COMMENTARY | Would you divorce a spouse suffering from Alzheimer’s disease? According to televangelist Pat Robertson, the illness might offer you a get-out-of-marriage-free card. Is he right? Perhaps not; but he is not alone.
Viewers of Tuesday’s 700 Club program did a double-take when Pat Robertson excused divorce if one of the spouses suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. A caller to the show asked Robertson how to react to a friend’s decision to date — while married — because his spouse suffered from the illness and “his wife as he knows her is gone.”
Robertson expressed that because of the disease, a long-term marriage partner is indeed suddenly gone. “They are gone. So, what he says basically is correct. But I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something he should divorce her and start all over again,” Robertson continued. Surprisingly, he is not alone in his belief that a Christian faith and divorce are mutually inclusive.
Using the example of Isaac’s aborted sacrifice, Divorce Hope’s Stephen Gola suggests that it is possible to remain in a marriage against God’s will. Calling it a “sacrifice that was not intended,” he warns that it is destructive to observe vows that the Lord Himself may have chosen to abandon.
On the other end of the spectrum was (then) 57-year young seminary president Robertson McQuilkin. Christianity Today chronicled the gradual decline of his wife due to Alzheimer’s disease. “I don’t have to care for her, I get to,” he said when explaining why he chose to let go of a career in the ministry to devote his time to caring for his ailing spouse.
McQuilkin considers his decision a matter of personal integrity. Robertson believes his counsel to be grounded in a scholarly parsing of the written word; Alzheimer’s disease — in his opinion — is akin to death. Thus, the person in question did fulfill the letter of the law, namely remaining faithful until separated by death.
Yet I cannot help but wonder if the public outcry over Pat Robertson is truly grounded in the fact that a formerly hard-lined televangelist subscribes to situational ethics. Instead, we understand fully well — in spite of our proclivity to love ‘em and leave ‘em — that integrity trumps the parsing of words.
Can you divorce a spouse because of Alzheimer’s disease? Sure! Just do not drag Christianity into it and look for an excuse.
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