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I think that Dr. Stanley's biggest error was in promising to step down. The Bible does not say a divorced man can not be a pastor. Even if you take "husband of one wife" to mean divorce, then he still has only had one wife. Andy did stand on principle, but he also hurt his dad I believe in doing so. The whole situation was very sad.

I am sure Andy's decision did hurt his dad, but apart from his own actions he was placed in the unenviable choice of violating his convictions and not hurting his dad or standing on principlee despite the hurt. It truly is sad.

I may be mistaken but I believe that the church had a rule against divorced or separated persons serving as senior pastor. Actions were taken to circumvent this rule and allow Charles to remain in the pulpit. This led to the breach with Andy. Charles initial rationale was that he would remain as pastor so long as he was separated and not divorced. This was later ammended upon his divorce. Charles Stanley is, I believe, a gifted and compassionate pastor. I respect him in many ways, however if it was his biblical conviction that separation or divorce does not disqualify a pastor from ministry he should have stated it initially. To keep redrawing the line as circumstances change is a problem regardless of whether he and I would have the same understanding of what the Bible says about the qualifications of an elder.

I think that Dr. Stanley's biggest error was in promising to step down. The Bible does not say a divorced man can not be a pastor.

Agreed.

I believe there is a big difference between the minister victimized by divorce whose wife left him even though he was willing to work it out and the minister who is 'victimized' by divorce who leaves his wife and kids so he can carry on with his secretary.

You: The Bible does not say a divorced man can not be a pastor.

Me: I would be interested to know how you would answer these questions:

Can a never-married man be a pastor? Single widower? (me: yes)

A woman? (no) Is a divorced man single? (me: not if the marriage was valid, because a valid marriage ends only when one spouse dies)

Can a divorced man remarry? (me: no, same answer as above)

Reminder: Catholic annulmments are formal declarations that what looked like a marriage (a civil marriage is often not a valid biblical marriage) was never a valid biblical marriage (i.e. a porno addict who seemingly "marries" and whose addiction prevented him from ever having an ordered view of marital conjugal relations cannot consent to that which he does not understand (biblical matrimony) or alternatively his civil wife is not biblically bound to a civil husband who clearly never intended to keep his matrimonial vows).

“I think that Dr. Stanley’s biggest error was in promising to step down.”

Actually his greatest error was in not keeping his word. Regardless of anything else, a man’s word should count for something. When it doesn’t, it says something about the man.