Divorce & Remarriage - Considering Johannesburg

Considering Johannesburg, Episode 1. Watch the full episode here: [VIDEO LINK]. The free discussion guide is here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1plegQvXTa_4jY96lgjwTejwcDuOSr5va/view?usp=sharing.

On the last morning of the 2026 General Conference, Rich Hoffman, a lay delegate from Allegheny West, told the Global Methodist Church, “In 345 pages, the words divorce and remarriage do not appear once. If what we leave unsaid shapes our witness, then this silence matters.”

He was right. Our book told the world who could marry. It never said a word about what happens when a marriage breaks. Every pastor reading this knows why that matters: every day we minister to people in the wreckage of divorce.

This is the first installment of Considering Johannesburg, eleven of the biggest changes our General Conference made, each followed from the language we inherited to the final product. Most of us will only ever hear the headline. I want you to see the words, the people, and the votes, and make up your own mind. For Thursday the 3rd and Saturday the 5th there are no published minutes, so the livestream is the only record.

Why it matters

Tim Reaves of North Carolina remembered what Stanley Hauerwas, his teacher at Duke Divinity School, said years ago: “we could not really deal with the issue of homosexuality until we have dealt with the issue of divorce.” Then Reaves added, “Folks, it is all on the same plane.”

That is self-evidently right. The questions about homosexuality that tore the United Methodist Church apart didn’t come from nowhere. They grew out of confusion about marriage, about sexuality, and about embodiment itself. What are these bodies? What is sexuality for? A church that won’t say plainly what marriage is will struggle to say anything clear and compelling about the rest.

The language we inherited

Paragraph 302 holds our Social Witness statements, which Chappell Temple, chair of the Social Witness committee, described as our effort “to corporately express our understanding of the character of God.” Number seven, as adopted in Costa Rica in 2024, reads in full:

“We believe that human sexuality is a gift of God that is to be affirmed as it is exercised within the legal and spiritual covenant of a loving and monogamous marriage between one man and one woman.”

Three citations follow: Exodus 20:14, Ephesians 5, and Matthew 19:3–9. Hold on to that last one. It is the passage where the Pharisees ask Jesus whether a man may put away his wife “for every cause.” The citation was there. The explicit language wasn’t.

That is new for Methodists. The United Methodist Social Principles most of us grew up with called divorce “a regrettable alternative in the midst of brokenness.” The Global Methodist Church wrote briefly, and on purpose. When you are already being slandered as the anti-gay church, a hard line on divorce only makes some people more squeamish.

The petition and the committee

Petition 1020 came from Jonathan Lee of Christ’s Community Church in the Upper Midwest (not the Jonathan Lee elected bishop). Our book, he wrote, “does not clearly state that homosexual practice—like all sexual activity outside biblical marriage—is sin that calls for repentance and transformation through the grace of Jesus Christ.” That is solid biblical language.

His text made the paragraph about marriage itself, “a lifelong covenant” between one man and one woman, added that “sexual intimacy belongs only within the covenant of marriage,” and closed with a sentence former United Methodists will recognize: all other forms of sexuality are “incompatible with the Bible and traditional Christian teachings.” Still nothing about divorce. The Matthew citation even got shorter, stopping at verse 6, just before Jesus is asked about Moses and the writing of divorcement.

The Social Witness committee struck that “therefore” sentence, the one that carried the petitioner’s purpose. The journal doesn’t say why. I think it was a mistake. It then supported the petition 35–1–0 (Daily Journal, Wed 2 Sep, p. 39), which put it on a consent agenda to pass without debate.

Divorce came up in that room. We know only because members said so later on the floor. Daniel Griswold: “there was a lot of resistance to talking about this at all.” Tim Reaves: “We really did struggle.” The committee chose to say nothing.

On Thursday Temple warned that after this conference, changing a Social Witness statement takes three-quarters of General Conference and then three-quarters of the annual conferences worldwide: “we need to get these witness statements right this time … no pressure there.” Hoffman and nine others pulled 1020 off the consent agenda, and it waited for Saturday.

Saturday: the floor

Up to then the conference had been euphoric. Those of us who raised concerns from afar were told we were resisting the Holy Spirit. What came next showed that our unity is not without some dissent.

Hoffman moved to add:

“In addition, we resist divorce and seek reconciliation wherever possible, recognizing divorce and remarriage only as permitted by scripture, while affirming the forgiveness, restoration, and full participation in the life of the church of those who have experienced divorce.”

He restored Matthew 19 through verse 9 and added Mark 10 and 1 Corinthians 7. “Our witness should not merely tell the world who can enter a marriage,” he said. “It should also tell the church what marriage calls us to become.” And: “None of us should ask the church to change, remove, or hide a biblical moral teaching simply because it intersects with our own history.”

Joy Hook of Great Lakes answered with an instinct we know from the mainline: “the book should be full of not what we resist, but what we’re for.” Jeremy Auvil of North Alabama, a child of divorce, said his parents were “more godly people outside of the marriage that they had committed to,” and urged us to “be careful of the things that we disavow.” Daniel Griswold of South Carolina went straight to the text: “Jesus does teach on divorce.” He does:

“He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” (Matthew 19:8)

It sounded like exactly what it was: mainline Americans flinching at the prospect of recovering a disposition that corrects our culture. And one of the remarkable things about Johannesburg was watching the international delegations gently, but firmly, push the Americans back into our Bibles.

An amendment to the amendment

Matt O’Reilly of North Alabama rewrote Hoffman’s text:

“We recognize that divorce is always deeply grievous and encourage reconciliation as often as possible. We also recognize that scripture allows for divorce under certain circumstances and that reconciliation is not always possible.”

His reason deserves a hearing: “Those passages are incredibly complicated. And I would be hesitant to enshrine in the Book of Doctrines and Discipline anything that looks like a particular interpretation of those passages.” Gone were “only as permitted by scripture,” the word “remarriage,” and the promise of full participation. I preferred Hoffman’s version. O’Reilly’s was still better than silence.

Kathleen Engelman of Great Lakes, whom I have long appreciated as a solid believer, gave some of the most personal testimony of the week: “I was married for nine years, five months and 28 days … I truly am blessed to be divorced.” I thought Hoffman’s language was good, but it is right to consider her and the many people she represents.

Then came the speech I had been praying we’d hear in the GMC. Of twenty delegates who spoke on this petition, only Anbessu Feyissa of the Ethiopia Nazrawiyan Conference rose to say the language should be stronger: “we need stronger and clearer language regarding divorce.” He also spoke for the spouse who is left: “We should not hold the faithful spouse responsible for a decision they did not make and could not control.”

O’Reilly’s amendment passed 308–62. Eddie Bromley of my own Mississippi–West Tennessee Conference changed “as often as possible” to “whenever possible,” 319–37. Over Chris Gadlage’s objection that “We’re making a statement about divorce that I disagree that Scripture makes,” the amended Hoffman amendment passed 269–90.

Six more years?

Daniel Buck of Great Lakes moved to refer the petition to a commission. Reaves asked what that would cost: another six years. “We do not need to wait another six years before dealing with the issue of marriage and divorce,” he said.

The Africans would not have it. John Kalambo of Zambia: “Some of our people where we are coming from, Bishop, are unable to read what we are discussing here. They depend on us to explain to them what will come out of this.” Forbes Matonga of Zimbabwe recalled an old saying: “when you want to kill somebody [a petition], as a Methodist, create a commission.” And: “clarity is one of the things that are attracting people to us as GMC.”

I was greatly encouraged. Many of us feared the Americans would dominate this conference. That morning they didn’t, and because of that faithful witness, I believe, the referral failed.

Todd Chancey of the Mid-South split marriage and divorce into separate paragraphs; O’Reilly argued the divorce language belongs in ¶302.8, among the things we regret, because “saying less is more in this instance.” Jaimie Willis of Heartland tried to soften “always deeply grievous” to “can be deeply grievous,” and the chair ruled it already settled. I love Jaimie, but that felt like one more way to appease a softer Western concern. Then Jay Therrell of Florida moved the previous question, God bless him.

Petition 1020 as amended passed 329–41, 88.9 percent, clearing the three-fourths a Social Witness statement requires.

What the book says now

As best I can reconstruct it from the floor, ¶302.7 now reads:

“We affirm that marriage is God’s holy gift instituted by God in creation, affirmed by our Lord Jesus Christ, and intended as a lifelong covenant of mutual love, fidelity, and support between one man and one woman. Sexual intimacy belongs only within the covenant of marriage between one man and one woman.”

And, stated separately, words the 2024 book never had:

“We recognize that divorce is always deeply grievous and encourage reconciliation whenever possible. We also recognize that scripture allows for divorce under certain circumstances and that reconciliation is not always possible.”

“Legal,” “loving,” “monogamous,” and Hoffman’s promise of full participation are gone. And here is the irony in the title of this piece: the word “remarriage” still isn’t there. Our book says nothing about whether a divorced Christian may marry again. In this we still fall short of a more robust Methodism that once existed.

Which citations stand was raised twice and never settled. Where the divorce sentences sit was left to the secretary. Which “certain circumstances” qualify, the body chose not to say. Before I quote any of this as church law, I want to see it in the published 2026 Discipline, and I’ll update the discussion guide when it’s out.

From the beginning it was not so

Rich Hoffman was right about the silence. A church that tells the world who may marry, and then says nothing to its own people about what to do when a marriage goes wrong, has left its pastors to fend for themselves and its people to guess.

So what did Jesus say?

“The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.” (Matthew 19:3–9)

They ask him about Moses, and he takes them back behind Moses to Eden. The permission was real, but it was a concession to hard hearts. Griswold and Gadlage read these same verses on the floor and came to different places: two hermeneutics destined to clash again and again.

Jesus’ teaching on remarriage will make many cringe and turn away. The disciples felt it too: “If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry” (Matthew 19:10). When the church’s teaching on marriage makes nobody uncomfortable, we have probably stopped teaching what Jesus taught.

Paul speaks to both people in a broken marriage:

“And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife.” (1 Corinthians 7:10–11)

“But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.” (1 Corinthians 7:15)

Paul speaks to the one who was left, just as Anbessu Feyissa did. That is pastoral wisdom, and it is biblical.

Grateful and uneasy

So where do I land? Somewhere between grateful and uneasy.

Grateful, because “always deeply grievous” is true. I have never met a divorce that wasn’t. Research comparing children raised by widowed mothers with children raised by divorced mothers found the children of divorce doing worse as adults in education, work, and happiness.[1] It is a deep spiritual wound, and we should stop gaslighting people who describe it that way.

Uneasy, because “scripture allows for divorce under certain circumstances” is true, but it is the kind of true sentence that can carry freight nobody meant to put on it. It opens a big barn door. O’Reilly’s case was that saying less leaves room for pastors to shepherd, and he’s right. But I have been a pastor long enough to know that room can fill up with whatever the culture brings in.

Isn’t this what the United Methodist Church did, a little softening, a little room for local discernment? Part of me shares the worry. But this text doesn’t bless anything. It grieves, it calls for reconciliation, and it points back to Scripture and sends every pastor to go and read it. That is not a loophole.

Why say anything at all, then? Why not just say what we’re for? Because if the church’s witness is limited to what we can affirm, we miss half of the biblical witness, the half meant to pull down strongholds. Most of us came into the Global Methodist Church over its teaching on sexuality. If we hold that line and wink at divorce, the world will notice, and it will be right to.

One Methodist story, because it is ours. John Wesley’s marriage was a very unhappy one, and his wife left him more than once. On 23 January 1771 he wrote in his journal that she had set out for Newcastle “purposing ‘never to return,’” and added in Latin: Non eam reliqui; non dimisi; non revocabo. I did not leave her; I did not send her away; I will not call her back. He grieved. He did not divorce. He kept preaching.

That is what I want for us: a church that tells the truth about marriage, grieves every breaking of it, and fights for reconciliation even when it doesn’t seem realistic or possible. Clarity and grace, as Rich Hoffman said. I think Johannesburg gave us a little more of both.

What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. And where it has been put asunder, may the church be found faithful.

Go deeper

• Watch Episode 1 of Considering Johannesburg: [VIDEO LINK]

• Download the free discussion guide (old and new texts side by side, both sides in the delegates’ own words, Scripture, and questions for groups): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1plegQvXTa_4jY96lgjwTejwcDuOSr5va/view?usp=sharing

• Primary sources: GC2026 petitions (Petition 1020, Petitions Report p. 66) · Workbook and Daily Journals (Daily Journal, Wed 2 Sep, p. 39) · the GC2026 livestream, Thursday 3 and Saturday 5 September

• Wesley’s journal, 23 January 1771: CCEL

Next time: sex and gender identity, Petition 1127, pulled from the same consent agenda that same Thursday morning. After that, protecting the unborn and the mother, and then my own racial theology resolution.

[1] Timothy J. Biblarz and Greg Gottainer, “Family Structure and Children’s Success: A Comparison of Widowed and Divorced Single-Mother Families,” Journal of Marriage and Family 62, no. 2 (2000): 533–548. The authors suggest the families’ different positions in the social structure may account for much of the gap.

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