Divorced Church Members

QUESTION: Should divorced persons who remarry while the party of the first marriage still lives, be admitted to the church?

ANSWER: Yes, the innocent party to a Scriptural divorce, or the truly penitent party to an unscriptural divorce. The church is for all who desire to flee from the wrath to come, as evinced by turning away from sin, doing all the good possible and attendance upon all the means of grace. The church is broad enough to receive penitent sinners of all sorts, but the pulpit is not.

— From Steele's Answers p. 11.

Previous Sins & Christian Ministry

QUESTION: Is it right to refuse to license a man to preach the Gospel because of sins committed before his conversion — since which God has forgiven?

ANSWER: There are sins which cast a long shadow after they have been forgiven, by reason of which I should not vote for a man's admission to the sacred office of the Christian ministry. If Aaron Burr, the grandson of President Jonathan Edwards, had been soundly converted after killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, and had applied for a license to preach, the church which refused his application would have acted wisely. If St. Augustine, who was converted after he had become the father of a illegitimate son, had not been permitted to enter the priesthood because of this sin of his youth, no wrong would have been done to him. It would have been an unfortunate disability. If after a matrimonial shipwreck by a divorce and a second marriage a man should be converted and ask to be ordained to the Christian ministry while the first wife is still living, the church would be justified in saying to him, we have confidence in your Christian character, but we prefer that you should be a layman and not a preacher. Among Gentile converts were some polygamists, who it seems were baptized and received into the church, but when they wished to become ordained ministers, Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, laid down the law for all future generations: "Let the deacons be husbands of one wife," i.e., only one at a time.

— From Steele's Answers pp. 7,8.

A Woman with Two Living Husbands

QUESTION: Can a woman having two living husbands be holy?

ANSWER: If she has procured a divorce from her first husband for a scriptural cause (adultery), she can be, as many interpreters of Christ's words teach. 

— Steele's Answers p. 255.

On Divorce and Remarriage

QUESTION: Is it wrong for an innocent woman to marry again, whose husband procured her divorce by hiring a man to criminate her with false testimony? (2) For imaginary crime?

ANSWER: I believe that the innocent party to a marriage dissolved for the only cause allowed by Christ may marry again. In the sight of the human court this woman was the guilty party, but in the sight of God she is innocent. (2) If the court granted the divorce for a suspected crime when the wife was perfectly true to her nuptial vows, this case is like the first so far as regards her right to re-marry.

— Steele's Answers p. 248.

The Rate of Divorce

QUESTION: One of the special contributors to the Christian Witness of Sept. 20 says: "As to the divorce evil, where one couple separate, there are five hundred that keep together." Is this true?

ANSWER: It may have been true when the contributor was a little boy, but it is far from the present ratio of divorces to marriages. In some of our States, every tenth marriage ends in a divorce, and in the whole United States the average is more than one in twenty. The very foundations of church and state and civilized society are being overturned. "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" says the Psalmist. It is reform or ruin. God help the nation to make wise choice and ministers of the Gospel to refuse to marry persons unscripturally divorced.

— Steele's Answers pp. 119, 120.

A License to Preach?

QUESTION: A Christian woman, deserted by an unbelieving husband, is divorced and marries a Christian man, and feeling uncertain whether she has done right, by mutual agreement, they separate. (1) Would it be right for her, feeling a clear call to preach, to be licensed? (2) Would Galatians 5:18 justify her, "If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law?"

ANSWER: No. There are improprieties not allowable in a preacher of the Gospel of the Holy Christ, such as having two living husbands and not living with either.

Re: (2). All Christians are under God's moral law as the rule of life. But they are not under the law as the ground of justification. We are not shut up to plead that we have always kept the law, in order to find acceptance with God. Christ is our new plea. We are not antinomians. We are under obligation to keep the law after we are forgiven through faith in Christ, but we are prompted now by a new motive, love to the Law-giver instead of fear of the penalty of the law.

— From Steele's Answers p. 28.