June 26, 2000
Colson calls on Stanley to step down
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___WASHINGTON--Southern Baptist leaders who have opposed no-fault divorce and who have criticized President Clinton for his moral lapses should not remain silent on the divorce of Charles Stanley, Chuck Colson said in a nationwide radio broadcast June 13.
___Stanley, pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta and a former Southern Baptist Convention president, announced May 21 that he and his wife, Anna, had divorced. The couple had been separated previously and reportedly had experienced marital difficulties for years.
___Five years ago, during a separation and threatened divorce, Stanley told his congregation if the conflict turned to divorce he would step down as pastor. But when the divorce was announced last month, Stanley indicated he planned to remain as pastor of the Atlanta church.
___A church spokesman explained that "God has positioned Dr. Stanley in a place where his personal pain has validated his ability to minister to all of us."
___The congregation reportedly applauded when told Stanley would remain as pastor despite the divorce.
___The church's explanation and the congregation's applause are unsettling to Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship and a Southern Baptist himself.
___"Have our churches become so accustomed to moral failure that we applaud it?" he asked in the radio commentary. "If this is the test of being a good shepherd, should we also endorse pedophiles as pastors so they can better empathize with people who commit child abuse? How far do you carry this preposterous argument?"
___The church's explanation of why Stanley should remain as pastor is "pure Clinton-speak," Colson said. "Those of us who criticized the president for quibbling over words to defend his sordid behavior have to be even-handed. And what was wrong for Mr. Clinton is certainly wrong for the pastor of one America's leading churches."
___Stanley is widely known not only as pastor of the prominent Atlanta church but as a television preacher through his "In Touch" broadcasts.
___SBC leaders have freely expressed criticism of Clinton throughout his administration, even calling on his home church in Arkansas to expel him from membership. But to date, no SBC leader has publicly questioned Stanley's divorce.
___"Stanley's decision places his fellow Baptists in a difficult position," Colson asserted, noting that in 1998 the SBC passed a resolution calling on states to revoke "no fault" divorce laws. "Yet now a former president of the convention is using these very same laws to secure a divorce without consequences.
___"If Charles Stanley can do this, then how can Southern Baptists presume to speak to their neighbors about marital fidelity?" Colson asked.
___Colson expressed personal admiration for Stanley as a minister, calling him a "good and faithful servant." However, he said, "he needs first a time for personal repentance and healing."
___"Biblical standards for pastors are very high, and rightly so," Colson explained. "Given the already high divorce rate among Baptists, the last thing we need to do is to give one of our own leaders a pass, no matter how much we may respect him."
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