Divorce
A Challenge to the Church
by Bob Mayo
Paperback
Price: £7.99
Publisher:BRF (Bible Reading Fellowship)
Published:April 2008
ISBN:978-1-841-01488-3
GoodBookStall Review:
The author, a divorced Anglican minister, explores the church’s difficulties in dealing with divorce and how it might be better handled. He avoids the thorny issue of remarriage, concentrating on the divorced not as outcasts, but exiles, comparing them to the Israelites learning to ‘sing the Lord’s song in a strange land’. Thus, the destruction of Jerusalem parallels that of the marriage, the long exile the period of readjustment, and the gradual process of return and rebuilding the eventual recovery. It is not an easy read; the chapter on ‘Dos and Don’ts’ when interacting with the divorced gives the impression that almost anything one says or does can be wrong, including steering clear and saying nothing! His suggestion that there should be some sort of church service of closure for a marriage that would not in any way legitimise divorce is interesting and will definitely raise some hackles but, as he points out, refusing to acknowledge the reality of divorce will not stop it happening and the church is intended as a place of healing and grace for the wounded. A guided tour of a place nobody wants to go from a resident hopeful of being permitted to move on to somewhere better.
Reviewer: Diane Morrison (28/10/10)
The author, a divorced Anglican minister, explores the church’s difficulties in dealing with divorce and how it might be better handled. He avoids the thorny issue of remarriage, concentrating on the divorced not as outcasts, but exiles, comparing them to the Israelites learning to ‘sing the Lord’s song in a strange land’. Thus, the destruction of Jerusalem parallels that of the marriage, the long exile the period of readjustment, and the gradual process of return and rebuilding the eventual recovery. It is not an easy read; the chapter on ‘Dos and Don’ts’ when interacting with the divorced gives the impression that almost anything one says or does can be wrong, including steering clear and saying nothing! His suggestion that there should be some sort of church service of closure for a marriage that would not in any way legitimise divorce is interesting and will definitely raise some hackles but, as he points out, refusing to acknowledge the reality of divorce will not stop it happening and the church is intended as a place of healing and grace for the wounded. A guided tour of a place nobody wants to go from a resident hopeful of being permitted to move on to somewhere better.
Reviewer: Diane Morrison (28/10/10)
