As we were researching this article, we called a well-known theologian for his ideas on divorced pastors. After talking at length about the issues, he cautioned, “Of course, this is all off the record. Publicly, I wouldn’t touch this subject with a ten-foot pole.”
In some ways, we wish we could just avoid it also. But a magazine aimed at helping pastors and church leaders today simply can’t dismiss the enormity of the problem. On the one hand, we have our biblically based principles about the permanency of marriage and the sanctity of the ministry (exemplified and articulated by David and Helen Seamands, pp. 16-28). On the other hand, more and more ministers are getting divorced. One recent survey of divorce rates by profession found ministers with the third highest rate, behind only medical doctors and policemen. Other indicators on the survey suggest that the only reason ministers are not the most divorced is because many, for theological reasons, stick with tough marriages most would abandon. As Bud Pearson says in the Forum, “I could count twenty-five pastors in our singles ministry as recently as six months ago.”
The problem is even greater than we had realized. But how can LEADERSHIP help without appearing to condone-much less endorse-divorced pastors? The temptation was to not say anything, but we didn’t feel the issue could be sidestepped. It’s become a practical problem many churches have, or will face.
We decided to pull together five divorced pastors and have them talk about their experiences from their point of view. Many readers will wonder about the wisdom of giving divorced ministers a platform from which to speak. For balance, we sent the Forum to seven Christian leaders for their reactions, which follow this article. Read the Forum, together with these responses. Then, you may wish to share your thoughts with us on how this problem should be faced.
The participants were Phil Barnhard pastor of Chapel on the Hill, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; Gary Demarest, pastor of La Canada Presbyterian Church, La Canada, California; Dale Galloway, pastor of New Hope Community Church, Portland, Oregon; Bud Pearson, pastor of Orange Coast Community Church, Orange, California; and Larry Smith, pastor of Fayetteville Church of the Nazarene, Fayetteville, North Carolina. Jim Smith, director of family life development at Highland Park Presbyterian Church, Dallas, Texas, was the moderator.
Jim Smith: Why are you willing to discuss this very painful experience in your life-your divorce?
Bud Pearson: People need to know it’s a big problem. I could count twenty-five pastors in our singles ministry as recently as six months ago. My own divorce was a devastating experience. I don’t believe in divorce, and when I experienced that trauma I felt my life had come to an end. It’s taken a long time for it to gradually come together again. Now I want to help others facing this trauma.
Dale Galloway: When I was divorced I felt like Humpty Dumpty falling off the wall. I was crushed emotionally. I felt all the failure of the broken relationship and the failure in my ministry. I had let the church down. It was a tough thing to work through. I believe marriage is sacred, that it’s God’s plan that we marry one person for a lifetime. When my divorce happened and I was trying to reconcile this failure in my mind, the image that repeatedly came back to me was that of Jesus dying on a cross. Jesus died for my failure. That’s what I want to preach now.
Phil Barnhart: I married as part of the American dream, it was the next thing to do on the ladder. Two things contributed to our divorce: she didn’t like my ministry, and I devoted too much time to the church and not enough to my marriage. I was viewed as a radical who had a ministry to a black church in Atlanta. My wife thought I could be a bishop. Needless to say, our view of ministry differed. A wife and husband need to share the same view of ministry.
Larry Smith: Ministers who are divorced do pastor churches. The church must come to grips with this fact. I don’t like or accept divorce, but the problem is real.
Gary Demarest: There’s a tension here caused by the old swing of the pendulum phenomenon. Understanding the problem doesn’t mean we’re endorsing it. Having been divorced, I now find myself taking a harder position when clergy come to me for advice. I strongly resist the attitude of, “If I’m not being fulfilled in the marriage, I can just leave it and walk away.” If anything, I’m probably in danger of moving the pendulum back to a more legalistic stance.
Jim: What approach do you take, Gary?
Gary: The first thing I establish when people come to me is that they must work at marriage. This often crosses the grain of self-fulfillment; when we focus on ourselves and our feelings, we betray the gospel. You find your life by losing it, by giving it away. If a certain clergyman friend of mine were to divorce his wife, anyone who knows him would probably support his actions and say, “He has every reason in the world to leave that marriage.” But he has chosen as a commitment to Christ that he’s going to stick with his marriage. I don t think he ever will divorce, and I respect him tremendously because he’s not getting much fulfillment. Although we want to stress understanding, support, and caring for the divorced minister, we need to sound that other note: marriage is commitment, and maybe it won’t be all that fulfilling, but you are responsible to do all you can to live that commitment out.
Jim: What made you think you should stay in the ministry even though you are divorced?
Dale: God called me at fifteen years of age to be a pastor, and that call didn’t leave because my wife left me. I still have all the spiritual gifts to be a pastor. When I remarried, I knew my ministry in my denomination was over, but I felt God was calling me to a ministry to unchurched people. So I went to where people were hurting, and let God begin to rebuild my ministry. We started a nondenominational church.
Larry: Although I felt some doors close after my divorce, such as preaching missions and camp work, I’ve stayed in my church, and the people have accepted me as a single pastor. I like what you say about rebuilding, Dale. Even if you stay in the same church, you have to start over, in a sense, with a new type of approach and build new understandings with the people.
Bud: I started my married life as a non-Christian. At twenty-four I became a Christian and experienced a call to ministry. At that time both my wife and I felt a commitment to Christ and the ministry, but after I entered a student pastorate, the quality of our marriage began to deteriorate. We literally struggled for twenty-one years. I didn’t believe in divorce, of course, so when it finally happened, I felt my life and my ministry had come to an end. After remarriage, my second wife encouraged me to get back in the ministry. God brought about a healing in my life, and we started a singles ministry that eventually led to our taking Orange Coast Church. I’m fifty-two years old, with a new church, no denominational backing, no building, and no money; but I have the utmost confidence that God will bless this ministry because his gifts and his call are irrevocable for me.
Phil: Neither my wife nor I understood the hazards of ministry when I went to seminary. After five years as pastor of a black church in Atlanta we divorced. At the time, I didn’t believe I could become divorced from my wife without receiving a divorce notice from the church, so I sent out resumes to forty businesses looking for work. But my congregation wouldn’t let me go. They treated my divorce just like a family tragedy. They invited me for dinner and brought me paper bags filled with toothbrushes, toothpaste, and wash cloths. They were so supportive I stayed.
Gary: My divorce was twenty-five years ago, and my overall feeling was one of complete failure. It was my first failure, really, because up until that point I had almost everything I wanted out of life. This was a big failure. At that time, there was no way to be divorced and stay in the ministry, especially in the Southern Presbyterian Church, so I arranged for other employment in Pittsburgh and submitted my resignation to the church. The session and the presbytery surprised me and said, “No, we want you to stay.” Though I stayed, I still see marriage as a lifelong vow and divorce as sin. I don’t think one can ever justify it.
Dale: Your question, Jim, makes me think of the precise time I decided on a new ministry after my divorce. I went to a hospital room to call on a young lady who was dying of cancer. She was angry with God. When I went back a few days later, her anger was gone, she was at peace. I asked her what happened. She explained that the night before, during a dark hour, she had taken all her unacceptable feelings and committed them to the Lord. I did the same thing with the unacceptable things in my life. I came to believe strongly that God specializes in new beginnings.
Phil: My watershed experience came in a meeting of four key men in the church. I called it to tell them about the divorce. I presented my carefully constructed speech of explanation, and ended with the question, “How is this going to affect the congregation?” They batted that around for awhile, and then one of the men got up and said, “Phil, that’s the wrong question. The right question is, ‘How will this affect you? Are you going to be okay?’ ” I told him I would make it. Then he said, “If you’re going to be okay, then we’re going to be okay. If you keep on loving us the way you have the past five years, then we’ll be okay.” That was all I needed.
Larry: I remember when I finally let go. I was washing dishes, and I was thinking of all I had tried to do the past fourteen years to keep our marriage together. I felt the guilt leave me. I still wanted to keep the marriage, and I still was willing to work at it, but I was willing to let my wife go if she chose to.
Jim: You all seem to be saying that two things kept you in ministry: the continued sense of God’s call, and acceptance by the congregation. Did the divorce change the way you ministered to the congregations?
Larry: I was very self-conscious about it for a long time. If anyone came to me with a marital problem, for example, I always started the conversation with, “I’m divorced too, you know.” Other times as I sat in the pulpit chair waiting to deliver a sermon I’d think, “How in the world can I get up and deliver this message. I’m a divorced minister.”
Phil: The divorce enabled me to preach God’s grace and forgiveness more realistically. Premarital counseling took on new importance for me. Now I spend more time doing it, asking very pointed questions and fully exploring a couple’s expectations of marriage. Someone told me I’m a better counselor now.
Bud: I’ve become far more vulnerable. Though my seminary training taught me to be very strong, I’ve found that my most effective ministry happens when I lead from a position of weakness, not strength.
Phil: Larry, I heard you say that you tell people, “Hey, I’m divorced.” My experience has been that people will come to me for marriage counseling and say, “I’ve come to see you because you’ve been through it.”
Larry: There’s a danger here. If you tell someone “Yes, I’m divorced, so I know how you feel,” most people won’t believe it. People think their feelings are unique; what they want is someone who can share their hurt yet sympathize with the uniqueness of their particular hurt.
Gary: Divorce increased my sensitivity to people. I pick up more clearly on people who are playing games, because I remember playing these same games.
Jim: Can you give an example?
Gary: Just the other night at a dinner party, a fellow told a joke on himself that wasn’t really a joke. I could sense real hurt. I took him to lunch the next week and did some gentle probing. Sure enough, he was in a jam.
Dale: My priorities have changed in that my ministry now takes second place to my family. I used to be on a guilt trip all the time: when I was out working I felt guilty I wasn’t home, and when I was home I felt guilty because I wasn’t working. Things are different now. When my last child was born I canceled a week of meetings so I could be home to share that love experience with my wife. I never would have done that before.
Jim: Was the ministry a factor in your divorces?
Gary: I found the ministry a beautiful place to run away from marriage because the demands were so enormous. Anytime my wife wanted more of me than I really wanted to give, I had to be at the church. “Doing the will of God” is a beautiful hiding place. No wife can argue with that.
Phil: If ministers in this country would start making their homes their number one concern, we could create a host of alive, redemptive ministries in our churches.
Gary: The problem is our current notion of success. Statistically, I was more successful in the early days of my ministry when I was ignoring my family.
Jim: What advice would you give to pastors struggling with this problem right now?
Dale: Establish priorities. Mine are God first, family second, ministry and relationships third. Meaningful ministry flows out of loving relationships. Some of the things we try to do in our churches aren’t worth doing.
Jim: How do you judge whether or not a program is essential?
Dale: Does it meet a need? Is it helping people to use their spiritual gifts? Is it something God has given us to do? If the answer is no, then scrap it. I have another piece of advice. One of the worst things a pastor can do is not take a vacation.
Gary: A back door approach to your question, Jim, relates to my own journey and divorce. Once I discovered I could not meet my wife’s needs, and that I was not attractive to her (and that was a painful discovery, believe me), I was better able to accept the fact that I wasn’t going to be loved by everyone. Now I don’t need to be loved by everyone. All church leaders must come to that realization sooner or later. It’s a freeing thing that allows me to set priorities on the basis of need, not on an unhealthy desire to be popular.
Larry: I like to snow-ski. I encourage my people to go to the beach all summer long because I know I’ll be skiing a few weeks in the winter. We pastors need to live by the same rules we preach to our people, as far as rest and relaxation are concerned.
Phil: There are several things I think a pastor can do. One is to equip laity for ministry. When you come right down to it, that’s our job. Another thing, don’t take your calendar home with you. When someone calls me at home I say, “I’m sorry, I don’t have my calendar, would you mind calling me at the office in the morning?” A third thing is to take a look at what other churches in the community are doing through their programs and ministries. We need not duplicate what other churches are doing in many areas. We can cooperate and save energies.
Dale: I think one of the big problems in a lot of ministerial marriages is resentment. Too often we tend to tuck negative feelings inside, telling ourselves we don’t want to make waves. What we are doing in effect is storing up unresolved conflicts. After awhile, these stored up feelings block the positive feelings of love. I encourage pastors and their wives to regularly open up to each other and dear the air. That allows the positive feelings to flow.
Jim: Four of you are remarried. Have any of you sensed a special problem for the wife who has to live with a divorced pastor?
Gary: I was just talking with my wife about this last night. She said the only difficulty she had was being thrust into a situation where she met people who had known me well during my first marriage. She felt a certain sense of competition: “Do these people think that I’m better for him than his first wife had been?”
Phil: I remember when I was invited to come back to preach at a church I had served as a student during my first marriage. I wanted Sharon to go with me so they would know I was okay, because there had been some question about that. She sang before I preached, although she was very nervous about it, and did a beautiful job.
Bud: I worked with a man who recently remarried. Apparently his new wife is totally incapable of handling his being in the ministry. That’s a very important decision-choosing a wife who can handle it.
Jim: What are some characteristics of a spouse who can handle this type of situation?
Bud: Emotional stability and an independent personality. She can’t be totally dependent on her husband for her support.
Gary: But you’re not picking a business partner either. It has to be someone who pushes all the buttons romantically and personally, as well as being suited to the ministry. It would be a mistake to take the computer approach and say, “Well, here is someone who would be a good pastor’s wife,” and then discover the absence of a warm, intimate, total relationship.
Jim: How would you counsel a minister facing divorce who came to you for advice?
Larry: I would adivse him not to talk to someone in his own local congregation. No matter how close he is to you today, tomorrow he might have a hangnail you could step on. Go to your superior and touch base with him. Tell him everything that is going on.
Jim: What was the most helpful thing anyone did for you when you were going through your divorce?
Larry: My district superiors came to me and were very supportive, as was my local congregation. I also leaned heavily on two chaplain counselors.
Phil: What helped me the most was when I went to the administrative board of my local church. One man got up and said, “Well, it is a very simple matter as far as I’m concerned. You’ve been here five years. You’ve helped many of us through this kind of situation (referring to divorce), and I guess it’s our turn now to help you.” I cried openly. As far as specific advice, I would say claim your own person. Who are you outside of the ministry? Who would you be if you were selling shoes or insurance? Second, don’t underestimate your local congregation. You may not have to leave your church. Third, don’t be afraid to lean on your friends in the congregation. One fellow came to me and said, “I hear you’re getting a divorce.” Although he was very active in the church, I hadn’t had time to share it with him. I said, “Yes.” He said, “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand you!” I replied,
“Charlie, let me ask you a question. Can you love me?” He said, “Oh, yes, I can love you.” And I said, “Then love me whether or not you can understand me.” Since then, he and I have had a beautiful relationship.
Larry: I don’t agree wholeheartedly with you. Of course every situation is different, but I wouldn’t have dared to share our marital troubles with my best friends at that particular time. One thing I would encourage is never talk about your mate. Never run that person down, because no matter how wrong they may have been, they too have been involved in a ministry to people. If you suddenly turn on your mate, some of the people will turn on you.
Gary: The thing that helped me the most was that people cared enough not to take sides. In my case, my wife was the one who left, and there was every reason to really make her look bad; but I didn’t trust people too much who needed to make her look bad. The people who helped me most were the ones who felt free to talk to me. This was a grief situation, and I needed people who would open the subject up and talk about it. I remember one couple who called me at supper time and said, “What are you doing? Get over here for dinner. You’re not going to eat another TV dinner.” They didn’t take sides, and that helped all the more. I didn’t need their endorsement, but I did need their love.
Dale: One thing that helped me a great deal was when I discovered I wasn’t responsible for anyone else’s attitudes, but I could do something about my own resentment, bitterness, and hate. Several years after I thought I was healed, I was at a dinner party and something was said about the church I had pastored. I made some remark, and my host said, “It sounds like you’re bitter, Dale.” I said, “Oh, not me, I’m not bitter.” And I really didn’t think I was. But when I went home, I knelt down by my bed and I opened that area of my life up to the Lord. I confessed bitterness as being sin, and asked God to cleanse me of it. And I promised God from that moment forward I’d say only good things about that church. As a result of this cleansing experience, I have been free in my spirit ever since.
Larry: It’s equally important to accept the understanding of those who love us. Accept that outstretched hand, but not their pity.
Gary: I encourage pastors to find someone to talk to. We married in our late teens, and as we struggled with our marriage into our early twenties, we had nowhere to turn. We were taught never to show weakness, so we put up a good front and tried to gut it out. I probably gave more illustrations of how much I loved my wife and how great my marriage was in those first few years than I have in the last twenty of a very beautiful marriage.
Jim: Is future ministry possible for someone who’s been divorced?
Dale: For some, it might mean starting again in a staff position. That’s relatively easy to come by for a divorced minister. It’s much easier to work unobtrusively in a staff position. Some denominations will accept a person and give them a chance to work back in. But if you’re from a more conservative background, as some of us are, it’s more difficult.
Gary: What you’re saying, Dale, is what I’m counseling. I’m working with two men in this very situation. I tell them attitude is everything. Ministry is service. This is my call, these are my gifts, how can I serve? You can find a place. There will be a place. It may not be in that particular church or denomination or those ministry circles, but I don’t think anyone will not find a ministry who is committed to the ministry. I’ve seen the other thing. One man I’m working with right now is saying, “I’m going to make it in this denomination. They’re going to accept my repentance, and forgive me; no matter what.” I don’t think he’s going to make it. Once you commit yourself to the Lord and say, “I know who I am,” you must allow people to accept or reject you, knowing you can’t control how they respond to you, but you can control how you respond to them. Some people to this day do not accept my divorce and remarriage. I have to deal with that. I’m still committed to loving them. Somewhere in God’s kingdom there is always a place for a divorced servant.
Dale: If someone is boxed into a circle where people cannot accept their divorce and remarriage, then instead of saying “God is not going to use my life,” and being frustrated and beaten down, they need to move outside of that circle and find people who are hurting. When they start ministering, using the gifts God has given them, they’ll get the ministry back.
Larry: A man coming back under those circumstances shouldn’t try to build a ministry on the distinctive of his divorce. He shouldn’t dwell on that. When one comes back into the ministry, he is going to have to share more than the history of his past.
Jim: Are you saying just get back into it and ministry will happen automatically?
Dale: I think the principle of ministering is the same principle as getting remarried. There has to be a period of healing toward wholeness. There must be a degree of wholeness and an emotional stability to minister to hurting people.
Jim: What signs can a minister look for to tell if he’s moving toward wholeness and is ready for ministry again?
Dale: Is bitterness out of your attitude? Is resentment out of your attitude? Is love flowing? Do you not only pray for your former mate, but do you wish well for your former mate? Can you pray for the good of other people who may have hurt you? That tells you something about your attitude.
Larry: We’re all guilty of failures, but one thing that really helped me sort it out was coming to the place where I could be guilty, yet stand in front of the mirror and say, “I didn’t seek this divorce. I made many mistakes but I didn’t encourage it; I didn’t try to help it along.” At that point I really began to heal.
Gary: I have some difficulty with that, Larry. A lot of release came when I could finally accept the fact that I hadn’t done my best. At times I had done my worst. What released me came at the point where I didn’t have to play any kind of games, and I could honestly say, “I didn’t do well, my motives weren’t good; sometimes I didn’t even know my motives. I cast myself on God’s mercy and on the mercy of other people.”
Jim: What does the church as a whole need to do to help the pastor in this position?
Phil: One thing the church can do is encourage ministers to be open about themselves and to share their personal experiences, not only about major things like divorce, but everyday things too. That gives an air of vulnerability that’s healthy. Last Sunday in my sermon I told a couple of personal experiences about how God had worked in my life recently. After I told the first story, I said parenthetically, “You people like to hear personal stories from me, don’t you?” And the congregation-the first time they have ever done this-broke out in applause. I said, “I think the reason you like to hear personal stones from me is that you like to see whether or not the God I say can work miracles in your life has worked any in my life.” And they broke out in applause again. That really touched a nerve in me. How hungry a congregation is for the minister to be real and open and vulnerable.
Gary: The greatest frustration to the pastor struggling with the marriage problem is he has nowhere to go. Over the years, hundreds of pastors from all across the country have come to me because they know they can talk to me. They know they can trust me. They know I will understand. I’m not a bishop; I don’t have any authority over them. But once a pastor with a troubled marriage knows there is someplace he can go, he’ll find a way to get there.
Bud: I go back to the assurance that ministers are human, and they fail like everyone else. They suffer temptations perhaps beyond the ordinary. I think of Peter’s denial of Christ-and the way God used that sin and repentance in Peter’s later leading of the twelve. At that point, I renew my determination to minister to those who like us have failed, and to those in danger of failing. They need our help.
Copyright © 1981 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
