What Christian traditions teach about divorce and remarriage, which texts they read, and why the same passages divide them — side by side, without a verdict.
Section last checked
If you are asking whether you may marry again, you already know the question is not academic. It sits in a specific tradition, with specific texts behind it, and honest people read those texts differently.
These pages describe where the traditions stand and what they stand on. They do not rule. Where readings diverge, we set them next to each other at equal weight — and the decision that follows belongs to you and, if you have one, your pastor, priest or confessor.
Read side by side
Most of the disagreement over remarrying runs through a small set of passages — the Gospel sayings on divorce and a few letters. The traditions do not disagree about what the words are; they disagree about what the words close and what they leave open.
Held, in different forms, in the Catholic tradition and in some evangelical churches
The marriage bond, once validly made, is not dissolved by a civil divorce. On this reading a second marriage while a first spouse lives is not open — which is why the Catholic route runs through the annulment question: whether the first bond was validly made at all.
Held, in different forms, in the Orthodox churches and much of the Protestant mainline
The same sayings are read as naming an ideal that human life sometimes fails, and the church as having room to meet that failure — the Orthodox language is economy, mercy applied to a broken situation. On this reading a second marriage can be blessed, often with conditions and often penitentially.
Can a Christian marry a divorced person? The texts the argument runs through, how traditions read them, and what to ask your own clergy. Described, not ruled.