Gospel of divorce
Sir: A. N. Wilson's complaint against the admission of divorced men to the priest- hood should not stop there. Divorced and remarried laity are admitted to Holy Com- munion: how can this be right if divorce and remarriage are a barrier to ordination? There is not one lot of marriage rules for the lay and another for the ordained (see Article XXXII: the phrase 'as for all other men' makes this clear).
If the Church will deny Christ's words in ordaining divorced men, it is already deny- ing them in remarrying divorced people, blessing a civil remarriage, and admitting divorced and remarried people, who have every intention of remaining together, to Communion.
It is not only the Anglican Church which is doing this; divorce is also allowed in the Orthodox Churches, which appeal to the exception clause in Matthew xix, 9 as authority. 'In theory the Canons (of Ortho- dox Church law) only permit divorce in cases of adultery, but in practice it is sometimes granted for other reasons as well' (The Orthodox Church, Timothy Ware, p. 302).
The admission of divorced and remar- ried people to Communion or to the priesthood does not to me demonstrate a disbelief in the divinity of Jesus Christ or in the dominical origin of the Church, but is rather an attempt by the Church of Eng- land, as part of the universal Church, to take with utmost seriousness what Jesus said about law and forgiveness, and to understand the significance of the fact that the fruits of the Spirit are given to divorced and remarried people.
A. N. Wilson's examples of clear teaching on monogamy are not quite as clear as he makes out. John the Baptist condemned Herod's marriage to Herodias because she was his brother's wife, and the enigmatic words of Jesus to the woman at Jacob's well do not necessarily imply 'be- cause your first husband is still alive'. They may have this implication, but here, as so frequently in the gospels, the reader is thrown on his own resources to understand the words of the Incarnate Word.
Meriel Oliver
West Stafford Rectory, Dorchester, Dorset
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