Posted on 11/21/2007 10:02:45 AM PST by NYer
When Pentecostal power couple Randy and Paula White recently announced they were headed to divorce court, the most remarkable part of the reaction was that there wasn't much reaction at all.
For increasing numbers of clergy, a divorce no longer generates the kind of career-killing hue and cry of decades ago, in part because plenty of people in the pews have experienced divorce themselves.
The shifting views on divorced clergy reflect a growing concession among rank-and-file conservative Christians that a failed marriage is no longer an unforgivable sin.
For many evangelical Christians, the line seems to have shifted from a single acceptable reason for divorce -- adultery -- to a wider range of reasons that some say can be biblically justified.
"I am probably one of those evangelicals who would say it would be three A's for me," said Chris Bounds, a theologian at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Ind. "Abuse, abandonment and adultery."
With the Whites' breakup, Randy White now leads the Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Fla., and Paula White remains prominent in Christian broadcasting. Not long after they announced their divorce, Atlanta evangelist Juanita Bynum filed for divorce from her husband, Bishop Thomas Weeks III, after he allegedly assaulted her in a hotel parking lot.
Beyond the church, polls by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press indicate the divorce records of GOP presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and John McCain have not hindered their popularity among white evangelical voters.
Christianity Today, a magazine that often serves as a barometer of evangelical culture, published an October cover story called "When to Separate What God Has Joined," in which David Instone-Brewer, a senior research fellow at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England, concluded that adultery, physical and emotional neglect, abuse and abandonment are all biblically justified reasons for divorce.
Mark Galli, the magazine's managing editor, said there is a simultaneous rejection of divorce in principle but acceptance in practice, in part because almost everyone knows someone who's been there.
"I think conservative Christians are becoming more liberalized in the sense of, I guess, making more room for the acceptance of divorce and remarriage," he said. "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."
But the reaction to Instone-Brewer's article reflected a lingering discomfort with divorce; Galli estimated that 60 percent of responding readers had a negative reaction. Prominent author John Piper responded that he found Instone-Brewer's reasoning "tragic" and an "astonishing extension of the divorce license."
Statistics bear out that divorce affects conservative Christians just as much as anyone else. A study this year by The Barna Group, a California research firm, showed that 27 percent of "born-again" Christians have been divorced, compared to 25 percent of non-born-again Americans. In 2005, Phoenix-based Ellison Research found that 14 percent of clergy have been divorced; the vast majority have remarried.
Paula White, in a recent interview, declined to go into detail about her divorce, but stood by statements in her new book "You're All That!" that God can mend any relationship "if both persons are willing to come into alignment with his principles." She added that no other person's love can be completely fulfilling.
"In fact, I say a healthy relationship is, `I am free to be me, you are free to be you, and together, we're us,"' she said. "So no one in life can complete you. Nothing can complete you. Only God can absolutely complete you."
Last month, Bynum said her recent marital strife may actually expand her ministry's outreach.
"I believe it will absolutely, positively broaden my ability to reach people that probably would not ever have come to a church," she said at an appearance in Birmingham, Ala. "I'm able to teach on the subject of suffering with experience behind it."
J. Lee Grady, the editor of charismatic and Pentecostal magazine Charisma, said Bynum may have generated a "sympathy factor" because of the alleged abuse, but the Whites are more unusual because there has been no clear biblical reason given for their split.
That leads to a concern by some in charismatic and Pentecostal circles that people can "just flippantly get divorced like you go get a haircut," he said.
The Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal denomination, recently changed its rules to say that a marriage crisis should not permanently disqualify someone from ministry. The church voted this summer to permit remarried ministers if their divorce occurred because their spouse was unfaithful or was an unbeliever who abandoned them.
Still, the church does not allow divorced ministers to serve under all circumstances. "We have not permitted credentialing for those who simply do not get along with one another," said the Rev. George O. Wood, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God. "We feel that would be a scriptural violation."
Bishop Noel Jones, a divorced Pentecostal pastor in Gardena, Calif., who counts the Whites, Bynum and Weeks as friends, said judgment should be withheld from both high-profile clergy and everyday worshippers going through a divorce.
"I think that in Christian circles, people are more relaxed about the reasons," said Jones, a spokesman for FaithMate, an online Christian dating service. "I still think that divorce is pretty much a difficult subject for anybody -- and rightfully so, but ... we allow more rules, more worldly concepts to prevail."
I would agree. When it comes to divorce I think the statistics are all over the board. I don't think it's possible to get a clear statistical picture on this.
That being said, our Lord Jesus stated the reason people get divorce is because of the hardness of their hearts (except for adultery). It's interesting in my mind to see divorce becoming acceptable to Christians because it indicates our hearts are being hardened against God's word and will.
Now, this is fun! If it can be said that the Catholic Church has had thousands of spin-off denominations, then it could be claimed that the Orthodox had ALL of them --- if you see it as Orthodox --> Catholic --> All the other (let's agree on a figure: bajillion) Christian denominations.
But if you ask all the other denominations whether they are spun-off Catholics (or Orthodox), I'll wager most of them would say, "No."
And if you ask Catholics if they are spun-off from the Orthodox, they'll say "No," beinst they both were the same original church for 1000 years, and the Catholics still recognize every one of the Orthodox sacraments, seeing the Orthodox not as heretics but simply true and valid Churches in schism.
If you ask the Orthodox if they are spun-off from the Catholics, they'll say "No," and (many, but not all) would say moreover that the Catholics are heretical.
And the Catholics recognize ALL Christian Trinitarian baptisms (excluding only Mormon because they are not, properly speaking, Trinitarian), saying that Baptism makes one a member of the Church, and therefore all baptized Christians are certainly, though imperfectly, Catholic.
Meanwhile, the Orthodox don't necessarily recognize all Baptisms, not even of other Orthodox.
To illustrate: my dear husband Don-o was baptized a Baptist when he was an adolescent, and this Baptism was recognized by the Catholic Church, which gave him the right (as a validly baptized person)to marry Sacramentally in the Catholic Church. But when he became an Antiochian Orthodox, they Baptized him again, and then when he switched to ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) he was baptized yet again! (The Dunkard!)
So the Catholics seem most "catholic," Baptism-wise, in respect of which there are no denominational divisions.
So welcome, Alex and GoLightly, fellow Catholics!
(I mean that in manner half-jesting and entirely--- entirely --- sincere.)
Alex, we're back up again. It's up to a to a bajillion.
Happy Thanksgiving y'all!
A very astute yet poignant observation. One can't help but be reminded of St. Paul's warning in Chapter 11 of his Letter to the Romans.
"Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you too will be cut off."
I would think our Roman Catholic FRiends would be glad about al the Proddie reconciliation happening out there.
I think one thing that is needed is that pastors spend more time in pre marriage counseling than they do. One thing about the RCC and many Lutheran synods is you go through “marriage boot camp” prior to the pastor letting you get married. You have to be committed to marriage to go through all the testing!
Gamecock, what an intriguing statement! Since this is a thread about the ever-more-widespread Protestant acceptance of divorce/remarriage, do you mean that Catholics would be expected to rejoice that Protestant are achieving unity via abandoning more and more Biblical moral doctrines?
Beg pardon, I think perhaps I misunderstood you.
Please correct me.
I'm not sure about the Protestant acceptance of divorce/remarriage you are alluding to and how it compares/contrasts to the annulments handed out by Rome.
I was speaking of the article at the top of this thread, "Evangelicals Shift Toward Acceptance on Divorce." As for the rat of amendments, 'tis indeed a vexation and a puzzlement. There's this statistic:
"For the year 2002: of the 56,236 ordinary hearings for a declaration of nullity, 46,092 received an affirmative sentence. [Meaning there were 46,092 total annulments of Catholic marriages in 2002 worldwide.] Of these, 343 were handed out in Africa, 676 in Oceania, 1,562 in Asia, 8,855 in Europe and 36,656 in America, of which 30,968 in North America [Meaning that 66% of the world's Catholic annulments were in the US and Canada, which comprise only 6% of the world's Catholic population] and 5,688 in Central and South America.
Which makes me think the problem is, precisely, the American Catholic Church (huh! and there were those who said there is no such heresy as Americanism!)
And there'ss this statistic: "In the US: For every eight Catholic marriages, there is one annulment."
Which makes the rate of US Catholic annulments approximately 1/4 the rate of all American divorces overall.
Not that this is OK. This is not good. Not good at all.
I can’t speak to the Proddie Stats, since the cases given in the above article are hardly Protestant.
That's a sentence I wrote! Lord, I DO need that coffee. Supposed to read "As for the rate of annulments..."
Which is still a vexation and a puzzlement!
No, I don't have the Proddie Stats, as you put it. Don't know where to find them. Do you?
Sure don’t, but whatever they are, I’m sure they validate the need for a Savior.
Honey, EVERYTHING validates the need for a Savior.
Amen
Chesterton got it exactly right when he said that ,”Divorce is not what they are asking for. It is remarriage and respectability.” They ask for the right to make a vow, break it and then stand in the same church and make it all over again.
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