce in their marriage vows. We reiterate them as love, honor, and keep and be faithful to each other. When these vows were broken, it threatened to break up the marriage. As in any broken contract, the wronged party had the right to say, "I forgive you; let's carry on," or, "I can't go on, because this marriage is broken." (more)