Everyone living in the West is deeply affected by chronic sexual chaos. It is one of the prime enemies of the American way of life, because citizens who do not grow up with their lifetime-married biological parents are usually less capable of self-government. So are most men and women who do not marry, as marriage naturally and highly develops the self-sacrificial habits required for self-government.

The sexual revolution destroying Western societies requires two cornerstone behaviors: nonmarital sex and no-fault divorce. Sex outside of marriage and smashing marriages also swap dependence on taxpayers for private independence within extended families. Conversely, big government reduces the natural consequences of destroying one’s family, by forcing stable families to subsidize self-destructing families through welfare that displaces every personal responsibility under the sun. This is why, as I’ve argued extensively, feminism is an existential crisis for the West.

Those left with the horrifying consequences of this — which is all of us — have little current recourse through our governments, which celebrate and subsidize the sexual revolution. Republicans won’t even promptly defund the nation’s largest child mutilation and murder chain, let alone talk about the gross injustice of no-fault divorce. So what recourse can we have through our families and churches, the other two of the three core social institutions?

A biblically orthodox Protestant theologian tackles this question and many more in a thorough book coming out July 16, Divorce and Remarriage: Ecclesiastical Discernment and Pastoral Care. The Rev. Dr. Benjamin Mayes, a Lutheran seminary professor, gives refreshingly clear guidance directly from scripture and informed by the church fathers about how churches and families should handle the relationship mayhem humans often make for ourselves.

Churches Ignore God’s Clear Commands

Mayes spends the first half of this book developing and demonstrating what the Bible commands with regard to divorce and remarriage. This is necessary because many Western churches have departed from communicating and enforcing biblical marriage norms.

Roman Catholics comprise the largest Christian denomination in America (Protestants are the majority of American worshippers, but they are divided among denominations). In practice, most self-described Catholics obtain an easy divorce. Three-quarters of divorced Catholics don’t seek an annulment, and one in three who have ever married are divorced, a rate barely different than the general public.

Technically, papists are supposed to get a church annulment before they remarry, but as many Catholics admit, these are frequently granted in the United States for scripturally valid marriages. Almost all annulments sought are granted. Indeed, Mayes demonstrates in the book that some of the Roman Church’s stated grounds for granting annulment are, characteristically, theological innovations with zero basis in God’s Word.

Most Protestants, including pastors, don’t bother with a farcical annulment process to sanction divorces that God forbids. They just pretend nothing happened while parishioners and pew-mates openly ignore God’s commands. While regular church attenders have half the divorce rate of pagans and apostates, data indicates it is still much higher than what is biblically permissible and, like Catholics, every evangelical knows of illicit divorces overlooked or even encouraged by church authorities and congregations.

Two Biblically Valid Justifications for Divorce

Into this chaotic situation, Mayes comes with Thomas Aquinas-like systematic explanations of what the Bible says about divorce and remarriage. Mayes argues, based chiefly on Matthew 5:32, Matthew 19:9, and 1 Corinthians 7:15, among numerous other verses, that the only two grounds for a biblically valid divorce are adultery and “malicious desertion.”

The first half of his book develops this argument. The second half gives practical case studies from the church fathers and pastoral experience showing how to apply biblical principles to often complicated human lives.

Mayes also systematically responds to prominent biblical Protestant perspectives on marriage and divorce. Mayes sidelines theology from apostate (mainline) denominations and papists because for them the Bible is not the chief nor final authority. Even so, this book’s explication of scripture is a strong tacit rebuke to all those professing Christianity who promulgate nonscriptural practices.

What Constitutes Adultery or Desertion?

While one might think cases of infidelity are pretty clear-cut, Mayes notes that God considers remarriage adultery if a prior marriage was ended against God’s commands. Thus many remarried people — but not all — are actually committing adultery in God’s eyes via their remarriage. The solution to this, as to all human sin, is repentance and forsaking wicked behavior.

This means God actually requires a divorce if it ends an adulterous union. For example, in the classic case of a man abandoning his wife to run off with his secretary, his marriage to the secretary is no marriage but adultery. If the man or secretary wants to remain Christian, they must divorce to demonstrate repentance and forsake that grave sin’s threat to their salvation.

Cases of “malicious desertion” are a bit more complicated than infidelity, as this can easily become one of those catch-all categories, such as “abuse,” that excuses an illicit marriage rupture. Mayes explains that “malicious desertion” as a God-given justification for divorce arises chiefly from 1 Corinthians 7:15. There, Saint Paul tells Christians if a nonbelieving spouse abandons a marriage, the Christian spouse is free to remarry.

Mayes argues it is an act of apostasy, or deserting the faith, to abandon a spouse and refuse to heed rebukes of abandoning behavior (such as persistent violence or refusal of marital acts) and sustained attempts to reconcile. Those who chronically and knowingly commit sins and refuse to repent are unbelievers who should be excommunicated. Spouses deserted by such self-evident apostates are scripturally free to remarry.

Comforting the Conscience

Mayes intends this book especially as a guide for pastors, but it also provides relief to laity, including this writer. As he notes, Christian consciences are burdened by witnessing evils such as infidelity and divorce and not receiving clear, scriptural guidance about how to understand them and respond. It is pastors’ job to relieve guilt and lack of biblical knowledge by teaching what is right and wrong according to scripture, and how we should live as a result.

Because this is a key duty of the church, Mayes argues that when parishioners suffer a divorce, churches should publicly adjudicate the situation, or at least investigate and publish a report explaining their conclusion about the case. This needs to be public because marriage and divorce are public acts that affect everyone, and parishioners deserve to know whether one of their members has apostasized or been the innocent victim of an immoral divorce. They can thus treat the person accordingly, and take communion without righteously worrying whether they have thus united themselves to a reprobate.

This also fosters the scripturally mandated habits of rebuke and repentance that form the basis of a Christian life. Those the church judges to have divorced or separated wrongly, like all who engage in incorrigible public sins, must repent or be removed from fellowship.

Mayes points out that it would of course be better if our civil government punished unfaithful spouses while protecting the faithful. But, he says, even when government allows the gross injustice of no-fault divorce, which mostly rewards the wicked and punishes the innocent, the church must act to pass judgment, require repentance, and extend forgiveness in these matters, as in all others.

This provides some temporal justice to those wronged by infidelity and malicious desertion, and teaches Christians and the world the truth about marriage. It can help deter people from wicked behavior, and bring about righteous behavior. It provides justice to wronged spouses, children, and family members devastated by unrighteous spousal acts and the no-fault divorce regime’s facilitation of their often-silent suffering.

It also consoles the consciences of those of us grieved over the destruction of family life we all have suffered through at least friends and relations. And it shows the right way to think about and act toward marriage chaos when we must encounter it.

Suffering becomes beautiful when we can be assured from the Bible, the only stable source of truth, that we’re suffering for what is right. Christians grow in hope, comfort, and faith when we can anticipate what God sees and how He will judge — as always, according to His Word.

This churches owe to their members as a matter of justice, proper pastoral care, and righteousness, and Mayes’s book shows how they can provide it for devastatingly rampant cases of family chaos. Anyone confused about what God says about marriage and divorce can find clarity — and robust scriptural receipts — in this book.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist and the researcher and host for The Federalist's forthcoming lawfare podcast series, "Overruled." Her latest book with Regnery is "False Flag: Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America." A happy wife and the mother of six children, her ebooks include the NEW "300 Classic Books for Ages 9 to Adult," and the bestselling "Classic Books For Young Children." An 20-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media including Tucker Carlson, CNN, Fox News, OANN, NewsMax, Ben Shapiro, and Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Joy is also the cofounder of a high-performing Christian classical school and the author and coauthor of classical curricula. Her traditionally published books also include "The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids," from Encounter Books.