Mohler on Divorce

Here is a wonderful commentary on the problem of divorce in Christian circles:

Are evangelical Christians lacking in credibility when dealing with the question of marriage? This is a serious charge, but it is gaining traction. When evangelicals argue against same-sex marriage, some ask why evangelicals are apparently quite comfortable with divorce and remarriage -- serial marriages.

This acceptance of divorce is not universal among conservative Christians, of course. But it is embarrassingly widespread. When I talk, preach, and write about divorce as a matter of grave moral consequence, I receive a barrage of letters and comments about judgmentalism. Let's just set the record straight: A church that upholds a biblical vision of marriage is a church that cannot tolerate the divorce rates that mark the Christian community.

The issue of credibility was thrown at me recently by a secular journalist, who directed me to the April edition of GQ magazine [formerly Gentlemen's Quarterly]. In that issue, writer Walter Kirn contributed a very interesting article on the sexual abstinence movement among Christian young people, especially as seen in the lives of two young men at Biola University.

Now, Walter Kirn is a very creative and interesting writer. He is the author of quirky novels like Thumbsucker and Mission to America. Previously, he has described evangelical Christians as living in a "complete parallel universe" apart from the larger culture.

In "Saving it for Jesus," Kirn takes his shots at the abstinence movement, but also writes with a measure of genuine respect. The strangest part of his article concerns Stephen Arterburn, co-author of Every Man's Battle and Every Young Man's Battle (and a whole series of books on various battles against lust). Arterburn and his books are very popular among evangelical young people -- especially young men -- and he is celebrated as an advisor on battling lust and saving sex for marriage. Walter Kirn finds this somewhat amusing:

As my meeting with Arterburn is winding down, I notice a photo on a desk of a fresh-faced blond knockout I take to be his daughter. He corrects this impression: She's his third wife, Misty. She's in her early thirties, he informs me; he met her a few years back at one of his seminars, they corresponded through e-mail for a while, and he's been married to her for nine months. She's also pregnant with their first child.

"Way to go, dude!" I want to tell him, profoundly impressed by this preacher of chaste thinking who's also managed to land what seems to be a veritable harem's worth of luscious ladies."

As Kirn later relates, Arterburn was divorced from his (second) wife after "twenty difficult years" of marriage. Kirn also states that Arterburn was afraid that he might lose his evangelical readership over the (second) divorce, but that apparently has not happened. He then went on to marry Misty, pledging that he did wait until they were married to have sex -- something he did not do in his first two marriages.

In an article published after his divorce, Arterburn wrote about his shock over the divorce and his concerns about his influence:

I'd been speaking and writing about the fact that we're all messed up for some time. But now I had a chance to live it. All of my past struggles were just that--in the past. This was happening now and I had an opportunity to walk through it with others struggling with divorce or some other trauma. Embracing the divorce and walking right into it meant I was truly stepping off any kind of pedestal I'd crafted for myself, and connecting with people in a more authentic and personal way.

There is nothing to indicate whether this refers to his first or second divorce, though presumably it refers to the second. What does he mean when he writes of "embracing the divorce and walking right into it?" I am not sure of all he means here, but the words sure look like a therapeutic argument for turning the divorce into a growth experience of some sort.

Evangelicalism is on thin ice on so many fronts. On the issue of marriage, we do indeed have a credibility crisis. A big one.