Response to Wayne Grudem's New View on Abuse

A pastor asked about an interview with Wayne Grudem and the "Quick to Listen" podcast crew where Wayne talked about his newly discovered third reason for divorce, which is in abuse cases. You may find the interview here: https://bit.ly/3pEg1iG.

My response to this pastor is not about handling abuse situations but about mishandling God's Word. The "Quick to Listen" interviewers were Morgan Lee and Mark Galli from Christianity Today.

Here are two helpful articles that refute Grudem's change of mind: https://bit.ly/BG0j6Q and https://bit.ly/3vPVhph. You will not agree with everything in these articles, but they do provide alternate opinions.

Grudem's Motivation

Wayne, historically, took the adultery and desertion reasons for divorce. He said he changed his mind because of ongoing, persistent abuse in a specific marriage he knew of, plus others in the church-at-large. He said his "theological instinct" regarding those legitimate abuse situations motivated him to change his view.

It's imperative to understand what led him to go back into God's Word.

His motivational instinct led him to find "new evidence that nobody else had ever discovered." What he found were new examples of the Greek phrase "in such cases" in extra-biblical sources. He searched "in such cases" outside the NT and found 52 uses of this phrase.

Grudem's Presupposition Cycle

He changed his presupposition about legitimate abuse cases, which created a new interpretive filter to find something to support his presupposition. Do you see the "Grudem Cycle?"

1 – Emotional Presupposition
2 – Search for Evidence
3 – Information Acquired
4 – Change of Mind
5 – Affirms the Presupposition

Grudem's Hermeneutic

Hermenutically, he went outside God's inspired Word to find non-Bible writers who used a phrase that you see once in the Bible. It would be like me reading a random writer who used a term in the Bible, and because of how this person used it, I could interpret the Bible according to this person's usage.

A sound hermeneutic compares Scripture with Scripture and interprets within the context of the passage. Wayne does not do this.

What about Abuse?

There is a way to work through abuse without adding to God's Word. (I have written extensively on handling abuse.) Wayne's desire to help abused people is genuine, but he, admittedly, is not a counselor.

Wayne complicates a serious counseling problem by changing God's Word to satiate his burden for the hurting. Grudem went on to talk about how spouses need protection, and now they can get a divorce. Spouses do need protecting, but misinterpreting God's Word is not the way.

Creeping Bracket

Much of this interview is about pragmatics, not sound exegesis. After Grudem opened the door sloppily, he went on to give space to mental abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, and other things that would qualify under the elasticized "in such cases" option to gain a divorce.

Chris Moles did a similar thing in his teaching on 1 Corinthians 7:15, which I have responded to with this article https://bit.ly/3ErtBKg. These men are sincere, but their burden to solve a problem has motivated them to mishandle God's Word.

Emotionalism

Morgan Lee did bring up how much Grudem was affected by abuse cases and asked him to talk about these personal accounts. Wayne said because of the horribleness of what he knew, he could not believe that God wanted a person to suffer. Grudem continued to read into Scripture where folks escaped suffering, which is true, but he poured those instances into how he interpreted 1 Corinthians 7:15.

Morgan said some Christian women believe in a narrow view on divorce, which keeps them in a horrible marriage. This argument is a strawman: horrible abuse situations mean we must reinterpret the Bible. Responding to abuse by saying divorce through improper exegesis is not the correct way to work through abuse.

Affirmation

Wayne talked about how some women have responded in tears because of his change of mind. Wayne then spoke about pastors seeing the value of this new interpretation for divorce.

Some people will hear the door forever slam on a truly abusive marriage. That understanding is misunderstanding what I'm saying. Rejecting Grudem's poor exegesis does not equate to leaving folks in abusive situations. There is a way to handle abuse, and I have created a lot of content on that, which you may find on our site.

We must refrain from two extremes: not responding to abuse biblically and overreacting by twisting God's Word to satiate the sadness you see.