A Way out of the Marriage/ Baptism Tangle

by Edwin Brainerd

Missionaries need to study the Scriptures and the local culture, to find suitable answers to the very complex problems of marriage and baptism. This account tells how this was done in one church in the Dominican Republic.

Missionaries need to study the Scriptures and the local culture, to find suitable answers to the very complex problems of marriage and baptism. This account tells how this was done in one church in the Dominican Republic.

Baptism and marriage may not go together like a horse and carriage, but on many mission fields you can’t have one without the other. This is one of the main reasons for the existence of unbaptizable believers.

On the North American scene baptism may not be very important, but on the mission field not being baptized definitely puts the person at a disadvantage. He cannot celebrate the Lord’s supper nor vote in the church elections. He cannot participate in the public program of the church. He cannot speak from the platform, sing special numbers, testify, nor even lead in prayer. He is definitely a very second class Christian.

The reason for refusing to baptize him is valid: to maintain the high standards and good testimony of the church. The result, however, is often a legalistic attitude that causes a serious misunderstanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When I first went to the Dominican Republic in 1971, 1 came face to face with this problem. Baptism had become in the minds of the people a prize for sanctification, rather than a testimony of having begun the Christian life. Young people who were planning to go to the university could not be baptized because they might fall away. People who smoked or drank, or who went to movies or cockfights, could not be baptized either. People who were not legally married were called adulterers; women who wore pantsuits were not eligible for baptism either.

EXAMINE THE SCRIPTURES
Faced with this problem, the elders of the church and I decided to examine the Scriptures together with the members of the church. We discovered (1) teaching followed baptism in the making of disciples (Matt. 28:19); (2) believing was the only prerequisite for baptism (Acts 18:8, etc.); and (3) people were baptized immediately upon being converted (Acts 2:41, etc.).

Then we tried to apply what we had learned from the Bible study. I asked, "Now what is necessary before a person can be baptized in our church on Feb. 27, 1972?" Immediately the taboos came out. So I began to list them on the blackboard. Then I asked again, But what does the Bible teach?" We finally decided that the only way to eliminate some of the more peripheral barriers to baptism, such as being a university student or wearing pantsuits, was to allow nothing to impede the baptism of one who had accepted Christ as Lord and Savior.

This decision was reached neither quickly nor lightly. As best we could, we counted the cost. I had the advantage of more biblical studies and of being new to the field. I could present the Scriptures without knowing what had been done in the past, or what was being done now. The elders of the church had the advantage of experience. Together we decided how to apply the biblical principles to baptism in the Dominican Republic.

THE CHURCH’S POSITION
It was in this context of trying to place baptism at the beginning of Christian experience that we discussed baptism and marriage. Our decision had been to baptize believers. Since no one denied that believers living together without having been legally married were Christians, we could not deny them the water of baptism (Acts 10:46).

Therefore, we wrote into the church by-laws:

Anyone who has received Jesus Christ as Lord so that He might be His Savior may be baptized and thereby become a member of the Templo Evangelico of Azua.

However, it was evident that part of the reason for not wanting to baptize certain people was the recognition that they were not qualified for leadership in the church. The way to keep them from leadership had been to keep them from membership. But while there is no biblical basis for not baptizing believers, there are prerequisites for being a leader. Based upon Paul’s words to Titus, we wrote into the by-laws:

To be a leader in the church, those who have a wife must be legally married, and those who have children, must have at least one who believes (Titus 1:6).

The foregoing is now history. From beginning to end, the process – from facing the problem to writing the by-laws – took four years. Our decision resulted in a church that grew both spiritually and numerically. Legalism stifles growth. Liberty promotes maturity. As the people matured, their witness became more effective and the work grew.

This process took four years because we had decided to treat the common law marriage relationship as one of many barriers to baptism. Admittedly, it is a good deal more complex than going to cockfights or wearing pantsuits.

COMPLEX PROBLEM
The following story illustrates the complexity of the problem as it exists in the Dominican Republic and in many other parts of Latin America. It is not an extreme case, but a typical example of many relationships there.

An unsaved young man legally married an unsaved woman. A few years later she was saved in a church that taught that the verse, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14) meant, among other things, not to have sexual relations with an unsaved husband or wife. The man left her, found another woman, lived with her for a while, left her and found a third. They lived together for a number of years, had three children, went to church and found Christ together.

The missionary pastor told this newly converted couple that in order to be baptized, they must break up what he called their adulterous union. The man should return to his first wife, his legal wife. He did! The man’s third wife saw the church destroying her home and resorted to witchcraft to keep her husband. Today neither of them makes any pretense of being Christian.

Couples who have sinned and been sinned against in their marital relationships are called unbaptizable when their present relationship is considered adulterous. If it is an adulterous union, then the couple, upon accepting Christ should terminate the relationship. "Be not deceived: … adulterers … shall (not) inherit the kingdom of God" (I Cor. 6:9, 10).

Here is the Gordian knot. If the present relationship is adulterous, it must be terminated. Yet no one, not even the pastors who refuse to baptize them, deny that people living in common law marriages are saved people. They often have a clear understanding of the gospel, and give evidence of being growing Christians. If they are so obviously Christian, they should be baptized, but if they are adulterers, they are unbaptizable.

The difficulty is not necessarily the present relationship which may have existed for years, but the relationships that preceded the present marriage.

One man married to please his parents. A year later he left his wife for his childhood sweetheart. Fifteen years later, still together, they came to the Lord.

In this, as in most cases, the people were not baptizable because of their past. Can we be faithful to the Scriptures and the laws of the land and grant them the privilege of making public testimony to their faith in Christ by means of baptism? I think we can.

Perhaps an illustration will help. Once a train derailed and demolished the main transformer outside of the town. As the people looked at the mass of tangled wires and glass, they thought it would be months before they would have electricity again. But within hours the lights were back on. How was it possible to repair that mess in such a short time? It was not possible to repair the transformer, so the workers wired around it.

BASIC PRINCIPLES
Using a few basic principles as guidelines, it might be possible to "wire around" the marital messes in many lives. Within the social structures of the Dominican Republic, at least, it is possible, first, to clarify and then to stabilize the existing marital relationships in a way consistent with both the laws of the country and the biblical injunction to remain in the state in which one is called (1 Cor. 7:17, 20, 24). Here are the principles, as I see them:

1. Common law marriage is not adultery. As long as the two are faithful to each other and are fulfilling before society their obligations as husband and wife, they are married – even without the benefits of a civil or religious ceremony.

There are two kinds of common law marriage. Simple common law marriage is when neither partner has been married legally. In complex common law marriage, one or both have previously been legally married. It is the second relationship that is almost always considered adulterous. Usually, the people living in a simple common law marriage are told to get married legally. People living in a complex common law marriage are told that they must break off the adulterous union.

2. There is also common law divorce. Within a society where common law marriages are more prevalent than legal marriages, there is also the phenomenon that I call common law divorce. A man leaves his common law wife and begins living with another woman. With her he forms another common law marriage. It is sin. It is a second common law marriage that began with an act of adultery. Although it was not done before the courts, it constituted a divorce and remarriage. It was in fact a common law divorce.

In the Dominican Republic, there is an understanding that a person who is saved in whatever succeeding simple common law marriage may remain with that woman. No one insists that he return to his first common law wife. Just as a man who has been legally married, divorced, and then remarried is not told to return to his first wife when he accepts Christ, so a man who has been married, divorced and remarried according to common law is allowed to remain with his present wife.

The difficulties arise when there has been a legal marriage. Had the man in the case described above never been married legally, or had he been divorced legally, he would have been advised legally to marry his third wife. Instead, because his first marriage was legal, and not common law, he was told to go back to his first wife. I believe such counsel was unfair to him because more was made of the legal technicalities than of commitments made between men and women.

This leads to the third principle:

3. Common law divorce dissolves a legal marriage. The courts do not marry or divorce people. They only give legal status to the union or separation of men and women.

With these principles as guidelines, a stable relationship between a man and a woman as husband and wife may be viewed as a marriage, regardless of the adultery committed in the past. There are adulterous unions. These should be terminated.

The marriage existing when the people accept Christ may be legalized and stabilized in accordance with the laws of each country. In the Dominican Republic, the principles mentioned above are compatible with the laws.

The past cannot be changed. However, as we accept people where they are when they come to Christ, we can help them become all that God intends they should be, both in marriage and in baptism.

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