Arranged Marriages and Divorce in LC

How common are troubled marriages and divorces in the church compared to the general population or to other christian marriages?

I recall hearing miraculous stories of arranged marriages which later ended in divorce. It was a shock to me when I individually and separately ask first the husband and then the wife of a recently arranged marriage about what I had heard about their recent marriage. They both agreed brothers in the church put them together. Neither agreed it was “great.” Neither wanted to talk about it. Years later they divorced. That was confusing at the time because of the ideas that 1) the most important things is that the person you marry be in the church and 2) if the “brothers,” meaning elders, or even church members did it then it must be right and right with God. The answer is simple. Both 1) and 2) are false.

It may be that arranged marriages are very common and the elder approved courtship procedures generate an even higher percentage of unsatisfactory marriages and divorces than the general degraded culture does. Approved courtship procedures includes marriage after FTT among former trainees.

Could it be that training young people to not relate well to members of the opposite sex because it is somehow bad serves to drive young people into the FTT with hopes of finding their soulmate and raising their own children in the all-important LC? And could it be that those who have good or at least not too bad marriages become even more super-devoted followers of the LSM-BB-elder triad and insist their children do the same? Would most of those unfortunates whose marriages were LC disasters simply go away and not cause too much trouble with the result being the remaining members of the cult are all super-devoted to the mind controlling triad?

[Ohio]

Your questions answered lots of questions about LC marriages.

A similar issue is marriages that are pressured, but not arranged. I think there is a lot of pressure on FTT graduates to marry at a young age and be "for the ministry." While they may not be arranged (i.e. a specific brother with a specific sister), once the relationship begins there is a lot of pressure to finish up their courtship, and then get engaged and married quickly. My observation is that a lot of marriages in the LC are between people who don't really know each other very well, and get married prematurely. This can also take the form of elders pushing the relationship out into the open before the couple is really ready for it to become public. Once that happens it's very hard for the couple to make mature decisions about whether their relationship is really for the best. Everyone they know, within a small and narrow environment where there is little privacy, is now expecting them to marry. So they give in because they think it is of the Lord, yet they don't really know each other. The elders can impose marriage on a brother and sister without actually arranging the initial courtship. Many such LC marriages have ended up in divorce.

[TLFisher]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

How common are troubled marriages and divorces in the church compared to the general population or to other christian marriages?

I recall hearing miraculous stories of arranged marriages which later ended in divorce. It was a shock to me when I individually and separately ask first the husband and then the wife of a recently arranged marriage about what I had heard about their recent marriage. They both agreed brothers in the church put them together. Neither agreed it was “great.” Neither wanted to talk about it. Years later they divorced. That was confusing at the time because of the ideas that 1) the most important things is that the person you marry be in the church and 2) if the “brothers,” meaning elders, or even church members did it then it must be right and right with God. The answer is simple. Both 1) and 2) are false.

It may be that arranged marriages are very common and the elder approved courtship procedures generate an even higher percentage of unsatisfactory marriages and divorces than the general degraded culture does. Approved courtship procedures includes marriage after FTT among former trainees.

Could it be that training young people to not relate well to members of the opposite sex because it is somehow bad serves to drive young people into the FTT with hopes of finding their soulmate and raising their own children in the all-important LC? And could it be that those who have good or at least not too bad marriages become even more super-devoted followers of the LSM-BB-elder triad and insist their children do the same? Would most of those unfortunates whose marriages were LC disasters simply go away and not cause too much trouble with the result being the remaining members of the cult are all super-devoted to the mind controlling triad?

In my opinion state of non-LC marriages depends more on the relationship between husband and wife than where they meet for fellowship.
Whereas in the local churches the state of the marriage depends how they go on in the local churches. That may be a trend more for younger generations than it is for older generations.
In regard to courtship/arranged or manipulated LC marriages. General theme I've heard is if you go to the meetings, the churchlife will take care of your marriage.
My views are biased. I wasn't one who went through the full-time training nor did I marry a LC sister. I do feel however there's a significant difference in care for ones who have gone through the full time training versus ones that don't. Ones that have gone through the full time training, there's ample human counseling. Ones that did not go through full time training the feeling from the brothers in no uncertain terms is we don't care if you remain single or ever marry.
I do think there are reasons why brothers and sisters cannot relate well to one another. Influence of the Asian culture and peer pressure the brothers are projecting. No one wants to be the one to be ostracized. Why is it like this? I think in part they want you and I to be dependent on the church much more than to be one with one's own spouse.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

A similar issue is marriages that are pressured, but not arranged... they give in because they think it is of the Lord, yet they don't really know each other..

The couple is compatible for marriage if the elders are happy with the idea.

[Trapped]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

A similar issue is marriages that are pressured, but not arranged. I think there is a lot of pressure on FTT graduates to marry at a young age and be "for the ministry." While they may not be arranged (i.e. a specific brother with a specific sister), once the relationship begins there is a lot of pressure to finish up their courtship, and then get engaged and married quickly. My observation is that a lot of marriages in the LC are between people who don't really know each other very well, and get married prematurely. This can also take the form of elders pushing the relationship out into the open before the couple is really ready for it to become public. Once that happens it's very hard for the couple to make mature decisions about whether their relationship is really for the best. Everyone they know, within a small and narrow environment where there is little privacy, is now expecting them to marry. So they give in because they think it is of the Lord, yet they don't really know each other. The elders can impose marriage on a brother and sister without actually arranging the initial courtship. Many such LC marriages have ended up in divorce.

I'd just like to throw my experience/observations into the mix since they vary from yours some.

There does seem to be an unspoken expectation that the "order of operations" is college > FTT > courtship > marriage, and my emphasis on that is many FTT grads close their training booklets up at the end of the last meeting on the last day of their term and go straight to the coffee shop at 11:00pm to meet the sister or brother that they've been eyeing all term. Trainees leave the training hoping they will soon be contacted by an elder telling them that so-and-so is interested in them and they will roll right from the training into courtship, and then they are disappointed when they don't get that call right after graduation. In thinking about it I don't know where this expectation came from.....but it is definitely there.

I think the pressure to finish a courtship and marry quickly varies from church to church and just depends on the elders involved. My experience and observation has always been the opposite - that the elders are typically concerned when things are "moving too fast" and they want the two parties to have a longer amount of time to get to know each other better before they jump into marriage. While elders do care for the ministry, it does not mean in all cases or in all churches that they do not also care for the people. Many elders have hearts and are not total ministry-robots. They can have genuine care for people's lives and marriages. Of course I personally know of cases where the push to marriage was even in light of serious courtship issues, but there are also plenty that were handled well to the long-lasting benefit of the couple.

As far as elders pushing a relationship out into the open....I'm actually surprised to hear anyone say that. I've frankly only ever seen the opposite - where next to no one even knew that a brother or sister even KNEW each other because their courtship was so kept under wraps the whole time....and then finally when they are engaged and stand up together in the meeting to announce it everyone is shocked.

My personal position is that any elder should be required to go through some kind of formal (NON LOCAL CHURCH) Christian marriage counseling course or training, even if for 1 week, 1 month, whatever. There are elders whose own marriages completely disqualify them from providing marriage counseling to the saints. There are elders who have solid marriages or have a genuine heart for the matter, but simply lack the inherent teaching or counseling skills to help others in this way. Pre-marriage and marriage counseling is a specific skill, and just being an elder, even though the qualifications for being an elder involve their home life, does not mean they themselves automatically have all the tools needed for the job.

"Give yourself to the church and your marriage will be taken care of" is so blatantly false. Husbands are to love their wives like Christ loves the church. If Christ gives Himself to something other than the church, would the church automatically be taken care of? No. So it is ludicrous to think that giving yourself to something other than your marriage will mean your marriage is automatically taken care of.

[HERn]

Originally Posted by Terry

In my opinion state of non-LC marriages depends more on the relationship between husband and wife than where they meet for fellowship.

I was blessed in that I was married in evangelical Christianity rather than the cultish (my opinion) Local Church version of Christianity. Before we left my wife and I had observed a tendency of Local Church wives following the ministry of Witness Lee as interpreted by their elders rather than the God ordained Christ-like leadership of the husband. I'm afraid that in the Local Church "The Ministry" may trump the husbands' godly leadership. No pastor in evangelical Christianity that I have come across would ever tell husbands or wives that if they leave their church or denomination to attend another evangelical church that they will not be able to go on with the Lord.

[aron]

What I remember was that church was emphasized over family. The prevailing concept was that if one put church first, the family thing (and the job thing etc) would work out. As a result of putting church ahead of family, people were motivated by fear and not love.

So the wives became gossips, nags and shrews, and the husbands were emotionally distant and passive-aggressive. Neither was satisfied, and you'd see these long-time, active and ministry-loyal local church couples breaking up. Nobody knew how to express love. Go to another meeting, read another message - where's the transformation? The dissolution of the marriage showed that Lee's promise of personal "metabolic transformation" lacked reality. Dreams without fulfillment are delusions.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by aron

What I remember is that church was emphasized over family. The prevailing concept was that if one put church first, the family thing (and the job thing etc) would work out. As a result of putting church ahead of family, people were motivated by fear and not love.

I told this story before. As I exited the LC system late 2005, I was still bound up by many long-time fears. For example, in order to seek fellowship from other churches, I moved outside the city, so as not to be "divisive."

But I was still fettered by "church first" chains until one Sunday morning. Visiting another church, in passing the minister said, "the Lord is first, then our family, then the church and our jobs." Wow! I will never forget that day.

Jesus said, "and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free." That morning I was set free from some WL bondage.

[Ohio]

Originally Posted by Trapped

My personal position is that any elder should be required to go through some kind of formal (NON LOCAL CHURCH) Christian marriage counseling course or training, even if for 1 week, 1 month, whatever. There are elders whose own marriages completely disqualify them from providing marriage counseling to the saints. There are elders who have solid marriages or have a genuine heart for the matter, but simply lack the inherent teaching or counseling skills to help others in this way. Pre-marriage and marriage counseling is a specific skill, and just being an elder, even though the qualifications for being an elder involve their home life, does not mean they themselves automatically have all the tools needed for the job.

I agree wholeheartedly with Trapped's assessment here.

My own LC suffered immensely as it was particularly void of any healthy Christian marriage counseling skills. There was much more bad advice given than anything wholesome. Over the years, I never heard Titus Chu or WL address this shortcoming. It was as if, "we are the Lord's Recovery, we can't have marriage problems!" It was purely accidental (or sovereign) if an LC elder had both a healthy marriage and had marriage counseling skills.

I knew an elder whose only counseling advice, provided at both weddings and divorces alike, is "I can't love my wife, only Christ can, I can't do it, He can . . ." Why did I always cringe hearing that? Yet it sounded so good, and almost biblical. Did he never have the time or the encouragement to put more thought into that?

[HERn]

My advice would be that all newly married LC husbands and wives identify a non-LC counselor or marriage therapist in their community that they could talk to when hard times hit. Would you like to receive counsel from the likes of Drake and Evangelical for problems in your marriage? They are Lee sycophants who worship "The Ministry" rather than Christ. Many of the LC elders view psychological therapy as the devil's work. There were elders in my locality that forbade the use of prescribed medicine to treat the sickness of their children. Not all though, I was close to an elder whose child went through adolescent schizophrenia and was treated with many drugs. I do not think the Local Church is a healthy place in which to get married and raise a family.