Divorced Pastors: The New Norm?

“Divorced men CAN serve as pastors, elders, and deacons!”
 Dave Miller, Pastor, Southern Hills Baptist Church (from his blog post on the topic)

“I hate divorce.”

God, the Good Shepherd of the Universe (from his Scripture on the topic)

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I’ve recently done a bit of top-line investigation on divorce rates among Evangelical pastors, and the first round of results has me somewhat discouraged.  The lowest figures I found on pastoral divorce come from Barna Research studies in the late 1990s, a finding of a 13% divorce rate among active pastors. 

The closer I got to our own time, the higher the rates climbed … 25% according to a Focus on the Family study from a few years ago, and a staggering 38% reported by www.intothyword.org that distilled recent reports from Barna, F.O.F., and Fuller Seminary data.

These surveys didn’t cover general Protestant ministries in the U.S.  They targeted Evangelical and Reformed ministries, specifically.

One in four of our U.S. pastors has a divorce in his résumé. Maybe one in three.

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“Because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but it was not so from the beginning.” Matthew 19:8.

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THE SIN WITHIN

Are we in the midst of an all-out assault on our congregations by those who do not even have the emotional wherewithal to lead a family through spiritual hard times?  Is Satan using the self-serving rationalizations of divorced pastors to invade the Body of Christ and degrade our marriages from within?

In the past several years, I’ve met an alarming number of pastors in New York, Maine, and Connecticut who are on the second round of their once-in-a-lifetime “two shall become one flesh” journey.  Some of them–not all, I confess, not all–are absolutely vitriolic in the pulpit about the moral state of the U.S.  How horrible it is that non-Christian gays are in relationships!  How terrible a thing that non-Christian couples want to use condoms to space out their babies!  How abominable that non-Christian millionaires have to pay high taxes on the small unsheltered, onshore fraction of their visible yearly incomes!

Strangely absent from their rants: lamentations about the moral state of Evangelical Christian leaders, specifically in the area of divorce.  There are far too many splinters in the eyes of non-Christians for pastors to make their own divorces a plank in their in-Church morality platforms.

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“For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness.” Jude 4

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“DIVORCE DOESN’T DISQUALIFY ME FROM PASTORING!”

It’s tempting at this point to fall into a tedious, picky argument about whether Scripture forbids a divorced person from serving as a pastor.  If you’re interested in those rationales–and I confess, they are interesting, with their Pharisaic attention to the jots and tittles of words and their clever sidesteps to justify how God didn’t really mean what He’s so clearly saying–you can find them just about anywhere on the Web.  Google away.

Instead, I’d like to focus on a few disturbing observations that I hope will get at least a couple pastors or pastoral selection committees thinking before their next move.

Disturbing observation #1—The divorced pastorate is becoming a norm among Evangelicals.

When God wanted to choose a symbol to represent His connection to His people, He made marriage the first and foremost of His metaphors.  Israel was His wife; the Church is His Bride; the coming of the Kingdom is a marriage feast; Jesus’ first miracles were at a wedding.  In fact, the institution of marriage was likely created by the Lord for one reason alone–to show us that He will never sever the bonds He has with His creation.  He is our Spouse.

When 25% of Evangelical pastors are divorced from their own spouses, what becomes of this holiest, first metaphor?  Answer: It becomes a joke.  It becomes a declaration to the world: “A relationship with God is optional.  If you don’t like it, you don’t have to stay in it, so relax.  Flee when times get tough, the way I did.  Don’t bother sticking in there the way Yahweh did.”

Does your desire to flee your covenant, oh minister, justify a divorced pastorate becoming the Evangelical norm?

Disturbing observation #2—The divorced pastorate is highly skilled at rationalizing its own divorces.

One of the research sites I found while preparing for this blog used this phrase about pastors who divorced after being sexually unfaithful to their own spouses:

 “… they took comfort where it ought not to be taken.”

It nearly made me dizzy.  The cheating pastors took comfort?  Such language softens the impact of sin, and is gut wrenchingly disturbing precisely because the author intended it to soften the condemning blow to pastors for their violations of the lifelong marriage covenant.  When the act of betraying one’s spouse by sneaking away, becoming naked in secret, pressing flesh to flesh illicitly, performing an act of sexual intercourse, and then lying about it afterwards becomes known as “taking comfort where they ought not,” then we might as well start referring to murder as “acting out a little” and rape as “getting a bit carried away.”  It’s offensive language, and such manner of thinking should disgust us.

I’ve asked some divorced pastors directly about their state of broken covenant.  Here’s one of the replies I’ve gotten over the years: “I remarried because God says it is not good for man to be alone.”

This response sidesteps the issue.  A divorced pastor is only alone because of a spiritual failure to make the marriage covenant work.   I’m certain Solomon felt lonely time and time again.  Was he, therefore, justified in his hundreds of wives and their new gods?  After all, he felt so lonely, the poor man.

Does your loneliness, oh minister, outweigh the longsuffering of Job, and does it justify a divorced pastorate becoming the Evangelical norm?

Disturbing observation #3—The divorced pastorate sees itself as entitled to a pass.

Another response I’ve gotten from more than one divorced pastor takes several forms I'll summarize this way: “The blood of Jesus can forgive me of anything, including a bad marriage.”

Really?  I ask you, pastor, do you really think that your past marriage, abandoned by you, is wiped away clean, unremembered, a sin that’s as far from you as the east is from the west?  Then let me run this one by you:

“I don’t have to pay child support for that kid of mine, because I was drunk when I had sex with that lady I’d just met.  I’ve since become a Christian.  God has forgiven me of that drunkenness, of that sexual sin, and of that child.”

If one of your congregants said that to you, you’d burst into laughter, asking how on Earth a man could think he is “forgiven” of his own child.

I laugh as well, asking why on Earth a pastor might think he is now “forgiven” of two humans Scripturally becoming one flesh, a joining that creates the holiest of unions and God's own metaphor for His unceasing love.

Does your station in life and your personal conviction that your divorce “feels right” to you, oh minister, justify a divorced pastorate becoming an Evangelical norm?

Disturbing observation #4—The divorced pastorate loves loopholes.

By far the most common rationale I have heard from divorced pastors I’ve known is this one: “My spouse cheated on me and/or became an unbeliever, and Scripture allows divorce for that!” 

The obvious question here – it’s low-hanging fruit, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it – is, “Wow, how can so many future pastors have such poor judgment when it comes to picking a spouse, and what does that say about their judgment now?”

Of more concern to me is that there are so many pastors who act as if they are supposed to divorce when their spouse cheats on them or when their spouse loses faith.

They are not ordered to.  They are not commanded to.  And they ought not to.

Squirm in your seat and protest that, pastor, but your heart knows I am right, even if your congregants have bought into your excuses and your misuse of Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7.  Divorce may be permissible in certain situations.  That we know.  But you, as a leader of churches, as one held by Scripture to a higher standard, you are called to be the role model of reconciliation.

First Corinthians 7 establishes that model – if one is separated from a covenant spouse, one is to pursue reconciliation.  That becomes the new ministry of the pastor, a calling modeled by the Lord himself through centuries of Israel’s unfaithfulness.  If you do not see yourself as called to that and instead see yourself as entitled to a divorce and a new marriage because you’re feeling so alone and have a Bible verse that gives you an out … then you mock the covenant nature of marriage, you mock the wisdom of Paul who pushed reconciliation to the failing spouse, and you mock your very Lord, Who never gave up on the unfaithful people He called.  You are a role model of nothing but self interest.

Or are you, oh minister, allowed to be just as relativistic and situationally ethical as all those Post-modernists you rail against from your pulpit?

SHEESH, YOYO, KIND OF HARSH, NO?

Yes, my words in this blog are strong … because today I am speaking directly to pastors and elders and deacons, those who lead the churches and who sometimes need the voice of admonition to kick them back into a righteous path that frees itself from the kind of self-justifying rationales that entrapped Peter when he would not eat with Gentiles.

I end with these bits of advice:

Betrayed pastors: When your spouse cheats on you, it is time to focus your efforts on reconciliation, and that means leaving your ministry.  To say “It’s not fair, it wasn’t my fault!” is a child’s response.  The bottom line is, your house is not in order, and your new ministry is clear, whether you think that’s fair or not.  It is time to pursue reconciliation with all your strength.

Divorced pastors: It’s past time for you to leave ministry and dedicate yourself to reconciling with your estranged spouse.  Perhaps that upsets you.  Perhaps you recoil at the idea.  You need to realize how ungodly that reaction is.  Think about it: you can’t imagine leaving ministry, but you were able to imagine–and go through with—breaking a lifelong covenant?  Are your priorities right if you see being a pastor as more central to your faith than being a spouse in a lifelong quest for the reconciliation Paul called for?

Congregations: When you select a new pastor, you need to put that pastor’s marital status at the forefront of your consideration.  A pastor who has left behind a spouse and family will leave you behind as well.  A pastor whose house is not in order will bring chaos to your house.  And a believer who is not passionately dedicated to reconciliation of a covenant relationship has no place in Christian leadership.  Such pastors are far too focused on their own liberties and entitlements in this passing world to help us prepare for the eternal world to come.

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx