Fresh off the heels of Rick Warren being invited to perform… er, do the prayer at the BarackStar’s inaugural ceremony, he decides to break into his “Greatest Hits” catalog for dimwitted staffers at his church and their offensive sermons like this:
Physical abuse by one’s spouse is not a biblical reason for divorce, says a pastor at Saddleback Church in southern California. Tom Holladay, teaching pastor at the megachurch founded by best-selling author Rick Warren, says the Bible only gives two cases where divorce is acceptable: abandonment and a physical affair.
Physical abuse, he defined, is someone “literally” beating another person up regularly. “I don’t mean they grab you once. I mean they’ve made a habit of beating you regularly,” he clarified.
But while Holladay believes divorce is not a biblical option in cases of domestic violence, he strongly recommends the couple to separate. During the separation, the couple should undergo counseling and try to mend the marriage, he said.
MEMO to the dunderhead at Saddleback: If some defenseless woman is getting the stuffing beat out of her, and she sees your sage, narrow behind for counsel, she will get separated all right… and change her social security number to permanently separate her face from his fist.
Dude! Are you kidding me?
Consider, in Biblical days, beating your wife wasn’t abuse – it was keeping that woman in line. But hey, I suppose given all those holy matrimony vows are still valid when you aren’t “abandoning” that woman in the emergency room after she caught a beat down amidst a righteous rage. It’s important to support her during recovery.
I suppose the silver lining on this omnious cloud is maybe the high-strung, over-compensating dudes this pastor counsels keeps their fists to themselves and just hurls a verbal onslaught in their wives’ direction. But hey, no hitting, so good times.
Tags: abuse, accountability, Barack Obama, bible, civil rights, crime, divorce, family, identity, law, marriage, outreach, pastor, prayer, president, Rick Warren, scripture, televangelist, theology
Remember Rick Warren also said I think in 2005 that there was religious freedom for Christians in Syria.