This common sensical rebuttal lays it out nicely.

* The holding bin business is hopeless.
* Jesus called for consistentency in our Christian walk and condemned hypocrisy. Moratorium should be for all marital relations outside of (heterosexual) marriage for all clergy. It should also call for a ban of divorced and remarried clergy.
* Nobody is talking about the obvious problem: Fort Worth, Pittsburgh and probably Quincy are headed out. I see the TEO using this to justify their ignoring the “Forum of Reference”.

robroy - curious is it just divorce that you would ban, or is it the remarriage after divorce?  In the LCMS when a pastor goes through a divorce he must be cleared by the District President and, if he currently has a call, his congregation to continue on the clergy roster.  The only two reasons that would be Biblically acceptable for divorce would be abandonment or infidelity by the wife.

Harry Edmon, in the present “no-fault” divorce regime, it is often the case that a person ends up divorced against his will.  If the pastor’s wife wants to leave, he can’t stop her.  What does the LCMS do about this?

I agree with robroy that the whole issue of divorce and remarriage needs to be cleaned up, beginning with clergy.  At a bare minimum for laity we need to return to finding who was at fault and requiring penance.

The current problems can be traced back to the change in the original position on divorce. With that change the womens ordination became the next step, then on to all the changes of today; open communion to everybody and anybody no matter their belief or lack of baptism, denial of Christ as the only way, denial of a sin, homosexuality, and making it normative behavior, et cetera, and firm statements that the TEC that it will never turn back. It’s time to remove these provinces from the communion and start new ones for those who have held to orthodox views. Those currently rescued from the apostate and heretical provinces and under the protection of the primates of the majority of the world’s Anglicans.

The time for bold action and new structures from the Anglican Communion was more than 10 years ago.  In the vaccuum, there was bold action from individuals that led to new structures.  They are not just going to go away.

Harry, states the Biblical answer to divorced clergy.

Oh, and the Church need not accept secular divorce.  What God has joined the State cannot separate and the Church need not recognize.  Maybe we are adopting the Roman Catholic position?

Paul writes,

If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?

Expect less of clergy, and they will live down to your expectations. Expect more from clergy and more qualified will go into the vocation. Right now the TEO has a extreme oversupply of clergy. The laity to clergy ratio is plummeting.

Political incorrectness ahead warning: Also, the way to kill quality of an occupation is to make it perceived a women’s field.

Br. Michael, did not Jesus say that if a divorced person remarries he commits adultery?  Given that in most divorces both parties are partially at fault it would be reasonable to investigate the pastor’s situation to determine what his fault may have been.  However, it is also true that today marriages which could have been saved are lost simply because one spouse can walk out and make it stick without regard to the other spouse’s desire for counseling and reconciliation.  So it would be the remarriage after divorce which is demonstrably unbiblical.  Further, could it not be true that in a case where a wife left and refused reconciliation efforts, and where there was no abuse or adultery on the part of the husband, that the wife could be viewed as abandoning the marriage?