Replies

1. No one knows all the details except those in the marriage and God.
2. We don’t know if he told his wife that in order to save the marriage he would leave the ministry. But if he had strong conviction of God not to, then going against God’s direction to him could have led the man to a bad place as well. Again, we really don’t know what transpired. It seems it is his wife that chose to leave the marriage and not him. How could he have forced her to stay? He sought to help the situation for seven years, and then ultimately, the wife left him anyway. She may have had her own issues—usually trouble in marriage is at least to one degree or another, a two-way street. She perhaps ended up in another relationship herself. Who knows? We really don’t know. Only she and God really know where she stands spiritually today. Is she serving God???? Shrugs??? At least Dr. Stanley is trying to consistently and faithfully serve God.

People don’t understand that sadly if a marriage waits too long to get help, the chances of survival become slimmer and slimmer. It’s kind of like what we in the medical field understand about something called ventricular fibrillation. If it is still a course electrical rhythm, there is a greater chance of shocking someone out of the rhythm. One is goes to a fine V-Fib, the chances of survival become almost nothing. The same thing is true when it comes to catching problems that lead up to a “death” EKG rhythm. This happens in marriages regularly, unfortunately. People wait too long to get the right intervention for proper healing and marital health. Every day that we wait to get into truly effective counseling or therapy for our marriage relationships—and yes, every day we wait to get God actively involved in making our marriages better or restoring our relationships, the harder it becomes to have a healthy one—the more sick our marriages become.

People wait WAY TOO long to get help soon enough in their marriages—BOTTOM LINE. That is perhaps one of the biggest reasons for the high divorce rate—that along with being faithful and obedient to trusting God with the matter of choosing His best choice of spouse for us in the first place. But for practical purposes, I will say that even then, people can run into trouble in their relationships—and so they need to know how to jump right in to get it health and keep it healthy!
We are often impatient and then we are lazy with doing the real work needed to have healthy relationships. And really that first starts with have a healthy, intimate relationship with God in the first place.

Many families in ministry suffer; b/c the demands of ministry are great. And Satan loves to destroy families—I am convinced of this. The demands in many fields are great.

But we don’t know that he didn’t propose to take time out with Anna to exclusely work on their marriage. In fact, it well may be that he did. And if in fact he did not dedicate himself to such a thing, that ultimately is between he and God and God will deal with him on that if, but I think the Lord would not give him rest about it, if that were the case. What’s more, if it were the case, it would severely and negatively affect his ministry and his ability to give authentic, wise,holy, and truly spiritual teaching and counseling. I am not really see that as the case with his ministry. He teaches with a balance of love, truth, wisdom, holiness, and authenticity. God doesn’t play with those He calls to His service.

By all accounts and public record, it was his wife that filed, not once, but twice. My unofficial, “gut” guess is that the marriage had problems that waited too long to get reviewed and dealt with at least from someone’s point of view. I have seen it many, many times. A lot of men sadly don’t get that women will hold on, but if they leave them holding the “hope” bag too long without enough intervention, eventually the feelings of love and connectedness die. Not every human is strong enough to hold on in the Lord—women often need a lot of nuturing and tenderness and connectedness. Can a relationship re-bloom??? Yes, but many folks get impatient again or they become so terribly discouraged that they give up and move on. I suspect that may be what happened with Anna. For whatever reason/s, she just gave up. Perhaps she found someone else, which would make sense out of pushing for divorce in the first place. Why get a divorce unless you either want to hook up with someone else, or unless you want to strike out at the spouse—if you know that such a thing could hurt the other person’s career? If she is living a celibate life, could she not have done so and not filed for divorce. Do you not think that this is not the case in a number of marriages? Do you not think that as folks grow older, they don’t need to have sexual relations or the same level of companionship? So unless she had someone else in mind, or the hope for someone else, or unless she wanted to perhaps strike out against the pastor, what was the point of not living as married but separate? Understand that I am not making a value judgement on this practice one way or another. I am simply trying to find out her need to absolutely persue with getting a legal divorce.

I have wondered about this particular situation over the years. I don’t know, and don’t presume to know what really happened. But I do think Dr. STanley appears to be gentleman enough to not allow his ex-wife to be exposed or dragged through the mud in such a way—believing perhaps that ultimately her choices are between she and God and not the rest of the world.

The specifics were probably settled from a legal perspective that detailed knowledge NOT be released. This happens in many high profile cases. I have seen how one ex-spouse will protect the other from exposure for something their ex-spouse or soon-to-be expouse is struggling with. I have also seen where in such cases, the Christian spouse still remarried. I don’t know how to comment on that from a Biblical perspective. At the least I can say in the cases to which I referring, one in particular, the Christian spouse was not a pastor; so perhaps in their minds, the same standards are not held to them. But the spouse didn’t want the outside world to know about the other ex-spouses drug or alcohol problem or whatever. So records and information was closed from public consumption. And that seems only fair and decent.

Biblically, if Anna Stanley left Dr. Stanley, and he is not married to another person, and if he is living faithfully before God, there was or is no reason for him to leave his position as pastor, unless God directs him elsewhere.

Sadly Christians can get so stuck in imbalance and a confused sense of legalism that they miss the forrest for the trees.

All those in Christ will all stand before the Beama Seat Judgment. We will all have to look at what we have, in this life, gained versus what we have caused to be suffered as loss. I am concerned enough about this for myself. I personally think Dr.CS is probably in a much better standing with that than I am. So who am I to stand in imbalanced, limited judgment over him?

Just as a genuine priest can live a consecrated, celibate life of service for Christ, so can a pastor that is divorced, widowed, etc. Many folks live in marriages where their partners have severe disabilities. For all intents and purposes, their lives with their spouses are celibate.
There are all kinds of scenarios really.

The man is not violating Scripture by staying as pastor at the church. He has, rather, faced something that he can now not control, and he is trying to live faithfully toward God in fulltime, celibate service. He probably stated what he orginally stated (”If my wife divorces me, I will resign.”) for two reasons. 1. He thought that the marriage situation still had hope of saving—apparently his wife decided that it did not. 2. He believed that which most fundamental Christianity had beaten into folks and assumed “one wife” = divorce = something that the husband can totally control. (Many a husband will sadly tell you that once their former spouses filed, that was that as far as the marriage was concerned—from the wives’ point of view.) So, if a spouse is determined to divorce a spouse, it can be entirely out of the other spouse’s control.

The issue as far as pastoring the church isn’t one of divorce though; for some say Scripture would teach (regardless of current legal views) that the person is still married to the spouse, and that, if she is involved in another such relationship or marriage, she then is the one living in adultery—that this is so until death of either spouse. So the law can do what it wants, but as far as God is concerned, the person is still married to their first mate of intimacy. (Some will find this position controversial, and I lean in agreement with it, but take some acception b/c of God’s grace, and b/c Scripture doesn not expound upon it enough to fully clarify it. Perhaps the clarification is as simple as all that, and people have problems with it, and God knew they would, so, it stands as it stands, but there is the ultimate position in Scripture to persue, and that is one of the Gospel itself. I will not say as if totally absolute on it. I do tend to lean in this direction—even to the point of perhaps physical intimacy with one that a person doesn’t marry. That seems strick and harsh to many. But I’ve taught it to my children; b/c it seems fitting in the whole of Scripture, and b/c God doesn’t seem to take sexual engagement as trivial play as most have and do. Scripturally He uses the virgin man and woman in marriage as a picture of Himself and the Church. So I personally feel it is important to stay faithful to that—though I don’t condemn others for falling short of it.)

But Dr. Stanley’s isue with regard to Scripture and the Timothy epistle in my view is really one of being faithful to one person in marriage for a lifetime. So long as Pastor Stanley is not engaged in such intimate relationships with others—male or female—he can still be effective in service and living a holy life in service to God in his appointed role, period—end of discussion.

If his wife is involved with another person, that is sad, but he has no power over that. He is himself seeking to be obedient, celibate, and faithful to God, so he then has become like Paul or like many a faithful priest. (I say this and I am Protestant and generally quite conservative. But some Protestants need to understand that there are very devout, dedicated, faithful, spiritual, and Biblically directed Catholic priests in the world. Yes, perhaps they may follow certain teachings of the RCC that can be questioned from a Scriptural perspective, but I have met some amazingly faithful, knowledgeable, spiritual and highly effective pastor-priests.)

We all will not agree on everything. That is the nature of reality. For example, I don’t personally think it is true that the water Jesus turned into wine was grape juice. Such a thought is imbalanced in my view and it negates the amazing glory of the miracle. It takes a long time for fermentation to occur. Especially a fermenting process that produced wine of the quality shared by one of the guests at the wedding at Canna. Generally the best wines take time. The guest stated that ‘BEST wine was saved for last.’ The nuances of flavor of wine are great and go much farther than saying Welches tastes better than Giant-brand grape juice. So, no. It doesn’t fit. It amazes me how Christians that are stuck into a particular mentality and totally miss the glory of the miracle. God caused instantaneous fermentation and natural expert wine cultivation!!! What glory! Wine isn’t bad. It is how it is used that can be bad.

So, too, the Bible and Scripture isn’t bad, but it is glorious, wonderful, and true; yet it can be used in a very negative way.

Charles Stanley’s situation seems to be yet another example of “Biblical misuse abuse.” And such abuse will be brought into accountability, I believe, one day.

(And BTW, I am sorry to another poster above, but I must say the Bible is amazingly clear about assurance of salvation—we need to be authentic in having a relationship with Him, but it is not what we do or have done, but all about what Christ has done and is doing that saves and keeps us. We don’t lose the Holy Spirit within us, we either genuinely received the HS in the first place or we did not. Christ didn’t die and resurrect so that He could be an “Indian Giver” so to speak. There is no “take backs” or losing of what Christ does in the spirit of those that truly receive Him.)

So long as Charles Stanley is genuine and faithful to Scripture, Christ, the whole of Scripture, and continues to teach the truth in love, God is certainly not condemning him. But those that condemn him will stand to face condemnation—at least to some degree—themselves.

I am convinced that both truth and grace simultaneously, that is, that truth in Godly love is what saves and helps any of us, period.