Christian Divorce Trends Fuel Debates
By Lillian Kwon
Christian Post Reporter
Wed, Nov. 28 2007 05:04 PM ET
When life coach and televangelist Paula White went into her marriage
18 years ago, she thought she'd end her life with her husband, Randy. Divorce
was not anything she ever wanted to happen, she recently said.
Now separated from Randy and continuing her own ministry, White has found
herself in the midst of a wide debate as more evangelicals show acceptance of
divorce.
"The
fact is as many have been critical or judgmental [about the divorce] (This fight has been raging on since the late 1970’s when
divorce first began to appear in the church among preachers, teachers,
evangelists – In all cases the divorced preachers, teachers and evangelists threw
to the wind the words and commandments of Jesus Christ and the Apostles and
sought to continue to ply their trade and continue in the lucrative lifestyle they
had become accustomed to. Its ALL about the money and power and public notoriety
these have received that are in an of themselves diametrically opposed, 180
degrees out of phase with the words and commandments of Jesus Christ. To use the accusations of being
“Critical” and “Judgmental” against
the minority who seek to holdfast to the word of God and speak in reproof correction or admonition
one is walking in blatant sin, and seeking to teach others to walk in their
perverse ways – Is to declare that Jesus Christ and God himself are guilty also
of being sinfully “Critical” and “Judgmental” against them.) ... I've also
found thousands that have reached out to me (She
is speaking here of the many in the thousands that are seeking to comfort her,
and make her happy in her abject sin. The many that are encouraging her to keep on
walking in such sin and even all the more corruption, and that they are willing
to follow her and her ministry along the broad way that leads to eternal
damnation and death.) in
a way that maybe they never did," (She is
saying that never has she had such encouragement and comfort when she was
preaching and teaching – She has fallen into utter darkness.) said White in a live interview Monday with CNN's Larry King.
The famed
Pentecostal preacher's divorce announcement in August compounded with the
divorce case of another power couple – televangelist Juanita Bynum and Bishop
Thomas Weeks III – that same week (Has) fueled discussions on whether Scripture
allows the separation (Divorce or Sundering) of
marriage partners as both couples received support.
Matt 5:31 - 32 (NKJV)
31“Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a
certificate of divorce.’ 32But I
say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except £sexual
immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is
divorced commits adultery.
Mark 10:2 - 9 (NKJV) The Pharisees came and asked Him, “Is it lawful for a man
to divorce his wife?” testing Him. And He answered and said to them, “What did
Moses command you?” They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of
divorce, and to dismiss her.” And Jesus answered and said to them, “Because of
the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. But from the beginning of
the creation, God ‘made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father
and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’; so
then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined
together, let not man separate. (No m
an separate
What does the New Testament (Testament
of grace) say.
1 Corinthians 7:10 - 11 (NKJV) Now to the married I
command, yet not I but the Lord: (The Lord commands) A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even
if she does depart, (The Lord commands) let her remain unmarried or (Actively seek to)
be reconciled to her husband. And (The Lord
commands) a husband is not to divorce
his wife.
I am very concerned that when one in leadership justifies their (Unbiblical and
unscriptural) actions which the Bible
clearly states is wrong, (More than wrong, it is forbidden so that it should not be
named in any in the church) many
other Christians (Seeing preachers teachers and evangelists getting divorced
and keeping their ministries) will do
the same in their marriage. I had heard that the divorce rate among Christians was
equal (Higher) to non-Christians but until recently I did not
believe it. How could Christians, who know what God has said on this issue,
divorce without Biblical cause of infidelity or non-believing spouse? (This started in
the late 1970’s due to the new feminism being present in a great number of
young Christian women that were getting married at the time. The new feminism
is diametrically opposed to a male as the head of household, much less the high
priest of the household so that these women readily made war with their husbands
and sought to usurp their biblical positions instead seeking to make men their
servants or give them the boot.)
It would seem we are taking a path that
“I think
conservative Christians are becoming more liberalized (Christian liberalism became the vogue with the coming of
the television in the household. – Endlessly teaching and instructing its
viewers in secular liberalism the love of riches and the things of the world humanism
communism feminism animal rights and homosexuality. And as television goes, so goes the church.) in the sense of, I guess, making
more room for the acceptance of divorce and remarriage,” said Mark Galli, Christianity
Today magazine's managing editor,
according to Religion News Service. “You’ll see a lot of churches that plunge right in and have
divorce ministries. ... Marriage is a really difficult thing in our culture
right now.” (It has been made so in the world and in the
church that preaches and teaching all the building blocks towards the church’s
and household’s catastrophic failure and demise)
The monthly magazine (Christianity Today) published
last month a cover story titled "When to Separate What God has Joined: A Closer
In the article, British Evangelical scholar David Instone-Brewer
wrote that God allows divorce and subsequent remarriage (To another) in cases
of adultery, physical and emotional neglect, abuse and abandonment – (In other words
you can get divorced if you are not happy)
a shift from the commonly held view that only adultery is a biblically
justified reason for divorce. He later
clarified that divorce is not allowed for just any emotional or physical
neglect or other minor infractions but only on "serious and specific
grounds." (This entails the wife only needing to seriously seek
divorce – serious and specific can mean anything – further in the writings of
Paul believers are even forbidden to use courts against one another or face
being cut off, how much more is this between believing husbands and wives) In effect, divorce is
allowed for adultery, abandonment or abuse, he stated.
Televangelist Bynum separated from her husband after alleging he assaulted her at an
Meanwhile, theological conservative John Piper called the widening grounds of
legitimate divorce "tragic."
Piper pointed out that Jesus' standards for marriage were high and that he is
"radical, not accommodating." Alluding to the biblical meaning, Piper
further explained that marriage displays the covenant-keeping faithfulness of
Christ and his church and that Christ will never divorce his wife and take another.
"The world we live in needs to see a church that is so satisfied in Christ
that its marriages are not abandoned for something as amorphous as 'emotional
neglect,'" he stated in his website DesiringGod.org.
The world, however, is seeing a less faithful image.
Studies in recent years have shown that born-again Christians are just as
likely to get divorced
as non-Christians. According to The Barna Group's 2004 survey, 35 percent of born again
Christians have experienced divorce – a figure identical to that of married
adults who are not born again.
The
research group also reported that "relatively few divorced Christians
experienced their divorce before accepting Christ as their savior."
Both Paula White and Bynum continue to have a strong following even after their
highly public divorces. White has out a new book, You're All That!, and Bynum said she believes her experience may broaden
her ability to reach people. (Under their circumstances her divorce disqualifies her from
her office and her husband from his as well.)
One pastor, however, isn't convinced.
"Marriage is to be a picture of God's relationship
with His covenant people," wrote Christopher Tillman in response to Instone-Brewer's debate with Piper. "To allow for
divorce in the life of a believer is to do serious damage to Gospel witness in
one's life."
But in a culture where the divorce rate is increasing and Christians are
struggling in their marriages, Tillman adds, "What needs to be
communicated is not that rethinking marriage yields more 'biblically' lenient
standards for divorce than have been traditionally held, but rather, that
marriage is an institution to be treasured by us as Christians."
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20071128/christian-divorce-trends-fuel-debates.htm