Religion has been used as an aide to adultery for centuries. Whole books could be written on how religion been used as an aide for adultery.
Rather than bore you with minutia, instead, we will take a general view of how many religions are used as aides in promoting or accommodating adultery.
You may be aware that many of the early temples maintained prostitutes specifically to seduce followers. This was especially popular in ancient Greece and Rome.
When you consider that one of the benefits of following a particular religion is ‘sex on demand’, there are few cheaters who can resist. The cheater could have their spouse at home and have wonderful ‘religious experiences’ in the town as part of their spirituality.
The promoters of such practices knew that keeping the prostitutes around was a sure way to keep their operation going. Although Roman law respected marriage, this arrangement allowed for straying within a religious context.
Many religions and deviations of religions have made modern accommodations for cheaters. They no longer have the temple prostitutes, but they do provide cheaters some ways of continuing their profligate ways with a minimum amount of guilt and excuse what happens as “God wants it this way” or “It’s God’s will!”
Although temple prostitutes are not as popular now as they once were, religion is still often used in promoting adultery. Many cheaters know this and take advantage of the situation. Some religions made accommodations of easy divorce from non-believers.
This allows cheaters to dispose of a spouse without feeling guilty and then justify it by saying that “God would not want me to be married to an unbeliever!“. Somehow the unbeliever status manages trumping the promise that they may to “love, honor and cherish”.
The ‘unbeliever excuse amounts to a “get out of jail free card” where they can annul whatever promises were previously made. There’s also the reverse of this where a ‘believing’ lover seduces people and then claims that its ‘God’s will’ that they leave their spouse and join the lover with the full blessings of the religion.
I often cringed on encountering the ‘unbeliever’ excuse. It left me wondering “What was the pastor thinking?”
Another variation is when the lover is ‘spreading’ the good word and wanting the cheater to leave behind their old life and join them for the new one.
A further variation of the lover spreading the good word is when the lover claims to have special insights from God or have a special message. That message often includes sexual seduction as part of a ‘special plan and purpose’ for their lives.
By calling the seduction a ‘special message‘, the cheater doesn’t feel guilty. They claim to only want “God’s will be done’, and for the lover, God’s will is for them to cheat.
You often find this as a common ploy used by ministers who are exploiting their followers. Somehow by sleeping with the minister, you’re given a special status with God.
There are also those religions that accommodate cheaters by allowing them to divorce based on having an affair. By having an affair, they have a church sanctioned reason for divorce and ticket out of their marriage.
Although the church intends such a policy to discourage cheating, it often has the opposite impact. It allows cheaters to avoid assuming responsibility for their actions.
They never have to make changes, they just divorce because the church as God’s agent via the pastor says that it’s the right thing to do.
Some pastors have contributed to the situation by switching churches like swingers swap partners. They preach loyalty, yet through their actions, they role model a lifestyle of ‘moving on to the next opportunity’.
There are also some cheaters who use ‘God’s word’ in forcing their spouses to have affairs. They use their authority to order spouses into unnatural situations.
These unnatural situations would typically be called an affair or perverted, yet when they come masked by the religious authority, they become and act of worship. By using the authority of the church, the spouse feels like they are going against God in resisting what they have been ordered to do.
This amounts to a form of religious blackmail.
It is not by accident that many pagan rituals involve religious acts. They know that by creating sexual confusion, you gain control over people.
In this case, sexual confusion is used rather than any kind of date rape drugs. When a person is confused, they are easier to control and manipulate. Those people who are just seeking spiritual enlightenment are told that you have to first experience sexual ‘enlightenment’.
By combining religion with the sexual component, you have the modern version of the old temple prostitute.
There are also religions that accommodate cheaters by allowing for one-day or limited time marriages. This allows the cheater to indulge in an affair without the sanctions and fallout that would have happened had they strayed from their marriage and done the same thing.
Such policies amount to a ‘bait and switch’ game to appease the conscience, but do nothing to change the behavior of the cheater. They haven’t ceased their cheating, they just call it something else.
When religions accommodate cheating behavior with various loopholes, there are always cheaters who take advantage of them. At least with the temple prostitutes, you could see the affair situation in black and white.
With the present use of religion as an aide for adultery, things become very murky. It is not so easy to distinguish the cheater from the religious adherent.
If religion has been misused toward excusing an affair in your life, you need help. The download “Affair Recovery Workshop” guides you in rebuilding your marriage in the direction of healthy relations rather than self-serving ones.
You can know what needs doing, what needs to be discussed, when to do it and what steps come next. You can start turning things around rather than being manipulated by head games and manipulations.
Best Regards,
Jeff
