Fundamentalist Preacher: Once Your Honeymoon is Over, “Divorce Is Not an Option”

People get divorced for any number of reasons that are nobody’s business but their own. Those reasons, however, could include infidelity, abuse, or general unhappiness, and if you don’t want to be in that relationship anymore, it’s a damn good thing you can end it. Ask children of parents who should’ve gotten divorced if they’re happier their parents stayed together for the “sake of the kids,” and you’re going to see a lot of head shakes.

But when you’re a New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist preacher, like Jason Graber of Sure Foundation Baptist Church in Spokane, Washington, divorce is never on the table. It doesn’t matter if there’s physical abuse, or sexual incompatibility, or any other reason you may not be happy, you are not allow to end that marriage after you’ve made a promise under God. With one exception.

He explained this twisted logic in a sermon yesterday and it just goes to show you the cruelty and thoughtlessness that are the hallmarks of New IFB churches.

There is no excuse for somebody who’s been married for years, or months, or weeks, no excuse at all for people to get divorced. None at all. It’s not… it’s not what God wants! It’s not God’s plan, and it’s a sin. And in fact, God says it’s adultery. If you marry somebody else after you’ve been married, God says you’ve committed adultery.

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And… there’s one exception to this rule that the Bible gives us. But let me tell you, if your honeymoon is over, that exception does not apply to you at all.

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And so what this is talking about is, basically, if you go to marry a girl and then, basically, you get married… you have the wedding ceremony, and on the wedding night, you find out, for whatever reason, that she’s not a virgin, at that point, you have the choice. You can say, “Okay, well, I’m not going to go through with this.” You can basically say, “I’m not going to consummate the marriage. I’m not going to go through with this.” And, basically, you can have it annulled. And that’s what saving for the cause of fornication is. It’s not anything else. Okay?

… So that’s what it means when I say that if your honeymoon is over, that means you’ve consummated the marriage, okay, your chance for divorce is gone, and it will never come back. Okay? Divorce is not an option at that point. Not biblically speaking.

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Now, here’s the thing about adultery. In the Old Testament — in God’s law — adulterers and adulteresses are to be put to death… So that’s why that’s not really a problem, because if somebody is found to be committing adultery, then they are put to death. And then the person who was the victim of adultery, they are free to go and marry somebody else. But as long as that person’s still alive, it doesn’t matter that they commit adultery, does not make it okay for you to divorce them and go and marry somebody else.

God does not provide that excuse, but people want to use that excuse all the time… But it’s not biblical. It’s not what the Bible said. It’s not what Jesus taught.

There you have it. The only acceptable exception is if you found out, hours after marriage, that your wife wasn’t a virgin. Then you can break off the marriage. But that’s it! Adultery isn’t an excuse because Graber believes adulterers should be executed anyway — so, you know, just chill out until after the biblical beheading. It’s what Jesus wanted.

It’s such an awful message to send people. Graber is telling (mostly) young women that if their husbands abuse them in any way, they have no choice but to stay and keep breeding. He doesn’t care about their circumstances. He doesn’t care about their suffering. He’s so beholden to his warped interpretation of his holy book that he won’t allow even a shred of common sense and decency to enter the equation.