Pat Robertson's acquiescence in divorce for a philanderer married to an Alzheimer's victim was sharply criticized in Christianity Today and warmly defended by Slate.com. I read the Slate.com article, and I think that they got it right when they said that Robertson was just thinking like a Liberal (i.e., a human being?) instead of like a Fundamentalist (i.e., any orthodox Christian). They cited his support of China's One-Child Policy and of the right of a woman to get an abortion in the case of rape by, say, a syphilitic as similar examples of Robertson's right (humane, Liberal) thinking.
In reality, Robertson's Relativism in these three instances parallels that of Albus Dumbledore's argument by which he convinced the hesitant Severus Snape to join in a murder-suicide pact to kill him (Dumbledore) in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." In the case of the wife with Alzheimers, Robertson adds to his Relativism the heresy of Gnosticism. He declares the woman dead already because of the functional loss of her mental faculties. But though the communicaton lines between body and soul are down, the human person and image bearer of God remains until physical death separates body and soul. And since the vow made before God and man is, "Til death do us part," a minister of the Gospel has no right to minimize the obligation of fidelity to the vow for anyone. Those who accept this inconvenient truth and remain faithful to their vows in such a gut-wrenching situation glorify God and model the self-sacrificial love of Christ for his church before the watching world. The men and women who remain faithful to their wives and husbands to the end are real defenders of the institution of marriage and of the power of God's agape love.
Friday, September 16, 2011
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