Hello everybody. I am Colin of Alithea. Real quick, I just wanted to touch on
some topics regarding the third podcast. I feel really embarrassed about it. I
left a lot of ideas unfinished. I didn't think I would talk or get into the topic
of divorce besides mentioning it real quick and then we kind of just ended up
talking about divorce for a good part of the podcast and then kind of just left
it unfinished. So I apologize about that. This is gonna be kind of a part two to
that podcast where I'm actually gonna elaborate on some of those ideas. And
again, just a quick disclaimer for this podcast. I'm not actually gonna be
reading any additional Bible verses. I may touch on some or just refresh
people on the Bible verses we mentioned on the other podcast. The third one
regarding marriage. But this one is gonna deal more with church history and also
a bit of my opinion. And I will mention when we get to my opinion that this is
my opinion. This isn't something found in the Bible. This isn't something that is
taught. Just again, my opinion. And once again, I will mention when we get there
or to those parts. So I guess to start off with, I'm gonna reread Mark 10 verse
9, which again we read in the other podcast, the third one. But this is the
one that kind of led me down the path of getting on the way to divorce, which
again I apologize. Doesn't mean to stray so far off. But just reading again from
Mark chapter 10 verse 9. Again, we're reading from the King James version of
the Bible. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. So again,
just gonna refresh everyone on the ideas that were touched on. I had mentioned
that this verse implies, well not implies, directly says that God has joined this
marriage. Well, a marriage. Sorry if I say this a lot. I'm not actually talking about a specific one. But a
marriage happens. A union comes together. Two people come together with God's
blessing. And God actually joins this union of marriage. This isn't just two
people just kind of chilling with a little piece of paper that where the
government says, oh you get some tax benefits. You know, this is actually a
very religious and theological virtue is what marriage is. And God actually enters
into that. So then obviously what we then get to is divorce. Divorce is the
ripping apart of that union. And for this podcast I'm gonna break it down into
three different, I guess, subcategories. And one of them not really being divorced,
more of a widowing. So that would be your spouse dies. That's obviously very
different than divorce. And then I'm gonna break it also into two additional
categories of divorce. One where it's kind of just, oh like you mutually like
don't like each other anymore and you just want to separate. And then the third
one would be where it is not mutual. Where there's up-hitch potentially some
violence in the household. Where you thought you were getting into something
and you didn't. And now that I've actually touched you on that, I'm gonna add a fourth
category, annulment. This is something that's practiced in the Catholic Church.
So I know a lot of people who are listening to this aren't Catholic, but I'll just
touch on that real quick just for people who don't understand what that is. So
starting off, I guess in that order, your spouse dies. You've become a
widow. And so just for the sake of argument, we're gonna say that you know
and I had a perfect marriage, but it was good. You would have never divorced this
person in life. You have a family together. I'll say even you have kids. Kids are
obviously a very big deal in life and obviously in a marriage. But in
the circumstances of when your spouse dies, I don't actually think kids alters
that fact too much. And I hear a lot of people argue that kids actually
drastically change the fact of being a widow. And I see where that's coming from
obviously. In life, being a single parent, especially the young kids, it's
incredibly difficult. So I'm not trying to say it's not difficult, but what I am
saying is that as a theological, like the theological virtue of what marriage is,
you and another person join together with God. I don't actually think having
kids changes that union in the regards of when your spouse dies. So again, I'm
just gonna use an example I hear a lot. People will say you've married
someone and that spouse has died. You're still married to that person in a
theological sense. Your marriage wasn't broken. It's been damaged, I would say, or
I guess separated. There's been a separation in this union, but that will
one day be mended when you both enter into the kingdom of God. So I've always
found it a little silly when people then pursue another spouse and their previous
marriage is great. And obviously I'm a young guy, I'm 21, I'm getting married
right now, I haven't been married, I don't understand that pain. So I'm not, again,
I'm not gonna sit in your pretend I don't understand why someone would want a
life partner when their previous life partner has passed. But again, we're gonna
just stick on more of the high-in-the-sky theological thinking right
now. So again, you've married someone, your spouse has died, they're in heaven,
and you two will once again be joined in heaven. So then what happens when you
marry another person? Is your previous marriage no longer valid? Because
obviously you can't be married to two people at once. Is your current marriage
not valid? That would be my argument. Are you gonna go to heaven and introduce
your wives together? It's a little silly, right? So I guess I just kind of showed
what I think on that. Again, sorry, I said I'll mention what's my opinion and I
kind of neglected to do that. This is a little bit of church teaching, a little
bit of my opinion. The church teaches that, well, you can't get married once
you've already been married, even if you get divorced. Once again, reading from
Mark 10 9, God joined this together, no man can rip it apart, not even the person
in that union of marriage. So you rip your marriage apart, well, God has put it
together, and then if you go on to marry someone else, well, you're still married
to the other person, even if the government says you've divorced, you
are still together with that person. And then coming full circle, sorry, I kind of
rambled there. You guys are probably catching up on my trend. I tend to get
lost in my trend, I thought a lot, but bringing it back how this started up,
kids in the mix. So then people will say, okay, your spouse died, but now you're a
single parent. And what people will say is it may be appropriate to remarry
someone, not because you're actually getting married, but just to have someone
to support you financially, to support your kids, to support, you know, you're
married in every sense of the word except the theological sense. Once again,
I completely understand where that's coming from. Single parents have it
incredibly rough. And obviously, this could be a whole other topic on a
podcast. But again, we're just going to stick to kind of this high in the sky
theological thinking right now. You actually aren't married to that person.
It's kind of just a full stop. And again, there's nothing wrong with having, like
let's say, your neighbors or your friends or even someone that you feel romantic
interest in helping you out, helping your kids. That's all perfectly
acceptable, but we're sitting on the top of a marriage and you're actually just not married
to that person if your spouse has died. Your marriage has not been broken. You've
just been separated from your spouse for the time being. So it's kind of just a
full stop that you're not married to this person that you've now remarried. So
again, that's not quite divorce. I just wanted to start with that because I know
a lot of people will bring that up. And again, when kids are in the mix, very
tough thing. So now moving on to a more literal sense of divorce. You hear this a
lot in our modern culture where you have two people, they got married, and they
don't like each other anymore. I think the legal term is unreconcilable
differences is the legal term I believe. It's where two people just
don't like each other anymore and they get divorced. So there's kind of two
glaring issues with that. One, actually let me take a step back there real quick.
I'm actually gonna, I just want to explain something real quick. There's a
lot of studies that have come out that say that people who live together before
they get married are a lot more likely to get divorced. And I believe why that
is is you get these people that moving together and their relationship is
actually kind of shaky. You know it's not like horrible. It could be
horrible, but I feel the vast majority of times it's shaky, it's not great, it's
not bad, but you probably shouldn't be getting married though. And then you'll
get these people, these two people are getting married, and they think that
marriage will fix everything basically. They get married and then they realize
oh we're still living together. Nothing's really changed in our life. You know you
get people who say they're practically married, they're living together and all
this stuff. And they get married and nothing changes and that it almost like
smothers a fire in the relationship. So a lot of times you get people like that
who are then the people who will go on to get divorced for un-
reconcilable differences. So again two things I want to just touch on there. One
is if you're getting married, obviously you should see eye to eye on the
important things in life with this person. I think I mentioned this in the
last podcast, I actually don't remember if I did, so I'm saying it now if I
didn't, that obviously you don't need to see eye to eye with your spouse on
everything, but there are big ones obviously. We as Christians believe that
you should be brothers and sisters in Christ. Now you don't need to agree on
your hobbies, you don't need to agree on these minor things. You don't even
necessarily need to agree on you know politics, the big thing that people will
dispute over. But as long as you're a Christian and you approach the
world from a Christian mindset, a lot of things can then be reconciled with that
understanding. So sorry I keep rambling here, I apologize again everyone, but
these un-reconcilable differences aren't really gonna happen if you approach
world with a Christian understanding. And then the second thing I want to touch on
is you'll get again these people who then get married and they think
things are gonna change. This is why I'm a really big advocate. I just mentioned
these studies a lot, or studies that come out where if you are living together and
then you get married, you have a high rate of divorce, this is actually why
throughout all, if not, I'm sorry I don't know if it's all church history or most,
but it's one of those two. The vast majority of church history you were
taught not to move in together, you were not taught to, or you were taught not to
have intercourse before marriage, you were taught a lot of these rather strict
rules and a lot of people got really upset about these rules and you know you
hear this all the time. But there's actually a reason that God gives us these
rules. He's not pointing and laughing at us going,
Tee hee hee, I'm making you guys wait until marriage to do what you want to do.
No, like God understands that partaking in these acts actually harms us and I
think that's something that people lose sight of a lot. So moving on to the third,
form a divorce, I want to say form, that's not right, but the third thing I had
mentioned with divorce is violence in the household. You hear this a lot also
in our modern day and age. You've one spouse, typically a guy who is abusive, is
violent, is kind of just an animal, doesn't really know how to control himself
around his wife, well it really about anyone, but when you live together is a
lot of times you get struck at your wife. This is what domestic
disputes and violence are. So obviously what the culture will tell us is
obviously the woman just needs to leave the man and I'm gonna really upset some
people by saying this, but I don't think it's actually even appropriate for
divorce in those scenarios either when a husband, or spouse, you know again
typically the husband but the wife can do this too, when someone's violent
against the other one. Now I'm not saying that a separation can't be in order, I'm
not even saying where the law maybe might even need to get involved, especially
there are kids in the mix, then people do need to intervene in times like that. I'm
not saying that people just need to sit there and bear it, but that actually
isn't an acceptable reason for divorce though. Once again going back to Mark 10
verse 9, God has joined this union of marriage and nothing in this world can
separate it. Now it's kind of a cliche where people will say you can't marry
someone expecting them to change, which is very true if you should never marry
someone not okay with who they are. So a lot of these scenarios could just be
avoided if, I'm gonna sound like I'm victim blaming, but if you would talk to
your family and look out for red flags, a lot of times these scenarios can be
avoided. But for the sake of argument, you're married now. You merely, you were
dating a violent man and now you married a violent man and he is just an
incredibly violent person. This is when obviously the church should get
involved. Even, you could even go to counseling, you know marriage counseling
for stuff like this, I would obviously, me being in the church, I would advocate
going to the church to talk these things out. But counseling obviously another
great resource. But really all of this just to say that you can't divorce this
person though, and even if you separate from them and never see them again, they
get thrown behind in jail for doing something unspeakably violent, like
that's still your husband or wife. That is still not an acceptable reason for
divorce. And again I know that this is gonna be very controversial and painful
to hear for a lot of people. Again I have people in my family that are very near
and dear to me that had divorced their husbands because of violence and
adultery and for many things. So again I don't mean to come off as cold
and callous and not understanding I do. And I know there's gonna be some
discussion, well I hope there's some discussion in the comments. I don't want
people to walk away from this thinking I'm some cold-hearted person just saying
get over it. So please any feedback is very appreciated. Email us, leave in the
comments. I will engage with it and please, truly please do reach out if you
have any confusion or if you think that I'm coming from this from a wrong angle.
I will help clear that up. And fourth thing I just wanted to touch on is
annulment. And this kind of encompasses the other three things we talked about
with divorce. This is something that the Catholic Church does when two people are
I'm gonna say quote-unquote married because I'll explain the process of
annulment. So I'm gonna say quote-unquote married right now and I'll explain. So
where people are quote-unquote married and then it would seemingly be a divorce
but in a technicality it's not actually a divorce. So what annulment is is
basically an investigation into a marriage where the church finds out that
one of the two or even both spouses weren't serious about their marriage
vows about I don't want to say being faithful because you can cheat in a
marriage and then that's still a marriage but if you were cheating
throughout the process of getting married then you didn't uphold your vow
and then therefore you weren't actually married. And it's kind of a it's a weird
kind of technicality thing and a lot of people will say well you're just getting
divorced anyway but again when it's like high in the sky theological thinking it
does actually matter. So I just want to touch on that. Again I've got people in
my family or I assume to be family, family-in-law. I've gone through this
where they would have again quote-unquote married someone and then
this person was actually lying about basically their entire identity. It was a
very strange Vegas marriage and then the church deemed an annulment appropriate.
They said oh yeah your wife you basically don't know her at all and this
marriage clearly was never actually a thing. And that's the important
piece of information to take away from annulment. It's not saying that you were
married and now that marriage has been destroyed. It's actually saying that this
marriage was never valid in the first place. It's almost to use the phrase I
keep saying if a marriage is when two people come together and God enters that
relationship it would almost be like if two people came together and God never
entered that relationship because it was an invalid relationship. And then the
church finds out about it later on and then they basically did the investigation
and find out oh yeah this marriage was never valid to use that term again
quote-unquote. You know they don't know that God never entered it but that would
be the almost wording of that I guess I would use if I was a priest there and I
was using the word I've been using this whole podcast basically saying God never
entered this union therefore it's not a marriage. So that's gonna wrap up we're
gonna call this part two of the third podcast. Again I'm not meaning to upset
anyone with this. I'm not meaning to come as cold and callous. I apologize if I do
please if there's any confusion leave in the comments email us I would be happy
to respond and sort out anything. If you have questions or if you want me to
elaborate further on a topic I would be more than happy to. So please please
please if you want to reach out please do it. I've said this every podcast I've
recorded but sorry I'm still feeling kind of sick so I apologize for my voice and
I was gonna do it for the part two of the third podcast and have a very
blessed day everyone.