All Podcasts With Gretchen Baskerville
Podcast: Taming the Wolves in Christian Marriages with Gretchen Baskerville
Tuesday, 07 December 2021 15:39How do we make sure our church members are safe in their marriages? I conclude my conversation with Gretchen Baskerville, author of The Lifesaving Divorce: Hope for People Leaving Destructive...
Abusive Relationships and the Culture War on Marriage
Tuesday, 30 November 2021 12:25Keeping people in abusive relationships is not the way to fight a culture war on marriage. I continue my conversation with Gretchen Baskerville, author of The Lifesaving Divorce. We look at how...
The Church and the Life Saving Divorce
Tuesday, 23 November 2021 16:14It is high time for the church and Christians to start rethinking about divorce. I start my conversation with Gretchen Baskerville, author of The Lifesaving Divorce: Hope for People Leaving...
The Church and the Life Saving Divorce
It is high time for the church and Christians to start rethinking about divorce.
I start my conversation with Gretchen Baskerville, author of The Lifesaving Divorce: Hope for People Leaving Destructive Relationships. Today, we look at the troubling reality of the reasons behind many divorces in this country - both for Christians and non-Christians, some of the reactions of the church, and how Scripture allows spouses to get out of marriages that are abusive and harmful.
Excerpt
Reuel Sample:
Honored to be talking to Gretchen Baskerville today, author of The Life Saving Divorce. Gretchen, this book seems to go against church teaching completely. So tell us about your ministry. Tell us about your book and the reasons why you decided to be courageous and write such a book.
Gretchen Baskerville:
Oh, well, thank you for asking. Yeah, it did take some courage. I waited until I was. I was retired to write this book because I've worked in Christian organizations all my life. But the other thing I've done all my life, or at least for the last 20 to almost 25 years now, is I've been a Christian divorce recovery leader in conservative churches in the Los Angeles area since 1998. So I have learned a lot. And one of the things I've I had to face as a young divorce recovery leader right after my divorce, a couple of years after my divorce, was that to really understand that there is a big difference between frivolous divorces and life saving divorces and our churches tend and I don't, you know, I know they're well-meaning. I know the pastors out there are well-meaning, but our churches tend to make it sound like ninety five percent of divorces are frivolous and only a handful are really, really life saving. But the truth of the matter is when you look at the research studies on reasons people gave for their divorces, about half, maybe even more than half were for what I call the life saving reasons. And those are the very serious reasons. And we know as Christians that God is against sexual immorality, physical violence, chronic emotional abuse. I mean, God wants God specifically told us that our marriages are to be loving, to be caring, to be nurturing, right? So we know that these kinds of abusive conditions or where there's really serious life destroying addictions or that lead to indifference and neglect. We know those can't possibly be on the heart of God as being a good Christian marriage. I mean that God is not mocked, right? So I learned that about half of divorces in the United States are for these very, very serious things.
Reuel Sample:
So that's a that's a big claim. And I'm just going to interrupt you for a second. We hear that 50 percent of all marriages in the in the United States end in divorce, and there's no difference in that statistic inside or outside the church, which which is a problem itself. But you're saying that 50 percent at least are caused by an unhealthiness in one or both of the spouses?
The Life-Saving Divorce: Hope for People Leaving Destructive Relationships
Are you in a destructive marriage? One of emotional, physical, or verbal abuse? Infidelity? Neglect?
If yes, you know you need to escape, but you’re probably worried about going against God’s will. I have good news for you. You might need to divorce to save your life and sanity. And God is right beside you.
Important Links
What is a Life-Saving Divorce? How many are there? - http://lifesavingdivorce.com/what-is-a-life-saving-divorce/
40 denominations: What’s their policy on divorce for abuse? - http://www.lifesavingdivorce.com/comparison
20 Denominations that need to clarify their divorce policy - http://lifesavingdivorce.com/unsafe
Bible verses on divorce - http://lifesavingdivorce.com/abuse-in-bible
The effect of divorce on children - http://lifesavingdivorce.com/abuse-and-kids
Good parents are good for kids. Bad parents are bad for kids (Jaffee study)- http://lifesavingdivorce.com/jaffee
Will this unhappy marriage become happy in 5 years? No, not if there’s abuse (Waite study) - http://lifesavingdivorce.com/waite
Didn’t Dr. Judith Wallerstein write a book saying divorce universally destroys kids? No. In fact she said don’t stay for the kids if there’s abuse - http://lifesavingdivorce.com/wallerstein
Jesus heals on the Sabbath and angers the religious leaders - http://lifesavingdivorce.com/luke13
Point-by-point critique (and correction) of two misleading Focus on the Family articles on kids and divorce - http://lifesavingdivorce.com/fotfdivorce1 AND http://lifesavingdivorce.com/fotfbisignano
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