The Lord will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the Lord your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom.
-Deuteronomy 28:13, NIV
Why is divorce treated from the pulpit as worse than enduring unrepentant adultery in a marriage?
From my personal experience and from running this blog for about a decade, I have discovered few churches teach against committing adultery with even equal vehemence as they do against divorce. I have many theories for this phenomenon (in no particular order):
1. Divorce is seen as a pastoral failure.
Pastors marry people. They want those relationships to succeed. So, it is sometimes hard to accept that you married two people who ought to divorce.
Maybe you made a mistake by blessing their union? The easier thing to do is to embrace denial and insist on the faithful spouse to stay in the marriage. Divorce shame is often deployed to do just that.
2. It is an ego hit.
Related to the first theory, this theory goes straight to one of the personal incentives to discourage divorce. Who doesn’t want to be seen as the miracle worker?! The ego loves to boast about all the marriages one has saved. It is less of an ego boost to talk about abuse victims that one has protected (via supporting divorce).
3. They are struggling in their own marriage and do not want to face reality.
Maybe they are the Cheater in their own marriage and do not want their spouse to divorce them? Or maybe they are the faithful spouse in the equation and fear losing their job if they divorce? Divorce makes what is hidden public. They cannot afford this. So, they condemn all divorce.
4. They think divorce is more harmful to all parties than staying in an adulterous, abusive marriage.
I do think some pastors sincerely divorce is a worse outcome than staying in an adulterous marriage. This is terrible, but it explains all the energy they place on emphasizing the “evil” of divorce rather than adultery.
5. They have bad divorce theology and are not open to changing it.
To these folks, Malachi 2:16 sets the tone–i.e. God hates divorce verse. They stubbornly refuse to consider other verses that conflict with this translation of one Old Testament verse! To them, it settles it. They are right to condemn divorce, because God says that He hates it. They have a verse and will do their best to teach others this “truth.”
Another bad theology is applying the ministry of reconciliation to these situations (see 2 Corinthians 5:18). While it is true that we are called to reconcile the world to Jesus, that does not mean all will be reconciled. Similarly, not every marriage can be reconciled (or should be). Some pastors lack the nuanced understanding of this ministry and misapply it to situations with adulterous abuse.
6. They have chosen to follow (bad) popular psychology over biblical teachings on divorce and adultery.
A common problem in the pastoral profession is how we have not held our own place professionally. Many of us try to behave as if we are therapists when we are not. This leads us to follow all sort of bad pop psychology. That is not different than here. This is less a reason for why pastors condemn divorce as more a reason for the proliferation of terrible pastoral counseling on such matters.
7. Money.
This ultimately is a very base but rather real reason to condemn divorce over adultery. Adultery does not take money out of the offering plate like divorce can.
Divorce can disrupt the giving unit. They are costly. So, there is a strong financial incentive for pastors to condemn divorce.
All of these are just theories. It is likely a combination of these theories for why divorce is condemn more vehemently than adultery is from the pulpit.
Finally, all of these theories do not take into account the spiritual dimensions as well. I believe we are in a spiritual war and the demonic wants to destroy us. This emphasis from the pulpit about condemning divorce more than adultery is just one way to bring such destruction upon us.
I think so many Christians/Preachers just simply do not know how to talk about adultery. They avoid it, maybe if they did a couple sermons a year, and talked about it and the danger and the wrongness and the pain it causes the victims, it would lesson the occurrences. Maybe if they preached, divorcing is a better choice if adultery is your only option. If just a handful of betrayed are spared the horror; it would be worth it.
God hates divorce because He is a divorcee. He divorced Israel, so He knows how painful it is. He can relate to the betrayal and personal cost of having to remove His beloved people from Himself. He hates it because He can relate to the agony of the divorce process. God was the petitioner at His own divorce.