Lysa TerKeurst Deals With Husband's Infidelity - Divorce Minister
“My husband, life partner and father of my children, Art TerKeurst, has been repeatedly unfaithful to me with a woman he met online, bringing an end to our marriage of almost 25 years….I don’t share this to harm or embarrass him, but to help explain why I have decided to separate from him and pursue a divorce.”
-Lysa TerKeurst, “Rejection, Heartache, and a Faithful God,” posted 6/13/17.
Lysa TerKeurst is a popular women ministries leader and author within the evangelical Christian subculture.
Her ministry is named Proverbs 31 Ministries, which is named after the chapter reference to the famous passage depicting what a virtuous woman looks like in the Bible.
So, this announcement is a rather shocking piece of news considering her background and area of ministry.
I am impressed both her courage to choose infidelity intolerance as well as her willingness to explicitly name her–very biblical–reasons behind choosing to proceed to divorce. Very mighty!
That cannot be easy being such a prominent female ministry leader in the evangelical subculture.
That said, I want to take this an opportunity to teach. I will highlight a few things in her divorce announcement post and provide some commentary.
She writes,
“I so wish we were sitting face-to-face so you could see my tears and hear the deep grief in my voice as I share this with you.”
This statement communicates fear to me. I sense fear of being judged and condemned for choosing divorce.
That is not to say she has no reason to have that fear–plenty of Christians still ascribe to the (unbiblical) “never divorce” school of thought.
My point is that faithful spouses need not demonstrate “deep grief” in order to be worthy of compassion, grace, and support while choosing to divorce a cheater.
Next, she writes about her commitment to marriage:
“Anyone who knows me and Proverbs 31 Ministries knows how seriously I take marriage. I’ve always encouraged women to fight for their marriages and to do everything possible to save them when they come under threat.”
I wish she had made the point here that one person in a marriage cannot save the marriage alone. It takes two people to stay married. But it only takes one to abandon and destroy a marriage.
Furthermore, I contend someone can take marriage seriously while choosing divorce. They take that fidelity part so seriously that they will not tolerate infidelity and all the abuse that goes with it.
The narrative where only people who stay in their marriages take marriage seriously must change! That is not fair to the numerous faithful spouses–like myself–who take marriage seriously and are divorced from adulterous spouses.
After this statement, Lysa TerKeurst narrates the effort she put into trying to “save” her marriage after discovering her husband’s infidelity 18 months prior. She concludes that recounting with this:
“But sadly, though I have repeatedly forgiven and accepted him back, he has continued to abuse substances, be unfaithful, and refused to be truthful to me and our family.”
The statement on forgiveness seems placed to head off criticism that he would have come back if only she had forgiven better. I am disturbed by the narrative that it is upon the faithful spouse to make the marriage work after a cheater blows up the relationship. It is not!
When sin like infidelity takes place, the Bible is clear that the sinner needs to repent (see Luke 17:3). The role a victim of said sin is to play is one of rebuking and confrontation with the hope the perpetrator will turn from his sin so that godly reconciliation is possible.
Moving on…
“After much prayer and consultation with wise, biblically-minded people, I have decided that Art has abandoned our marriage.”
This strikes me as a bit of an understatement. A cheater does more than abandon his or her marriage. He defiles it (see Hebrews 13:4).
Labeling the action as abandonment obscures the active, aggressive nature of the marital violation:
It is not marital abandonment but adultery the Old Testament labels as evil and for which is proscribed the death penalty as an indication as to how serious God takes such sin (see Deuteronomy 22:22).
Nobody–IMO–makes it through these situations with a few missteps. I certainly made a few myself. The point of this commentary isn’t to condemn or judge Lysa TerKeurst in her tragic circumstances.
As a minister who has been there with a cheating spouse, my heart goes out to her. And–as I already said–I am impressed with her courage to share the facts with her readers regarding why she is choosing divorce.
My hope in writing this post is to help change the way we as Christians talk about infidelity and divorce.
We have a way to go in changing the damaging expectations put upon faithful spouses in these situations, and we will never get there unless someone points out the wrongness of said expectations. Hence, I write this post.
