Although we felt LEADERSHIP had to deal with the very tough issue of clergy divorce, we wanted to do so within the parameters of our journal’s mandate: providing practical help for local church leaders. Thus, we only examine the question from one perspective, fully realizing many additional questions could be asked and profitably explored.
Ordinarily, we would be content to examine the issue from this one perspective. But because clergy divorce is a complicated, explosive issue, we asked several Christian leaders to respond to our Forum’s wider implications. The many important questions they ask, each of which could be the kernel of another article, demonstrate the complexity of the problem.
It’s most discouraging to hear ministers discuss their experiences with divorce without even raising the question as to whether or not their divorce was on biblical grounds. These men speak sincerely of their experiences of love and acceptance from church sessions and people, but no one spoke of the faithful exercise of church discipline toward them or their former spouses.
While no one can be free of blame in a marriage that ends in divorce, it does not follow that there is not one person who is guilty of breaking a marriage by unfaithfulness, or by unwillingness to live in the bond that has been joined by God. The innocent and injured party in the divorce needs a different form of pastoral care and discipline from that needed by the guilty person. It would be a tragedy for a guilty person to escape church discipline by organizing an independent church. Admittedly, some churches may be legalistic in the use of disciplinary sanction, but surely that is increasingly rare today. A greater danger is to ignore the commandment of Christ and the discipline he has ordained for his church.
-Edmund Clowney, president Westminster Theological Seminary
This article points up tragic situations in our country and in the ministry of the evangelical church. Each of these men speaks of the trauma of divorce-that they were not in favor of it. That must come through very clearly. Just because divorce is increasingly common, we cannot learn to simply live with it. It’s a bad business, and we must redouble our efforts to forestall it.
By the same token, it does happen, it has happened, and life goes on. There needs to be some understanding of that. As a pastor, I oppose divorce emphatically. But, as a pastor, I also recognize that life isn’t always as neatly packaged as we’d like it to be. This article should stimulate some good responses and, hopefully, some healing reactions.
-Paul Toms, pastor Park Street Church
LEADERSHIP Journal is living up to its name. Divorce among ministers is a fact of life which must be met head-on without judging people or justifying separation. I commend LEADERSHIP for addressing this controversial subject, and divorced ministers for daring to speak by name.
As I read and reread the discussion, I kept reaching for the feeling tones behind the words. The ministers set a tone of hope as they hard-lined on the sin of divorce while testifying to forgiveness, healing, and the recovery of their ministries. Deeper down I felt another tone. Without intention, the ministers tend to avoid taking the blame for divorce upon themselves, leaving the impression that the wives may have been at fault. Such an impression forces the tone of tragedy which stalks divorce under any circumstances. Although these five pastors remade their lives and rebuilt their ministries, there are thousands of ministerial rejects and their families on the sidelines because of divorce. So mingling with the good news of grace for ministers in marital trouble, there is a strong warning. Divorce among ministers is a tragic fact, always forgivable, sometimes recoverable, but never without its consequences.
-David McKenna, president Seattle Pacific University
This article strikes me as being very relevant. It compels us as God’s people to do some hard thinking about an issue we may try to dodge. It’s tied up, of course, with the larger problem of what we believe Scripture teaches about divorce and remarriage, but that’s not the question being discussed here. In this article, we’re listening to pastors who have gone through the dissolution of their marriages, and who are now wondering whether they are forever disbarred from parish ministry. My own position is that divorce does not necessarily close the door to either church fellowship or church membership or even church leadership. Whatever the tangles, the failures, the sins may have been in an individual case, God’s concern is with the present spiritual orientation of the divorced person. Where is that Christian today in his God-relationship? If a lay person, his past completely forgiven by grace, is living a life of obedient discipleship today, he ought not be excluded from church fellowship, membership, or leadership. By the same logic, neither ought a forgiven pastor, granting all the obvious complications, be excluded from a resumption of his ministry with another flock, or in some conceivable instances, the same flock. In my opinion, LEADERSHIP is rendering its readers a commendable service by bringing this issue to the fore.
-Vernon Grounds, former president Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary
The forum helpfully sensitizes us to the hurt of people who face failure in marriage, especially the pain of leaders who influence others; but the article also demonstrates God’s grace in faithfully working through our failures to produce a likeness to Jesus Christ. As a sinner who knows about failures in areas other than this one, I respond with compassion.
However, the Scriptures need to be dealt with, not just the psychological aspects of failure. Do you want to imply, for instance, that divorced pastors will be normative in the days ahead? Should we balance this with a panel of men who have left the ministry because of marital difficulties?
What can we learn if we ask hard questions like these?
1. What view of women did these men have in their early marriage and how is it different now? Did a chauvinistic attitude on the part of any of these men contribute to failure in their marriage?
2. Which is more important, ministry or covenant marriage? Would any of these marriages have been saved if these men had been willing to leave the pastorate and work on their relationship outside the public spotlight?
3. Is the importance of pastoral ministry in relation to other callings overstated? To what extent do we foster and cater to a unrealistic view of self in pastoral leadership?
-Gladys Hunt, author
You have given us a creative piece of Christian journalism, and it cannot help but draw out sympathy for these victims of domestic tragedy. I sensed an absence of blame and bitterness, and felt genuine contrition on the part of all participants.
What concerns me about the interviews is that they just might loosen the marital cement slightly, and cause other ministers who are going through difficult experiences in marriage (and who doesn’t have such) to want to join the growing number of divorced clergy (If they can do it, why can’t I?).
It is no cliche but a fact of life that the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. But my wife and I have been married forty-one years; we are now in our seventies; and
we bear witness that God’s plan for marriage “until death do us part” works well and holds up in the stretch. God pays dividends of peace, joy, and absence of pain to an unbroken marriage that he pays nowhere else.
At the same time, I admit that my earthen vessel leaks as badly as any, and I claim nothing but divine grace to a sinner in my marriage as in everything else. I look upon these divorced fellowpastors as better men than I and wish them God’s blessing and fullness of joy.
-Sherwood Wirt, editor emeritus Decision magazine
One of my concerns is that evangelicalism today is much more badly infected with secularism and worldiness than it realizes. One of the readings I’m getting is in the area of marital difficulties. Too often you have the feeling, as you talk to those afflicted, that they really don’t see the seriousness of getting a divorce. In no way can we communicate that it’s really okay to get a divorce: “Look, here are five ministers who are divorced and they’re managing all right. ” It’s wonderful to show the compassion of Christ working, but we also need to say explicitly, “Look, this is what the Word of God teaches about divorce.”
There’s a beautiful softness in the responses of these men in this article. But it’s very easy for us to translate compassion into compromise, and that’s something we cannot afford to do. I don’t want anyone to get the idea that Christianity condones divorce.
-Richard Halverson, chaplain United States Senate
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