Divorce

Paul Tripp just made a public pronouncement that Pastor Tullian Tchividjian "has filed for divorce." Paul goes on to say he agrees it is time for Tully to "move on."

A short time ago Paul made a public pronouncement about Pastor Mark Driscoll, Acts 29, and Mars Hill Church. A little later he made a public pronouncement about Pastor Tullian Tchividjian and Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. Now he makes a public pronouncement about Pastor Tchividjian filing for divorce and the breakup of the Tchividjian family. Here is Paul in his role as the sole proprietor of what he promotes as "Paul Tripp Ministries, Inc." making judgments without any reference to the courts of Christ's Church.

Such things should never happen. They are a reflection of the displacement of the Church by religious corporations and the celebrities who own them. For the record, here is a screenshot of Paul's corporate web site and the pronouncement he published there...

Our hope and faith are never in laughable schemes of political improvement. Rather, it is in God Who has been pleased to make His Church an armory of spiritual weapons for spiritual warfare, promising the gates of Hell will not prevail against Her.

[NOTE: Because of an e-mail pointing out errors in Shaunti Feldhahn's statistics, I've removed the link to her interview.]

Early in my ministry, I warned Evangelical pastors within the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) that their failure to rebuke and discipline fornication, adultery, and unbiblical divorce within their own session and congregation rendered their campaigns against the normalization of sodomy at the presbytery and general assembly level impotent. After all, PC(USA) liberals were only asking for their immorality-of choice to be granted the immunity the immoralities of conservatives had already been granted.

Time and again, I saw and had reported to me the failure of tall-steeple Evangelical pastors to do anything about the sins of their elders, particularly unbiblical divorces and adulteries. But then these same rich and famous pastors would mount their white stallions and sally forth against homosexual ordination once a year at General Assembly, taking home the reputation of Biblical integrity and courage they deserved not one bit.

So twenty years ago, my church and I resigned from the PC(USA), transferring into a southern denomination called the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA)...

A young couple from Clearnote Church, Indianapolis forwards this taken from a speech given by President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt back in 1905:

If you mothers through weakness bring up your sons to be selfish and to think only of themselves, you will be responsible for much sadness among the women who are to be their wives in the future.

...easy divorce is now as it ever has been, a bane to any nation, a curse to society, a menace to the home, an incitement to married unhappiness and to immorality, an evil thing for men and a still more hideous evil for women.

On deliberately limiting the size of a family so that some few children can enjoy...

As Tim prepared for his recent appearance on WTIU's In Focus panel discussion on same-sex marriage, a number of men corresponded over different aspects of marriage law in Indiana. One pastor wrote the following:

'[You] should know that the assumption in Indiana (& most states) is that each parent is equally responsible for the support of the child, up to the limit of his or her capability. The law expects that each will be employed. So, for example, if a stay-at-home mom with four kids is divorced and gets physical custody of her children, the law will expect her to be employed and will set child support on that basis. If she is not employed, the law will impute to her the income the judge thinks she could be earning. At the least that will mean 40 hours weekly at the minimum wage level. The only major exception is if either the parent or one or more children is disabled.

'The law follows our society's assumption that child rearing is a hobby, like stamp collecting.'

In further correspondence, another pastor (who will remain anonymous given the personal nature of his testimony) gave his take on why this is the case, what it could mean for godly, stay-at-home moms, and how it relates to the larger question of sodomite marriage. We believe that his testimony and insight will be instructive and helpful to BaylyBlog readers. He writes:

(Tim) Our American-African correspondent, David Wegener, just sent in this review of John D’Elia's A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America (Oxford University Press, 2008).

This biography is a parable of the dangers of seeking the approval of the world. Didn’t our Lord say, “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Mk 8:36). Yet this is what Ladd sought, and along the way he lost his soul. He was one of the most respected evangelical Bible teachers of the mid-twentieth century. Nobody from my generation can teach on the kingdom of God and not quote George Ladd. Yet he craved the acceptance of the world and, when he did not attain it, his life fell apart. Didn’t the Apostle write, “The mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so” (Rom 8:7). The world will never accept us. It can’t.

Ladd became a Christian as a young man, sensed a call to the Christian ministry, trained at Gordon College and then entered the pastorate. Somewhere along the way, he changed direction and began to pursue further education so that he could do scholarly work on the Bible...

(Tim, w/thanks to James) Thinking beyond the obvious, those who have trained themselves in discernment will see where the wickedness of our culture will lead us and our children in the coming years. Seeing the mile markers that have flashed by, the trajectory before us will be clear.

First, the church embraced fornication; then it was on to divorce and sinful remarriage. Next came the weekly consumption of soft pornographic television shows in our families' living rooms, followed by the ubiquitous secret viewing of internet pornography by the church's sons and husbands.

On the other side of the sexual divide, women wanted relationships and children so we stopped blushing at the mention of artificial insemination and single parent adoption. It became perfectly respectable for women with little prospect of marriage to choose to become mothers...

(Tim, w/thanks to Mark C.) If the truth that God hates divorce is not enough for you, here's something that may stiffen your resolve. A ten-year-old home schooled girl whose parents are divorced has been ordered to go to government school and the order has been approved by Judge Lucinda V. Sadler for this reason:  "(the child's) vigorous defense of her religious beliefs to [her] counselor suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view." Of course, her "religious beliefs" considered by the court to be a threat to her well-being are Christian.

Why are the courts making this decision about a ten-year-old girl?

(Tim) On Facebook, a friend and former CGSer has been discussing sodomy, marriage, divorce and the civil law with several friends who have said things like: "semantics is a cheap reason to deny a minority their civil rights. None

of the many gay folk I know agree with the "semantics justification"

for denial of marriage. Also, such a social mandate (YOU live by OUR

rules) has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ--and

everything to do with the teachings of the Pharisees."

Wanting to say a couple things, I pointed the conversationalists to this page and here's my own contribution to their dialog. Sorry I haven't linked things, but I wanted to get this up before all our guests arrive for Thanksgiving Dinner. If any of you want to add links, just post them in the comments.

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Sam, Scripture isn't just dogma; it's narrative. Descriptive isn't necessarily prescriptive. It can be, but with divorce, incest, polygamy, concubinage, etc. Scripture reveals both where it was that every culture got marriage and also the laws to which God bound all sexual intimacy.

So, for instance, when Jesus was asked a question similar to yours (but this one concerning divorce), He responded saying it wasn't that way from the beginning (Creation) and that God made male and female for each other for life with the two becoming one--not three, four, or a thousand (Matthew 19:3 ff.). So there's no inconsistency between the Old and New Testaments on this matter. The two, male and female, shall become one until, by God's decree, death parts us. (My dear wife and I are on our thirty-third year, now, and still chugging away in harmony and love, praise God!)

All Christians through all time have always spoken this truth...