Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

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This is the Gospel selection from the Episcopal Lectionary for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B 2018. In the numbering system that lists each Sunday in an ordinal fashion, this Sunday is referred to as Proper 22. It will next be read aloud in an Episcopal church by a priest on Sunday October 7, 2018. It is important because Jesus used the door opened about the legality of divorce to explain the purpose of marriage as being to have children. Thus, both parents are responsible for the safety and care of children produced, as well as raising their children to be in the name of Jesus Christ.

The setting for this reading is established in verse one, which is not read aloud. Jesus has gone to the region beyond the Jordan. He would remain there until it was time for his final return to Jerusalem for the Passover. Jesus’ departure to the land  to the east of the Jordan River took him to the region of Perea, which was ruled by Herod Antipas, the same son of Herod the Great that ruled over Galilee. Jesus was safe from the reach of the leaders of Jerusalem’s Temple, who had influence on the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.

In John’s Gospel, he told of Jesus going to Jerusalem for the Feast of Dedication (also called the Festival of Lights or Hanukkah), stating “it was winter.” (John 10:22) Jesus had a confrontation with the “Jews” at the Colonnade, who demanded Jesus make a clear claim that he was the Messiah. He said, “The Father and I are one,” which led the Jews to attempt to stone Jesus for blasphemy. However, he escaped their grasp when they tried to seize him, going “back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. There he stayed,” (John 10:40)

[Note: The fact that neither Matthew nor Mark wrote of that event in Jerusalem acts as evidence that the God-commanded holy observances that were convened in Jerusalem were family centered, not educational or institutional.  Participation was based on one’s commitment to the commands of God, through Moses, meaning Jesus did not make religious feasts a ‘business trip’.  While the disciples would have also been in Jerusalem at that time, they would have been with their families, voluntarily.]

Jesus would stay in that region of Perea until the time when the Passover would come, two weeks after the advent of spring (early April). Still, in the safety of Perea, Jesus did not lay low. Verse one of Mark 10 concludes by telling us, “again he was teaching them.” That means Jesus was in a synagogue of Jews, as a ‘guest rabbi’ reading the scrolls and leading the discussion about the meaning of that read.

This means that when we read, “Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus,” this was based on the anger that the Temple had for Jesus. They were not trying to test his faith or learn to understand the meaning of Scripture; they were attempting to find reason to make formal charges against Jesus. Because one understands this took place in a synagogue or place of gathering by Jews on a Shabbat, where holy scrolls were stored or brought, it can be assumed this line of questioning was then based on the reading of that Sabbath.

The Greek word translated as “they asked” is “epērōtōn,” which means “interrogate,” in a “demanding” manner. The Greek word translated as “testing” (“peirazontes”) equally means they were “tempting” Jesus, such that their questioning was supposed to be a trap.

Jews that regularly attend synagogue worship will know that certain readings are read at certain times of the year. Since Jesus had gone beyond the Jordan in the equivalent month as December (the Hebrew month of Tevet), it could be that a Psalm, a reading from one of the Prophets, or from part of the Torah led to some mention of marriage.  I welcome Jews to ponder which reading ignited the conversation about marriage and divorce.

It is worthwhile to know that Jews write a physical contract of marriage, with it understood that there is a spiritual marriage and a physical marriage that contractually binds two together. In that contract are also the grounds for a possible divorce. Jesus referred to this when he said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” When a divorce actually occurs, based on the grounds stated in the marriage contract, the marriage is dissolved and the written contract is burned (read here), as a sign that the contract was fulfilled and holds no further merit.

The question designed to entrap Jesus was then, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” The key word in that question is “lawful,” coming from the Greek word “exestin.” The same word means “possible” or “permissible,” such that the question focused on asking, “Does a marriage contract permit divorce?”

Jesus then responded, beyond saying the Law was obvious on the subject, by adding, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.” Jesus repeated a form of the word “you” (“hymōn” and “hymin”), in the second person rather than the general, which directly called out the questioning Pharisees as the reason Moses allowed divorce to be written into a marriage contract. A “hardened heart” (from “sklērokardian”) means it was known that loveless marriages would be arranged and there would be males with “perverseness” and “obstinacy” in their character that would lead them to marry, simply because it was a way of appearing to be obedient to the Law of Moses.

Lawyers would not attract many clients if single and always ready to mingle. With a wife, however, the money comes flying in.  Since wealth corrupts, having too much means there is enough money hidden away from the spouse to buy some sexual fun on the side [Ref.: The number of politicians in Washington D. C. that have law diplomas.]

Jesus said that marriage between males and females [hold on … all you freakazoids that are screaming, “Gay marriage!!!”] had to have a “get out of responsibility free” clause because “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’” Way back at the beginning of humanity, the only reason God made two complimentary sexes [in most creatures, and all mammals] was so they would have to come together and have sex, so the species could repopulate.  Marriage means reproduction, not sexual playtime.

Besides, everyone knows the true reason dinosaurs went extinct was they all had Big Brains and figured out that homosexuality was the way to go – “No more need to share with anyone!” [Sorry.  I jest.  I was trying to make the freakazoids feel at ease.]

When we read that Jesus then said, “‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother,” the translation of “man” is misleading. The Greek word “anthrōpos” refers to anyone in the human race, which (believe it or not) includes both men and women. When that is understood, one can then easily grasp that “leave his father and mother” is a statement of being born.

If this were not to be directed at humans giving birth to children, there would be no need to use “father” and “mother,” as some word more general would work (such as “family”).  The words “patera” and “mētera” are written and they are words ‘invented’ to show the change between “men” and “woman,” and between “husband” and “wife,” although “husband” and “wife” are words ‘invented’ to denote the expectation of babies, coming from parents.

Pause and take as long as you need to grasp that “leaving” of one who has matured sexually, so both sons and daughters will leave the nest to make their own nest. This is not for the purpose of being sexual without mom and dad watching [thank God], but to have their own babies, as themselves becoming “father” and “mother.” Adults become responsible when they have children, so they stop being children that are cared for and start caring for their own children.  Therefore, after leaving, adults will “be joined” in opposite sex pairs.

The phrase, “to his wife,” then becomes a statement of opposite sex being a requirement for babies to be made.  This means “his” is the masculine pronoun that says a “male husband,” who seeks a “wife.”  The use of “wife” is a statement about the necessity of one of the two, the one who will carry the baby to be born of two adults.  Still, opposite sex parents have to mate for this to happen.

Please take another deep breath, count to ten, and ponder the real meaning of joining together. It has very little to do with the honeymoon exercise of sexual intercourse (or the pre-marriage squirming together in the splendor of nakedness), and everything to do with the squirting of urine on a pregnancy test strip.

If sex did not come with the possibility of pregnancy, there is no need for the pretense of marriage, where two people often “join” in intercourse, but no baby results.  This occurs when a woman (or a man) uses some form of birth control, most prominently “the pill.” This occurs every time two human beings of the same sex use non-reproductive organs in the manipulation of orgasm. This is the result whenever two teens engage in erotic stimulation that does not result in a male copulating inside a female’s vagina, such that no sperm has a chance of swimming to an egg.

THAT is where the true joining that matters takes place – a man’s semen inside a female vagina.  That automatically transforms a female into a “wife,” once that one little sperm rascal gets inside an egg and all kinds of splitting and replication takes place.

That is the truth of marriage. It is not a contract. It is not non-reproductive sex. It is when an egg receives a sperm and the DNA of two parents are joined. It is as Jesus said: “The two shall become one flesh.” That means two will become reproduced in their child. With EVERY child, the marriage of two parents is formed in “one flesh.”

Up until that point, Jesus had matter-of-factly been telling the Pharisees what was written in the Book of Genesis. Nothing he had said could be argued against. Nothing Jesus had said was found at the bottom of the pit, as the trap set by their ploy. With that truth understood (although they did not really grasp what Jesus meant), Jesus said, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” That was Jesus saying, “You can quote me on this.”

Because the Pharisees did not really understand all the innuendo Jesus had just said (like the whole Christian world to this day doesn’t), it appeared that Jesus was drawing a philosophical conclusion, based on the premise of Genesis being accepted as truth (a feat of logic). Because the Pharisees had asked a question about divorce being legal, Jesus seemed to be having the opinion that divorce, while contractually possible, should never be, because it was the will of God for two human beings (opposite sex then, but hey … same sex today too, if two roll in the hay with warm, soft hearts, not cold, rock-hard hearts) to be joined in blessed matrimony.

Jesus did not offer that opinion.

As far as what Mark wrote about this trap set by the Pharisees and Jesus side-stepping it, Matthew wrote “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Good question.  Still, it should be realized that this question was not asked by the Pharisees. They had absolutely no interest in pursuing what Jesus thought about the issue of divorce, beyond his answer that it is legal, according to the Law of Moses. Thus, what Matthew wrote was asked was a question posed by the disciples, as a later question. Relative to what Matthew wrote, Mark wrote, “Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.”

The answer Jesus gave to his disciples, once they were out of the synagogue and away from the Pharisees trying to test Jesus was: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

The implication here is that a wife has already given birth to one child (minimum), because the man and the woman are “married” by that definition. Unless a wife that is a mother willingly cheats on her husband with another man, there is no good excuse for divorce. Divorce, in all cases, boils down to adultery: adultery is the validity of divorce; and, adultery is the illegitimacy of divorce.

The illegitimate is then all about the selfishness of physical lust, disregarding the commitments and responsibilities of a spouse with children to raise.  This includes the illegitimacy of children born and left for mothers to raise, while the father is off giving the world more bastard children.  Those children are torn asunder by their being raised by single parents that get paid by the government to be birth machines.

[Aside: That is why people clamor for pro-choice for abortions.  That is government sponsored genocide of the lower classes, under the philosophy that it is not good for children to be raised by gangs, while the momma is off buying crack with welfare checks.  Abortion clinics are the spawn of Satan, as legal genocide is as evil as are gangs and crack use. To kill the babies means the residual effect will be to lessen the money used to buy drugs.]

In Matthew’s Gospel, he recalled Jesus repeating the aspect of hardened hearts, again referring to any loveless marriage between two mature adults.

One can then, knowing Jesus had just said God created two sexes in Man for the purpose of creating children, assume a bad marriage, where one or both have hearts that refuse to have sexual intercourse, means the allowance by Moses.  It would be for arranged couplings where a mismatch meant two who would not produce children.  Divorce is then necessary for adults to fulfill their reproductive purpose in life.

There is evidence in Genesis that supports this concept, in an unspoken manner. Three times Abram traveled with Sarai, when Abram introduced Sarai as his father’s daughter, leading important men to think that meant Abram traveled with his sister. Because of Sarai’s beauty (she was sexually arousing to men), three important men each planned to take Sarai as his wife. They did not plan to have a marriage ceremony. They planned to have sex with her and get her pregnant.  Because Abram and Sarai had no children (so none traveled with them), Sarai’s purpose as a female was seen as unfulfilled.

Since Abram and Sarai had no children together (at those three points in time), their contract together meant they could go their separate ways ‘legally’. Abram loved Sarai so much, he would allow another man to test the possibility that Abram was the impotent one of the two.  However, each time a man planned to take Sarai as his wife, someone urged Abram to speak up and say Sarai was indeed his wife, but barren.

Abram would follow that advice each time, causing the important men to apologize and back away from their marriage plans. This was how Abram was given Hagar to be Sarai’s handmaiden and bear Abram’s first son, Ishmael.

In Matthew’s Gospel, he recalled that the disciples remarked that it would be better not to marry, causing Jesus to add, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given.”

That meant that only those led by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit (especially at a time when no one on earth could grasp DNA and see inside a womb) could “accept this word,” meanings “receive divine speech” into a human brain. Jesus was so filled, understanding Scripture through the Christ Mind. Therefore, Jesus said marriage is most definitely the best thing one can do in the eyes of God; but there certainly were caveats to realize.

Matthew then recounted how Jesus said, “There are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” This clearly stated the one who could not shine brightly in the eyes of God, through their children, were those who were sterile.

Some human beings are born sterile. ALL of the barren wives of the Old and New Testaments were born incapable of having children, meaning their conception was due to a miracle happening within their bodies. Still, anyone who claims to be born into the wrong body today, as lacking interest in mating with the opposite sex, can be deemed “eunuchs who were born that way.”

Some were purposefully made sterile as slaves, so they could watch over the wives of important people and not be aroused. Still, then and now, children have accidents that keep them from having children naturally. As a form of birth control, women who take the pill (and other contraceptives) make themselves “eunuchs,” as do men who have vasectomies. This is then both willful and accidental life-changing decisions, where not having children is one’s outlook in life.

When Jesus said, “There are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,” this does not mean they had not had children, because there was nothing keeping one from reproducing. For one to “choose to live like eunuchs,” one has been fruitful and multiplied, been a dedicated parent and spouse, but from a perspective of divine wisdom, one has chosen the point of celibacy for the remainder of one’s life.

For a Roman Catholic priest to be ordained out of seminary, having never been married and be under forty years of age, this is someone who has absolutely no experience in being a husband and parent (the R.C.C. still shuns women in ordination, so no reason to say a woman has no experience to counsel couples in the commitment of marriage, when unwed and childless). Having been there and done that was the point Jesus was making about those who chose a life of celibacy.

Paul would be a perfect example of who would meet this classification of willing eunuch.  He wrote about how ideal it would be for all Apostles to give up sex, because it causes as many (if not more) problems as does a love of money in human beings.  Jesus is viewed as a celibate Jewish male, which is a slap in the face of God.  What one does not know does not mean one has to right to make an ass out of you and me (the meaning of ass*u*me). Jesus had fulfilled his human duty, but it is not written of in the Gospels.  We know nothing of Paul’s life outside of ministry for God.  However, for devout Jews, in that period of history, one can logically deduce that because the Pharisees were not condemning Jesus for not having been fruitful and multiplied, he had been.

Puberty is not a biological function that God wants to overcome via the Holy Spirit.  There were no Jews, except those firstborn of Levite descent, who would be given to the Temple, without having first married and had babies.  One could imagine that a Temple priest would have been ordered by a superior – a teacher of God’s Word – to be married, have at least one baby, name it after God, and then raise it for forty years, when one would then be old enough to be a wise leader of Jews.  Not marrying and not having children was breaking God’s command to be fruitful and multiply.

When we then read, “People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them,” there is nothing that would transition Jesus and the disciples outside of the house in which they were staying, the one beyond the Jordan. Most likely, the house was owned by a relative of Jesus or someone whom he had come to know earlier in his life. The person who owned the house welcomed Jesus to stay with him and his family at any time, much like the man who would gladly let Jesus use his donkey colt, or the man who would let Jesus have an upstairs room in the Essenes Quarter for the Passover week. Jesus’ ministry did not depend on Jesus begging strangers for money to support him and his entourage. Jesus’ ministry stretched far beyond the words that were written of him.  The people Jesus knew, he knew well and they knew Jesus well, from soft, warm and loving heartfelt desires to share.

As I have mentioned prior, when Jesus was in his house in Capernaum and an unnamed child came and jumped into his arms, while the disciples were surrounding Jesus. Children were natural elements in a home environment. A Jewish household would ordinarily have children in it, due to multiple families living under the same root, all related by birth and marriage. In this house where Jesus was welcomed, “people were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them,” which means (according to Matthew) for Jesus “to pray for them.” This is not a separate lesson, where the message is “Jesus loves the little children, all the children in the world.” It is a continuation of the “Marriage is children” message.

The disciples saw this as a bother to Jesus and spoke sternly to the people whose children were being brought to Jesus. Jesus, in turn, told his disciples to leave them alone. Jesus saw this rebuke by his disciples as if they thought Jesus was like a royal figure, who owned everything in his kingdom, so everyone owed him their respect and Jesus owed nobody anything in return. Jesus’ sharing with those he loved and who loved him was his touch of prayer and healing. The people who lived in the house shared the house, which came with the children, with Jesus. Jesus shared God with those he touched.  The disciples could not see this yet; but in time they would write epistles to those they came to love, as their having learned the lesson of sharing.

Jesus told the disciples, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” This was not Jesus speaking about little children, which would be classified as not yet matured sexually, so somewhere under the age of thirteen. Children grow into adults. This means Jesus was welcoming those with the soft, warm, trusting hearts of children.

Jesus called his disciples “little children,” such that they were the ones who answered the call to “Follow me.” That is the meaning of letting the children go to Jesus; and those who would be reborn as Jesus Christ would be those who were not stopped and were due the kingdom of heaven.

It is always important to realize that Jesus was not talking as the earthly man named Jesus, but as the divine being that spoke only what the Lord God had him say. Speaking for God, Jesus could say who would be granted entrance into heaven. When Jesus then said (as God speaking through him), “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it,” he meant only those who married God and “received a little child” born into them would be given a share of God’s realm.

This means that all adults have to give up their self-egos and become as submissive as little Sons before the Father – in the name of Jesus Christ, reborn as little children – or they would not reach that goal.  Jesus, speaking for God, said, “If one does not receive this ‘second childhood’, then one gets reincarnated back into a body of flesh (try, try, and try again) or one’s soul gets the eternal punishment of hell’s flames.”  Jesus had already told Nicodemus how ignorant he was for thinking being reborn meant returning to the mother’s womb.  Therefore, you “receive the kingdom of God as a little child,” when your soul is reborn as baby Jesus.

When this reading ends by Mark writing, “And [Jesus] took [the children] up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them,” this is a scene that is designed to portray the truth for as long as this verse was, is, and will be read.  We are the children that have been brought to Jesus.  We are filthy with the illness of sin, but the arms of Jesus Christ around us means the Holy Spirit has washed that past filth away.  That says that an Apostle will be the child in “his hands,” by being reborn with him.  This is a blessing of God the Father, to be made a child again, with a loving heart of the Son that seeks that parental comfort.

It is very important that one see clearly this “marriage-children” lesson. This is why Jesus told the Pharisees that what God has joined together, let no one separate. This speaks out against abortion, certainly. It is God that has His hands on the one sperm that will be allowed in the egg that God also has His hands on. The whole reproductive process inside a woman’s womb is not because a woman is smart enough to think what needs to be duplicated next, and when to develop the eyes and lungs, hairs and fingernails.  All that takes place within a human being is God’s work.

As much as Women’s Rights advocates love to shout, “It’s a woman’s body,” let one woman demonstrate the power to keep that body from aging and dying.  The soul has no power but to direct the body to the most favorable maintenance, with the most favorable coming from prayer to God.  The body’s workings are enabled wholly by God and a woman’s womb is God’s laboratory for new life.  There is where God splits the DNA of two parents and splices the split halves together as one. No human brain should make the mistake of ripping a fetus apart in the womb, just because one has developed a case of hardened-heartitis.

The most important message is to a soul that has married with God’s Holy Spirit and become pregnant with baby Jesus Christ in the womb. Woe be it to the person who tears that person asunder. If your mother and father gave birth to a baby that was promised to God, through baptism by water and holy oil, then let that little child become Jesus Christ. Do not stop him or her.

As the Gospel selection for the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, when one’s personal ministry for the LORD should be underway – one has married God and given birth to His Son – the message here is the commitment that can only be lived up to with a heart full of love, to and from God. When one’s heart is filled with love, then the brain has no time to spend calculating contractual agreement language, trying to test God as to just how far one can go and still be within the legal limits.

In every lesson that is read each Sunday, it is up to the individual whose ears are hearing the words spoken to grasp them with divine inspiration. The test is placed on Christians, to see how the bad guys match parts of their lives. Here, each Christian should ask themselves, “Am I testing Jesus like the Pharisees? Do I try to find ways to divorce myself from certain responsibilities that I don’t like?”

We should consider, “Am I like the disciples, who could not understand what Jesus was saying? And, do I keep the children from developing a deeper spiritual understanding of God and Christ, because I know less than I pretend to know?”

As the saying goes, “The first step in solving a problem is to recognize that it does exist.”

In this modern world, all of the issues of this reading are prevalent.  Divorce is rampant.  The institution of marriage has been disgraced; and the desire to have children has dwindled.  We in the United States of America have been conditioned by influence (media propaganda and political agenda) to accept the institution of marriage as an outdated tradition.  As a result, the children are brought into a world that does not care about them and does not bring them to Jesus, as him reborn in new Apostles.

I have personal experience as a child of divorce, when it was a social stigma to be raised without a father.  I have experience as a husband to a wife that bore two children in our likeness, only to see the lives of those children be torn asunder by the divorce my wife and I went through, due to hardened hearts towards each other.  I married my wife, largely due to her having aborted a pregnancy that occurred when we were just dating.  After we married, we experienced three miscarriages because of the prior abortion.

I was young and stupid and my wife was also.  We did not know to trust God.  I only knew that abortion was the whispers I overheard, spoken by others my age, who were too young to be “tied down by marriage.”  I was to ignorant to see myself as one selfish fool.  I do not see myself as unique, in that respect.

I was influenced by an opinion that people should be given the right to choose how and when it is okay to kill a fetus.  In those days, the Church was dwindling in its influence and refusing to allow Catholic women to take the pill with its blessing.  Today, the failures of that Church (and others) have been magnified.  So many have turned against religion (Christianity specifically) that they would love to see any positive values brought forth by religious beliefs be destroyed.  Many would love to see America sterilized and doomed for extinction.

This then goes beyond the destruction of the institution of marriage as that bringing two adults together to give birth to children and raise them to maturity, having instilled in those children the morals of Christianity.  We have become a nation led by eunuchs that have been elevated into positions of power; and although the eunuchs number in the minority, their sterile ways are forced upon the majority as a standard acceptance.  That makes the children of today hear that influence and then be conditioned to think, “It must be okay.”

The eunuch leaders of today depend on the ignorance of children.  The Communists learned this long ago: If you want to erase religion from the hearts of millions of people, you have to work on the minds of their children.  Over time, the old ways dissolve into the new.  Just as I thought abortion was a viable solution to my grown up problem, through subtle indoctrination, I acted the way I was programmed to act.

America is laughed at by powerful nations that hate the strength that the U.S. of A. has represented since the Twentieth century began.  Those other countries openly abuse those among them that try to act like the American way is the holy way, when there is nothing holy about a nation that allows itself (by new laws) to be drug through the gutter because of minority will.  America’s will to fight for what is right has been weakened; and all attempts to correct the wrongs at home are being loudly protested, by paid, professional trouble-makers and foreign billionaires who are loving every moment.

While not read in Mark’s account of this event in the life of Jesus, this is how Matthew’s words are so important to understand.  When Jesus said to his disciples, “Not all receive the word of this [Scriptural lesson], but only those to whom the truth has been given,”  (Matthew 19:11) that explanation says to understand the truth of Scripture, one has to be led by the Holy Spirit.  For America to wake up and return to true religious values, it first needs to prove it can grasp spiritual meaning and live by that truth, while promoting understanding in others.

I have my doubts that more than a handful of Americas can do this.  That means we are doomed to fail; most likely gleefully running to that end with our proverbial hands down our pants (or some doctor’s scapel tearing asunder a fetus within our wombs).  Adultery is anyone who says he or she is a Christian, pretending to be married to Jesus, while sneaking off to wallow in the sins of all the gods of a lustful world.

America has been divorced by God.  By Mosaic Law, we cannot remarry God after divorce.  It is a valid divorce, because American Christians have lain with other lovers (seriously … too many to name).  All of our children are born of adultery, with none being led to Jesus the true way.