Hello Brother Jeffrey,<\/p>\n
I hope all has been well.\u00a0The situation I face now is this:<\/p>\n
My husband and I are currently separated for several reasons (him mostly not wanting the marriage at the time). My husband was a baptized Christian in the church when we married. He was raised in the church. We got married, and then he decided he no longer believed in the church or God.<\/p>\n
He is now getting tattoos that symbolize “As above, so below”, grim reapers, etc. He wears black clothes and listens to heavy metal. He told me that it’s a strong maybe that he would become an un-theistic Satanist. (I forgot the term). He said a Satanist who doesn’t believe in anything, from what he says, not one who worships satan.<\/p>\n
We are working on our marriage and we are trying to see if we should reconcile by next year. Or however long it’ll take for us to sort out the other issues we have.<\/p>\n
My question is: Would God want me to reconcile with my husband knowing that he is like this? I fear for my children. I don’t want to imagine what a Satanist who “doesn’t believe in anything” does. There’s a lot of imagery that he has with t-shirts and stuff that symbolizes that stuff. I just don’t know what to do. I’ve been praying. I know I probably need to fast. Do you believe God will want me to stay in this marriage?<\/p>\n
Thank you.<\/p>\n\t
A person who doesn’t believe in anything is called an atheist.<\/p>\n
What the Bible says about non-believing spouses:<\/p>\n
“But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her.\u00a0And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away.\u00a0For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.\u00a0Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace.\u00a0<\/i>For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?<\/i>” (I Corinthians 7:12-16).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
“In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives,\u00a0as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior<\/i>” (I Peter 3:1-2).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\t
Question:<\/h2>\nI know that scripture well. I just wanted to be sure that God wouldn’t hold me accountable for his darkness. I feel like when a person doesn’t believe in God but also lives a normal life is different than what my husband is deciding to do.\nI just don’t want to be held accountable for the influence that he may have on the children. My daughter understand the foundation of God. I just fear for my son. Sometimes I feel like Satan is destroying marriages left and right where I live.\nAlso, that may <\/b>part in I Peter gets me all the time because no matter how much I do my wifely duties unto God, my husband may not come back to God at all.\nThank you for your response though. As always I pray that God continues to bless you, your family, and your congregation.\n\t
Answer:<\/h2>\n
It is true that no action on your part or God’s part will guarantee that someone will repent of their sins and become a believer. God has given everyone free will and that means the choice is left to the individual.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: Hello Brother Jeffrey, I hope all has been well.\u00a0The situation I face now is this: My husband and I are currently separated for several reasons (him mostly not wanting the marriage at the time). My husband was a baptized Christian in the church when we married. He was raised in the church. We got…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[184,64],"class_list":["post-62467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-atheism","tag-marriage"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":33253,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-a-marriage-still-valid-if-it-was-done-by-a-woman\/","url_meta":{"origin":62467,"position":0},"title":"Is a marriage still valid if it was done by a woman?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good evening brother. I would again like to commend you for the wonderful work you and the brethren are doing on your website on behalf of the Lord and His church. My question:\u00a0 A friend of mine recently got married.\u00a0 She and her husband were wed in a denominational\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17100,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-i-need-to-renew-my-vows-with-my-current-husband-since-my-former-husband-has-died\/","url_meta":{"origin":62467,"position":1},"title":"Do I need to renew my vows with my current husband since my former husband has died?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have spoken to several sound brethren who are elders and ministers in churches of Christ in regard to marriage, divorce, and remarriage. This is the situation that I addressed to them concerning myself: I was in a previous marriage with a man for twelve years. The man I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":83895,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-i-get-married-in-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":62467,"position":2},"title":"Can I get married in the church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 30, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I have a question. It happened months ago, but I want to know about this concern. I was studying doctrine. I liked a brother, and I decided to go out with him. We were like boyfriend and girlfriend but never agreed to be in a relationship. That date\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28227,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-i-have-to-divorce-my-husband-in-order-to-be-baptized\/","url_meta":{"origin":62467,"position":3},"title":"Do I have to divorce my husband in order to be baptized?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I was married to a man who would not make love, have sex, or be intimate\u00a0with me. He said he preferred to masturbate and fantasize about my sister, neighbors, and the neighbor's mother. This greatly distressed me. He was also abusive, holding a gun up to my head threatening\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34864,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-fiance-and-i-engaged-in-foreplay-how-do-we-answer-the-church-if-we-are-asked-knowing-this-will-mean-we-cannot-be-wed-in-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":62467,"position":4},"title":"My fiance and I engaged in foreplay. How do we answer the church if we are asked, knowing this will mean we cannot be wed in the church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 18, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: How do we answer the church if I and my fianc\u00e9 are asked if we have had sex before marriage when we have engaged in the foreplay of sexual activities? Knowing we cannot be wed in the church if we say yes, though we didn't do the real act.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33889,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-it-a-sin-not-to-get-married-in-a-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":62467,"position":5},"title":"Is it a sin not to get married in a church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 2, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I am in my late twenties and my fiancee is a year younger than me. We live in an African country, and we have been engaged for several years now. We have been waiting for the approval of my fiancee's parents. They don't want the marriage because I am\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}