Rick Warren: domestic violence != divorce

Right Wing Watch is being a little unfair to Rick Warren.

Their criticism is based on an Associated Baptist Press story which says:

In audio clips on his Saddleback Church website, the Purpose Driven Life author says the Bible condones divorce for only two reasons -- adultery and abandonment.

"I wish there were a third in Scripture, having been involved as a pastor with situations of abuse," Warren said. "There is something in me that wishes there were a Bible verse that says, 'If they abuse you in this-and-such kind of way, then you have a right to leave them.'"

That means in essence that Warren runs a doctrinaire conservative Southern Baptist church (the woods are full of them around here). And he's almost inevitably the kind of pastor Mary Gruben wrote about in the Abilene, Texas, newspaper:

I was married to a violent and abusive man. When I talked to my pastor about the physical abuse, he asked me if I was "willing to give my life for my husband." When I could no longer follow that kind of warped thinking, I got a divorce. I began to realize that the God I know and serve loved my children and me more than that. After the divorce, I was told I should have tried harder and prayed harder.

She's an inerrantist, according to well-known, Oklahoma Southern Baptist pastor Wade Burleson, and nonetheless goes on to say:

Our Southern Baptist system sets women and children up to be abused. The "prominent" Southern Baptist thinkers have no idea the jeopardy their view places women and children in. They have given husbands carte blanche to do what they want to. It also gives the impression that the men are perfect and the women are flawed. It is a closed system when it comes to the woman's place at home and in ministry.

Her view is the exception among Southern Baptists, as she makes clear.

Whereas Saddleback Church pastor Warren's is commonplace in his denomination.

So let's be fair.

Gruben is right -- it's a doctrine which puts women and children in danger. And should in the name of simple humanity be abandoned.

But not a view about which to affect outraged surprise when Warren's church uses Web-delivered audio files to teach it.