{"id":15220,"date":"2019-06-26T13:36:23","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T13:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/?p=15220"},"modified":"2019-07-03T15:10:22","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T15:10:22","slug":"are-we-reluctantly-divorced-or-immorally-abandoned-under-color-of-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2019\/06\/are-we-reluctantly-divorced-or-immorally-abandoned-under-color-of-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Standers, Are We &#8220;Reluctantly Divorced&#8221;&#8230;Or Immorally Abandoned Under Force of Law?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2019\/06\/are-we-reluctantly-divorced-or-immorally-abandoned-under-color-of-law\/reluctantly-what\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-15241\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15241\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Reluctantly-What.jpg?resize=474%2C393&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"393\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Reluctantly-What.jpg?w=640&amp;ssl=1 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Reluctantly-What.jpg?resize=300%2C249&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a>by Standerinfamilycourt<\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"text-align: left; color: #000000; text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Verdana,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent;\">&#8220;For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he..&#8221;<br \/>\n<\/span><\/em><span style=\"text-align: left; color: #000000; text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Verdana,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent;\">&#8211; P<\/span><span style=\"text-align: left; color: #000000; text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Verdana,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent;\">roverbs 23:7<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;standerinfamilycourt&#8221; has devoted the past nearly 5 years connecting the community of covenant marriage standers with other communities of Christians and social conservatives who are committed to peeling back the Sexual Revolution and reforming U.S. &#8220;family laws&#8221; in an example to the rest of the Western world.\u00a0 Some of these allies are in differing faith traditions, and some of those individuals have a <em>huge leg up<\/em> on the stander community in terms of their national influence and basic ability to be heard politically. \u00a0 Others are in &#8220;remarriages&#8221;, and some are in <em>both<\/em> situations.\u00a0 This effort to find common ground for the common good has been met with &#8220;mixed reviews&#8221; on all sides at various times. \u00a0 That&#8217;s OK with SIFC, who can handle it if some effectiveness is gained, and authentic covenant standers thereby gain a voice in the reform process they would not otherwise have. \u00a0 Our brand of Christian discipleship has been pasted and smeared as a &#8220;cult&#8221; for long enough!\u00a0 As for our reluctant (and sometimes embarrassed) allies, we hope Jesus&#8217; voice comes through a bit clearer than if we were not visible in their lives and in their sense of mission.<\/p>\n<p>For this reason, SIFC travelled to Lake Charles, Louisiana at the end of April to participate in the Ruth Institute&#8217;s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/search\/top\/?q=%23RuthSummit&amp;epa=SEARCH_BOX\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;Summit for Survivors of the Sexual Revolution&#8221;<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em> \u00a0 You can read more about that terrific event\u00a0 in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2019\/04\/ruthsummit-2019-how-did-it-go\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this earlier blog post.<\/a> \u00a0 About a year or so prior to that, a post by &#8220;Ruth&#8217;s&#8221; founder,\u00a0 Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, struck this &#8220;reluctant divorcee&#8221; as <em>(well)&#8230;<\/em> trivializing&#8230;and misrepresenting <strong>God&#8217;s<\/strong> truth. \u00a0\u00a0 She had referred to standers as the <em>&#8220;reluctantly divorced&#8221;<\/em> in some new pamphlets she was calling attention to at the time. \u00a0 \u00a0 The Ruth Institute&#8217;s work and publications are <em>important,<\/em> both as the only significant, consistent national voice for repeal of unilateral divorce laws, but also as a well-published, well-respected social science organization, having this past year <a href=\"https:\/\/l.facebook.com\/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lifesitenews.com%2Fnews%2Fsociologist-evidence-shows-homosexual-parenting-harms-children%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR2oev85_SV4Fz5kaW-EnO6LOC9sHREwVPttoRxfWzGaEwWxaSTF9WFF1g4&amp;h=AT2i59kNKn-HRFgEs4hseeZzWFAQVzbJjP0U1utUI0HXjfqXFzQWp-Y8pWzIbEprJ5w9lv0ZG5HvWiZlUlw8Pl9Et_GXmPVP08fkntqvubAwHXx27msFEL3qbQ9PMzZtvizXl9O_RrAmpcpgyAXKvRs3KqABdpWPMI2RVMeaTRk1SpIoWp68mpBvJhgUvhuCPj29mvWZt8R9JvRloOsaB13677xs0h6Y6ZTs8YqkazX3qTGmJIENns1_BDQmLu3UQqLiz4abIvBS0pEPv3No6s2EBNKTOwZzw36tv-xPZ9dNIJq_MHPD6NQtbJeOrG2zH_PcH6LCagkI8zbP-XaTLFSvUhyr-fmCMzpiKav37laykwJpGGR31ktOfGVC0vBGmfISeW0ExrWjk8YhNecOAxD_G7ZGtH4DJuk2DieSU2uDRC4yigg7Wri-809r-iKd2Xk2YrjsDNlUo8MUw4SlODVZXiKZvUxmZn7u6fUshL_yFoNzgajgsfdJXg-7V-dIsFBAmhDnZqktOoyoNFS-ylnTvNnSMbhhBs9syW-ItZoEgUC9u1S9R772l2qpdLFyamMSrDHwU9AQERWGrfkLF-CLe9K9w20RO-WCPLvRWRKNNShR_EodeCTB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">added an academic statistician<\/a> to their staff. \u00a0 Both terms. <em>&#8220;reluctantly&#8221;<\/em> and <em>&#8220;divorced&#8221;<\/em>, reflect offensively to many of those who, first of all, don&#8217;t believe we <em>are<\/em> &#8220;divorced&#8221; in God&#8217;s eyes, because our wayward and estranged spouse is still alive (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Romans+7%3A2-3%3B+1+Corinthians+7%3A39%3B+Matthew+19%3A8&amp;version=NASB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Romans 7:2-3; 1 Corinthians 7:39; Matthew 19:8<\/a>),\u00a0 and even if they weren&#8217;t alive, with<em> full biblical justification,<\/em> we would regard ourselves as widowed, <em>not divorced.<\/em> \u00a0 \u00a0 Dr. Morse graciously asked at that time, what alternative label would be more acceptable to the covenant marriage stander community, so SIFC asked some standers in a social media private group for their input. \u00a0 It proved to be a tough exercise to come up with something crisp and concise that was adequately reflective of the conscience violation experienced as a result of man&#8217;s laws being in direct opposition to God&#8217;s laws on marriage. \u00a0 There was no male input volunteered at the time, but about five ladies offered input. \u00a0\u00a0 The common theme was <em><strong>&#8220;forcibly divorced against our conscience&#8221;. \u00a0<\/strong> \u00a0 <\/em>The majority of standers did not seem to object to the <em>&#8220;divorced&#8221;<\/em> label, however, as much as they objected to the &#8220;<em>reluctantly&#8221;<\/em> label. \u00a0\u00a0 At least one of these ladies,\u00a0if not two, had also been forced through an &#8220;annulment&#8221; by the Roman Catholic Church so that their &#8220;ex-spouse&#8221; could marry the adulteresses (who had coveted their husbands and broken up their homes) and take communion in that church. \u00a0\u00a0 The inquiry results were messaged back to Dr. Morse late in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Those who truly believe Christ&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew+19%3A8&amp;version=KJV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">words,<\/a> <em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">&#8220;from the beginning it was never so!&#8221;\u00a0<\/span> <\/em>don&#8217;t believe that man&#8217;s various contrivances to disobey God and create distance or sundering, or legal attempts to sever the supernatural one-flesh (Greek: <em>sarx mia<\/em>) entity are actually <strong><em>real. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/strong> Those attempts constitute the heinous presumption <em>to speak for God<\/em>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Genesis+15%3A8-17&amp;version=NASB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">superior party in an unconditional covenant<\/a> with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew+19%3A5-6%3B+Genesis+2%3A21-24&amp;version=KJV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the one-flesh entity which His hand has created<\/a> between true husband and wife. \u00a0 Although the Ruth Institute is a Catholic organization that retains some doctrine around marriage indissolubility, the Roman Catholic Church holds to a watered-down official version that allows for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2015\/12\/therefore-what-god-has-joined-let-the-bishop-annul-years-later\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;annulments&#8221; , sometimes years or decades later,<\/a> wherein they claim that some impediment not known at the time of the wedding caused God not to join or covenant with that union. \u00a0 Many a spouse is &#8220;reluctantly&#8221; exposed to an even worse set of church papers making the false and presumptuous claim that God didn&#8217;t join their marriage for reason <em>&#8220;x&#8221;<\/em>&#8211;after all the persecution, larceny and perjury they endured in &#8220;family court&#8221;. \u00a0 \u00a0 To such a stander, what&#8217;s being described as &#8220;reluctance&#8221; feels more like <em>gang<\/em> rape and moral conscience violation! \u00a0 \u00a0 &#8220;Reluctance&#8221; is a response to something you <em>didn&#8217;t want<\/em> but eventually acquiesced to, (as one male stander put it).\u00a0 One cannot conscionably say such a thing about gang rape without inevitably slandering and demoralizing the victim in the process. \u00a0 In Dr. Morse&#8217;s case, we know the injury is <em>not<\/em> intentional, but is due to an &#8220;out-of-synch&#8221; frame of reference arising from personal theology and personal marital history. \u00a0 \u00a0 As she publicly acknowledged at the Summit, she first learned of our movement and its general contours through SIFC less than 5 years ago.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/search\/top\/?q=%23RuthSummit&amp;epa=SEARCH_BOX\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#RuthSummit<\/a> 2019 was all about <em>giving a voice<\/em> to those victimized by the social and political &#8220;narrative&#8221; of the Sexual Revolution. \u00a0 \u00a0 As SIFC found out, however, there are <em>limits to that voice in public<\/em> if printed materials are in the inventory of said nonprofit, which are(unwittingly and unfortunately) bolstering one of the key tenets of that narrative. \u00a0\u00a0 In response to a post of one of the videos where an adult child of divorce (neither of whose parents, she reports, were actually &#8220;reluctant&#8221;) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=F65WMGj4h1s&amp;feature=share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">gave her testimony<\/a> at the April Summit, under a banner that read <em>&#8220;Reluctantly Divorced Panel&#8221;<\/em>,\u00a0 SIFC again commented about the offensiveness and inaccuracy of this label to some of those being referred to by it:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><strong><em>&#8220;<span dir=\"ltr\"><span class=\"_3l3x _1n4g\">I&#8217;m thankful for Dr. Morse and all her efforts, but feel the term &#8216;reluctantly divorced&#8217; seriously trivializes Christian standers. Standers stand in the first place because they believe Jesus when He said, &#8220;from the beginning it [man&#8217;s divorce] was not so!&#8221;<br \/>\nMost standers, by essence, don&#8217;t consider themselves &#8220;divorced&#8221; in God&#8217;s eyes, but rather immorally abandoned by both the law and their spouse.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><strong><em>I guess you could call *forcibly and morally violated* &#8220;reluctant&#8221;, but it&#8217;s kind of like saying someone was &#8220;reluctantly raped&#8221;. Would you say that to a rape victim? I sure wouldn&#8217;t!<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><strong><em>Happy to have been in the room for Christy&#8217;s riveting testimony, and it made me so thankful that my husband and I raised our children to adulthood before the troubles started.&#8221;<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\"><span class=\"_3l3x _1n4g\">This was <em>not<\/em> said on <em>her<\/em> page nor the Ruth Institute page, but on activist Jeff Morgan&#8217;s personal wall, without any idea that Dr. Morse would take it as a personal, hostile &#8220;swipe&#8221;, especially after our earlier exchange on the topic. \u00a0\u00a0 The PM that arrived the next day was unsettling, (<em>in part:<\/em> )<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><em><span style=\"color: #808080;\">&#8220;&#8230;could you do me the kindness of not picking a fight with me in public? criminey. You&#8217;ve made your point privately&#8230;I&#8217;ve agreed with you in many ways. I cannot go back and retract all that material. Plz. I&#8217;m under enough pressure as it is. &#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It occurred to &#8220;standerinfamilycourt&#8221; that perhaps this public statement <em>could<\/em> reasonably be faulted for not legitimately speaking for all covenant marriage standers, or a sufficiently large swath of them to have merited the comment. \u00a0\u00a0 That hadn&#8217;t been <em>objectively<\/em> tested, to be honest.\u00a0 The comment was based on the open-ended input of the prior small group of ladies.\u00a0 Out of a group page membership of 300-some, only those who agreed probably volunteered input, after all. \u00a0\u00a0 So&#8230;.it was<em> back to the polls<\/em> to validate whether SIFC should have just let it go for the sake of feelings and friendship.<\/p>\n<p>This time a formal poll with choices was set up on four different standers pages,\u00a0 most of them open pages this time, including one UK page. \u00a0 \u00a0 This has yielded some very interesting observations, and has this time had good input from male standers.\u00a0 The following, from the most active set of responses was typical of the input from the other pages where the poll ran&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2019\/06\/are-we-reluctantly-divorced-or-immorally-abandoned-under-color-of-law\/reluctant-poll-6-24-2019\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-15242\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-15242\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Reluctant-Poll-6.24.2019.jpg?resize=474%2C267&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Reluctant-Poll-6.24.2019.jpg?w=669&amp;ssl=1 669w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Reluctant-Poll-6.24.2019.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As everyone can see, a slight majority <em>did<\/em> say &#8220;No Big Deal&#8221;. \u00a0\u00a0 The second most frequent response was that quite a few were unaware of the issue at all. \u00a0 Upward of a third of standers responding overall reflected a strong negative response to being labeled a &#8220;reluctant divorcee&#8221;, and one registered a mild negative response. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Those who responded that they were <em>unaware of the label<\/em> (who does that?) were invited to go back and make an additional selection. \u00a0\u00a0 So far, none have, so the implication is that this <em>unaware<\/em> group also did not feel that strongly about it, perhaps half of all covenant marriage standers who are standing for the marriage of their youth. \u00a0\u00a0 Those who also gave verbal comments about what they&#8217;d<em> prefer<\/em> as a label echoed the responses of a year ago,\u00a0 responding a bit more negatively to the &#8220;reluctant&#8221; part (feeling that <strong><em>&#8220;forcibly&#8221;<\/em><\/strong> better reflected the <strong>conscience violation<\/strong> they suffered), than the &#8220;divorced&#8221; part of the label. \u00a0 Those who felt &#8220;trivialized&#8221; or &#8220;demeaned&#8221; tended to object to <em>both<\/em> parts of the label. \u00a0\u00a0 Most of the really negative responses came from men, which is understandable, because they&#8217;ve been stripped of their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=1+Corinthians+11%3A3%3B+Hebrews+13%3A17&amp;version=NASB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">God-assigned (and accountable) role<\/a> toward their <em>own flesh and blood (including <\/em>&#8211;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Ephesians+5%3A25-29&amp;version=NASB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> scripturally<\/a> &#8211; <em>their estranged and possibly &#8220;remarried&#8221; wife),<\/em> while having done nothing objectively wrong to deserve this outcome. \u00a0 One of the men commented:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><strong><em>&#8220;<a id=\"js_39s\" class=\"f4bffpk3 c61n2bf6\" style=\"color: #808080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/groups\/1420708881546803\/badge_member_list\/?badge_type=NEW_MEMBER\" rel=\"dialog\" aria-haspopup=\"true\" aria-controls=\"js_39t\" aria-label=\"Group member list\"><\/a> <span dir=\"ltr\"><span class=\"_3l3x\">I don&#8217;t like &#8216;reluctant&#8217; It&#8217;s like we went along with it even though we didn&#8217;t want to.<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><strong><em>I prefer Unwillingly Divorced.&#8221;<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>His comments drew 4 &#8220;likes&#8221;, out of a total of 13 responders in that group post.<\/p>\n<p>Overall,\u00a0 among the 4 group posts, there were 25 unique responses, breaking down as follows, by degree of perceived offensiveness:<\/p>\n<p>Who Does That?\u00a0 &#8211; 24%\u00a0 (6 responses)<br \/>\nNo Big Deal &#8211; 28%\u00a0 (7 responses)<br \/>\nMildly Annoyed &#8211; 4%\u00a0 (1 response)<br \/>\nDemeaned\u00a0 &#8211; 20% \u00a0 (5 responses)<br \/>\nTrivialized \u00a0 &#8211; 24%\u00a0 (6 responses)<\/p>\n<p>Due to varying beliefs, the covenant marriage standers are far from a monolithic group of saints.\u00a0 Several interesting preliminary observations can be drawn from these results. \u00a0 First, it appears that nearly 75% of this community is <em>aware of and integrated with<\/em> the activities and communications of external groups who are engaged in various aspects of &#8220;family law&#8221; and moral cultural reform,<em> a very gratifying result,<\/em> following almost 5 years of this blogger&#8217;s labors\u00a0 behind the keyboard and in conferences. \u00a0\u00a0 Indeed, many in this community watched the #RuthSummit simulcast in April and several others have reported watching the videos. \u00a0\u00a0 Secondly, the ones who responded &#8220;No Big Deal&#8221; tended to be the ones who believe that scriptures like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=1+Corinthians+7%3A11&amp;version=NASB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1 Corinthians 7:11<\/a> make <em>reconciliation<\/em> with a repenting wayward spouse completely optional according to preference, <em>should the opportunity present,<\/em> rather than morally imperative per scriptures like M<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew+18%3A23-35%2C+2+Corinthians+5%3A18-19&amp;version=NASB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">atthew 18:23-35, 2 Corinthians 5:18 (<\/a>and others). \u00a0\u00a0 So long as they remain celibate until their prodigal spouse&#8217;s physical death, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2019\/05\/remain-chaste-or-be-reconciled-two-co-equal-options-per-the-apostle\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;they&#8217;re good with God&#8221;, in their own estimation<\/a>. \u00a0 For them, the sense of <em>conscience violation<\/em> from having a paper &#8220;dissolution&#8221; forced upon them is much fainter, even if their sense of <em>personal<\/em> injury remains very great indeed.\u00a0 Thirdly, while close to 50% overall posted some degree of a negative response to the &#8220;reluctant divorcee&#8221; label, they were almost all men.\u00a0 They are the ones who feel the most responsibility for their blocked role as the undershepherd of the family sheep assigned by God to their personal care, and they are the <em>ongoing forgivers<\/em> in the group. \u00a0 It is interesting that all four of the respondents on the UK group page actually live in North America, where the process timelines for unilateral family-shredding are counted in days or months rather than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2019\/04\/deja-vu-all-over-again-the-no-fault-scam-effort-in-the-uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the 5 years the process currently takes in the UK.<\/a> \u00a0 \u00a0 The sample responses, to the best of SIFC&#8217;s knowledge were all from evangelicals, with no currently practicing or nominal Catholics, and a small number of former Catholics responding.<\/p>\n<p>One may rightly ask, <em>&#8220;Is 25 a representative sample size with respect to all covenant marriage standers?&#8221;<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0 We need to first clarify what a covenant marriage stander is, for those who don&#8217;t regularly follow this blog. \u00a0\u00a0 A covenant marriage, <em>per scripture<\/em>, is the marriage <em>of our youth<\/em> or its widowed replacement, <em>without regard to any religious test<\/em>, where there is no prior estranged spouse still living:\u00a0 a<em> never-married or widowed man with a never-married or widowed woman.<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0 A covenant stander is someone who has\u00a0 been declared &#8220;divorced&#8221; under the laws of men, but who is remaining celibate in obedience to Christ, even after their spouse &#8220;remarries&#8221; under the laws of men. \u00a0\u00a0 As shown above in the results, the <em>actual motives<\/em> for remaining celibate until widowed or reconciled <em>can and do<\/em> vary considerably, which impacts whether the term &#8220;reluctant divorcee&#8221; causes them injury and offense.\u00a0 To answer our question about sample size, we need to first estimate how many of these there are in the online world. \u00a0\u00a0 An imperfect but reasonable way to gauge that is to estimate that covenant marriage standers have historically run about 10% of <em>all<\/em> religious standers, including those who &#8220;stand&#8221; for the subsequent &#8220;remarriage&#8221; of their personal preference, or for the <em>most recent<\/em> of them. \u00a0\u00a0 The largest marriage permanence ministries do not tend to filter out people who are standing for &#8220;remarriages&#8221;,\u00a0 preferring a &#8220;wheat and tares&#8221; approach to running their ministries. \u00a0 These typically have about 20,000 followers at any given time.<\/p>\n<p>Based on these assumptions, a reasonable estimate of the total number of English-speaking covenant standers is around 2,000 globally, give or take. \u00a0 The U.S. divorce lawyers tell us that of the slightly less than 1,000,000 U.S. civil divorces occurring each year, about 5% of them or 50,000 couples per year eventually reconcile. \u00a0\u00a0 As mentioned, there are significantly more <em>non<\/em>covenant standers, hence <em>non<\/em>covenant reconciliations of varying durations just in the U.S., and this is true regardless of the durability of the reconciliation. \u00a0\u00a0 It is somewhat possible that there are up to 5,000 covenant marriage standers just in the U.S.,\u00a0 as an upper bound, which would include (and perhaps be dominated by) practicing Catholics who may still believe in some mitigating, <em>extrabiblical<\/em> doctrines such as &#8220;nullity&#8221; and &#8220;purgatory&#8221; which, in turn, would be directly relevant to their feelings about the severity of conscience violation. \u00a0 Based on our estimate of the covenant marriage stander population, we only received a tenth of the responses (at best) we really needed for the results to be reasonably representative of all covenant marriage standers who are online, so we can&#8217;t claim these results as being scientific, <em>only indicative <\/em>of the justification to say something about the injuriousness of the &#8220;reluctant divorcee&#8221; label.\u00a0 That indicated reliable sample size actually coincides with the typical size of most such group page (overlapping) memberships of covenant standers, so close to 100% group participation would be required to get there with scientific assurance. \u00a0 Some of those groups do have a fair number of practicing Catholics in their membership who may not believe that dying while in a non-widowed &#8220;remarriage&#8221; necessarily sends <em>everyone<\/em> to hell, so may be less motivated to respond to the poll, or would respond &#8220;No Big Deal&#8221; if they did respond. \u00a0 By no means were Catholics deliberately excluded.\u00a0 The poll will be kept open indefinitely, and this post updated if results change as more responses are gathered. \u00a0 This initial sample was gathered over about 36 hours&#8217; time. \u00a0\u00a0 SIFC did not run this poll on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/nofaultequalsnoaccountability\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Unilateral Divorce is Unconstitutional<\/a> due to the large number of very &#8220;loyal&#8221; trolls and non-standers who follow our community page.<\/p>\n<p>With all the statistical boredom out of the way about the impact of the <em>reluctant divorcee<\/em> label on the covenant stander community, <em>adding to the trauma of at least hundreds of people who are praying for their spouse&#8217;s complete repentance and removal from legalized subsequent unions that could send them to hell as rebels against the kingdom of God,\u00a0<\/em> &#8220;standerinfamilycourt&#8221; will now share the response given privately to Dr. Morse:<\/p>\n<div class=\"_1i6a\">\n<div class=\"_4po3 _4poa\">\n<div class=\"_4po5\">\n<div class=\"_4po8\">\n<div class=\"_4po9\">\n<div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"_4tdt _ua0\">\n<div class=\"_ua2\">\n<div class=\"_4tdv\">\n<div class=\"_5wd4 _1nc6\">\n<div class=\"._1dlq _h8t\">\n<div id=\"js_i2\" class=\"_5wd9 direction_ltr clearfix\" aria-describedby=\"js_b3\" data-tooltip-position=\"right\" data-hover=\"tooltip\" data-tooltip-content=\"Monday 5:31pm\">\n<div class=\"_1e-x _n4o\">\n<div class=\"_3_bl\">\n<div class=\"_5w1r _3_om _5wdf\">\n<div class=\"_4gx_\">\n<div class=\"_1aa6\">\n<p><span class=\"_5yl5\">&#8220;<em><span style=\"color: #808080;\">I honestly didn&#8217;t think about your printed materials inventory.\u00a0\u00a0 I was just hoping to raise some awareness.\u00a0\u00a0 I do realize there&#8217;s also some theological differences probably involved as well in this situation.\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t do it maliciously, or with any intent to discredit you, only a strong sense that standers are being misrepresented in direct proportion to our belief of scripture.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry you were offended, Dr. Morse, but some of us have been suffering dignity blows on top of gaping wounds for a long time.\u00a0 I hope you&#8217;ll give some thought to the point itself.\u00a0 I must sing your praises in public in at least a 10:1 ratio.\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>&#8220;Most sincere longtime standers do not believe human authorities have any say from God over marriage, and that He has never recognized divorce for anyone.\u00a0 To hear a national figure repeatedly affirm the immoral civil law as &#8220;truth&#8221; and its impact as &#8220;mild and recoverable&#8221; is hurtful. And most of us wish others could see the magnitude of the religious human rights violation being forcibly &#8220;divorced&#8221; (that is, immorally abandoned with legal sanction) represents.\u00a0 The ugly reality is we were the guinea pigs for everything happening now to everyone else on the religious rights front, but almost everyone remains clueless about that.\u00a0 It&#8217;s like the famous Niemoller quote, but an extra line could be appended:\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>&#8216;&#8230;then they came for me&#8230;(but <b>still<\/b> nobody cared about the Jews&#8230;&#8221;)\u00a0 &#8230;except God who is dealing with the whole nation accordingly and will not be appeased.&#8217; \u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><em>&#8220;This Equality Act&#8230;which we might get to dodge for another 2 or 6 years if there&#8217;s no national repentance, is literally going to be Congress doing to all other Christian consciences what was done to us by our state legislatures.\u00a0 Time is getting short and we&#8217;re all under pressure.\u00a0 I hope my sense of urgency at raising awareness can ultimately be forgiven.\u00a0\u00a0 Who knows how much longer biblical, pro-family voices will have a non-criminalized voice?\u00a0\u00a0 FB just shut down my advertising account today after almost 5 successful years, for submitting ads on a weekly basis that &#8216;violate their policies&#8217; (many of which they approved and ran anyway, taking the money).&#8221; \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> [End of response]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Ruth Institute certainly has no lack of pressure, engaged as it is with dividing time between longterm non-political activities aimed at chipping away at the root disease culturally, and a flurry of other activities managing and reporting the plethora of festering symptoms, including the significant fallout in the Roman Catholic Church, from which the bulk of that pressure currently emanates. \u00a0\u00a0 They manage to do a superb job with what they have to work with.\u00a0 &#8220;standerinfamilycourt&#8221;, on the other hand, is lock-focused on going straight after the root disease politically and culturally, and feels most acutely the pressure from the ticking clock of history repeating itself, while ministering in the background to many of its most <em>overlooked<\/em> and discounted wound victims. \u00a0\u00a0 There isn&#8217;t going to be perfect congruence of efforts, but that needn&#8217;t prevent an effective working alliance nor should feedback feel threatening to either effort. \u00a0 It is effective and necessary for &#8220;Ruth&#8221; to retain and build the support of Roman Catholic leadership, while finding some way to work effectively with the <em>sola scriptura<\/em> crowd that sustains the covenant marriage movement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fbNubFlyoutFooter\" data-testid=\"composer_root\">\n<div class=\"_1d4_\" role=\"presentation\">\n<div class=\"_552h\">\n<div>\n<div tabindex=\"-1\">\n<div class=\"_5rp7 _5rp8\">\n<div class=\"_5rpb\">\n<div class=\"notranslate _5rpu\" role=\"combobox\" contenteditable=\"true\" spellcheck=\"true\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"js_do\" aria-describedby=\"placeholder-ejis6\" aria-autocomplete=\"list\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>One of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vlyGR6HPV4k&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;fbclid=IwAR23FfibJwADSX_hvCwG8eoAkXnNOeczVfJc0N33IMIzNZ7xh9IDg-x-vLI\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">featured speakers at #RuthSummit<\/a> was Leila Miller, author of the book <em>&#8220;Primal Loss&#8221;<\/em> which gathered a lot of data about adult children of divorce who feel marginalized for cultural and political reasons to fit the false narratives that &#8220;children are resilient&#8221; and &#8220;parents deserve to be happy in their love life&#8221;.<br \/>\nHer 70 responses were heavily weighted toward trauma, hence she gained an influential platform through the Ruth Institute and Catholic media to speak out for them. \u00a0 \u00a0 The trauma of covenant marriage standers from false labels and politically-correct assumptions is<em> just as real<\/em>, but that trauma doesn&#8217;t fit very well the <em>counter<\/em>-narrative that <em>all<\/em> children deserve to grow up in a home with both biological parents, <em>no matter what. \u00a0\u00a0<\/em> That &#8220;no matter what&#8221; invalidly excludes concerns about the prior conflicting rights of <em>covenant<\/em> children and grandchildren at whose expense such an ideal necessarily comes, and with scripture-based beliefs about heaven and hell which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2019\/06\/purgatory-yea-or-nay\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">may conflict with Roman Catholic beliefs or doctrines<\/a>, or may even conflict with the dominant,\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2019\/06\/do-not-be-deceived-god-is-not-mocked-deuteronomy-24-revisited\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">politically &#8220;safe&#8221; evangelical view of those things. \u00a0<\/a> The very least someone pursuing an effective, engaged coalition can do is listen to this kind of inconvenient feedback without taking offense or presuming malicious intent.<\/p>\n<p><em><span id=\"en-NASB-28896\" class=\"text 2Cor-5-18\">Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,<\/span> <span id=\"en-NASB-28897\" class=\"text 2Cor-5-19\">namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/em><span id=\"en-NASB-28897\" class=\"text 2Cor-5-19\">&#8211; 2 Corinthians 5:18<\/span><em><span id=\"en-NASB-28897\" class=\"text 2Cor-5-19\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><span id=\"en-NASB-28897\" class=\"text 2Cor-5-19\">www.standerinfamilycourt.com<\/span><span id=\"en-NASB-28897\" class=\"text 2Cor-5-19\"><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let&#8217;s Repeal &#8220;No-Fault&#8221; Divorce<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Standerinfamilycourt &#8220;For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he..&#8221; &#8211; Proverbs 23:7 &#8220;standerinfamilycourt&#8221; has devoted the past nearly 5 years connecting the community of covenant marriage standers with other communities of Christians and social conservatives who are committed to peeling back the Sexual Revolution and reforming U.S. &#8220;family laws&#8221; in an example &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/2019\/06\/are-we-reluctantly-divorced-or-immorally-abandoned-under-color-of-law\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Standers, Are We &#8220;Reluctantly Divorced&#8221;&#8230;Or Immorally Abandoned Under Force of Law?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,26,36,23,13,15,25],"tags":[35,37,21,17,34,27],"class_list":["post-15220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-citizenship","category-discipleship-religious-freedom-2","category-lost-culture","category-marriage-restoration","category-morality","category-religious-freedom-2","category-spiritual-warfare","tag-citizenship","tag-contemporary-heresies","tag-future-of-marriage","tag-leadership","tag-morality","tag-restoration"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p57mep-3Xu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15220"}],"version-history":[{"count":124,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15346,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15220\/revisions\/15346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.standerinfamilycourt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}