Pat Robertson and the Popularity of Divorce

Pat Robertson has brought evangelical thought on divorce to the forefront. If you are not aware of his latest dumb thoughts you can find the story here.

He basically said that it would be okay to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer's because they are essentially dead. I agree that Pat was way off on this one; nothing new for him.

Here is my thought on this. You would have a hard time finding an evangelical church anymore that hasn't flaked out on divorce. Some people would even contend that the divorce rate in the church is higher than outside.

In the church, people are divorcing like it's a change of clothes. Of course they act all serious like they have some grave situation but it gets down to being tired of living with a sinner and forgetting they are one too.

Jesus was so strict about divorce that the disciples, in astonishment said that maybe it is better not to get married. Adultery was the only allowable reason.

Today in our churches, people parade around as saints after divorcing a spouse, receiving much affirmation from their so-called friends. They can't point to adultery as the reason but have a litany of other "justifiable" reasons for their action. Many are the same lame reasons Jesus had in mind when he raised the bar that had fallen low.

The Bible is very clear on allowable divorce - shockingly so. It's also clear that if someone remarries after an "unbiblical" divorce they are committing adultery.

I think one big problem with the whole thing is that many Christian people are ignorant of basic biblical teaching and let the world shape their thoughts. Many pastors also wimp out on teaching the hard truths about divorce and remarriage because they fear the wrath of certain people. This combination leads to the landslide of divorce we now see.

So if we are going to shake our head about Pat Robertson then we may need to look a little closer at ourselves. We are not far behind him.

Philip