I don't know anything about the salvation army, but why would they require an officer to marry another???????
That sounds like a cult...
I'll just guess, and say its a rule for their "club", kind of like the PuritanBoard. If you want to join the club, then you agree to its rules. If you want to STAY in the club, then abide by its rules, or you will have to gracefully accept the consequences.
I didn't see where it said anyplace that the rule for "officers" (not regular members) was a Bible teaching, not like those who teach that flouting priestly celibacy is sin. The man can't be an "officer" in that club, and be married to a non-officer, or maybe it's that he can't subsequently marry a non-member.
Whatever. It's a club. And if the guy wants to help manage the club, he ought to care about its standards. They ought to have a loophole, in my opinion, for people in his unique situation--but its not my club, and I don't vote on the rules.
Its one thing to say "yes" to the standards, so you can get in, and you don't care enough to think "what if I want to marry someone who isn't with me on this later on? Is this a rule I, or anyone else in his right mind, should agree to, going in?"
I think its on him, personally. The problem with the rule, whatever that may be, has nothing whatever to do with whether the club can enforce its own standards. There's something wrong about a person who is OK with the rules so long as they agree with his present situation, but as soon as those circumstances change, he wants a waiver, a personal dispensation.
What's wrong with
any community creating standards for marriage, for any of its members, let alone leaders? As long as it is within the limits of the higher law? This society's is different from that one's. Its not necessarily a sin in either case.
If we in the Reformed Church enforced our standards,
we would discipline any member who married someone in the Roman communion.
WCF24:3 "It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry, who are able with judgment to give their consent. Yet it is the duty of Christians to marry only in the Lord: and therefore such as profess the true reformed religion should not marry with infidels, papists, or other idolaters: neither should such as are godly be unequally yoked, by marrying with such as are notoriously wicked in their life, or maintain damnable heresies."
But because we're a church, and not a club, all our
rules that require discipline must be straight out of the Bible.
But, their rule isn't even about sin. Its about who they want as officers of their club. Bottom line: don't like this rule or that? don't sign up.
