When we consider the child who is the fruit of marriage, we may also come to realize the enormous seriousness of divorce. It is fairly common to hear people say in connection with divorce that they fear especially for the children. This statement, though it may ordinarily refer only to the disruption and uncertainty which divorce brings to the life of a child, may also point to an even deeper reality. If the child is the sign of the unity—indeed more, the incarnation of the unity—of this man and woman who now propose to rupture their oneness, then of course we must fear for the child. What event could be more calculated to disturb the child at the very center of his personal identity? Parents are not merely a cause and children an effect which can easily be separated. Here again we must remember that our commitments in the flesh are personal commitments. The child’s personhood, his sense of identity is involved. To tear the marriage asunder is in some sense to do the same to the child.
Human Sexuality: A Theological Perspective. A Report of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, as prepared by its Social Concerns Committee, September 1981, pg. 25-26
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