MAN’S RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

divorce; namely how does he get divorced from his mistress, how does he become reconciled again with his own flesh and therefore himself, how is he to be cleansed from his sin? These are all ways of expressing the same problem. Is it enough to break off the relationship? Or is that as ineffectual to get rid of the spiritual bond, as it is supposed to be of the legal bond of marriage? Can any relationship, even the most innocent and trivial friendship ever be severed; or does it linger on in the heart and mind and flesh of the participants endlessly, although they are probably quite unconscious of it? This is what divorce is really about. And it is in this context that I will attempt to analyse the Church's views on divorce. It is good law as well as good theology that marriages are created by mutual promises; and I have no intention of admitting that marriage is anything other than a very special type of friendship, unless it is manifest that it is different. To protest that marriage is a sacrament, or partakes of the nature of a sacrament without being one, is beside the point; because it presupposes that the word sacrament is a truthful word, whereas it may well be a magical word. In studying the Church of England's views on divorce, I cannot do better than go to its own report “Putting Asunder”, the report of a committee considering this very subject.