Monday, April 28, 2008

Wheaton professor fired over divorce

Wheaton College is an evangelical school outside of Chicago. Like many colleges cut from conservative Protestant cloth, its students and faculty must uphold a stricter standard of conduct than they would at, say, Florida State. One of those rules for married faculty is remaining so. Divorce is grounds for dismissal unless your circumstances fit the biblical exemption, which generally is limited to an unfaithful spouse.

The problem for Kent Gramm is he doesn't want to talk with Wheaton administrators about why he and his wife are separating. So they're letting him go.
For him, he says, it didn’t seem appropriate “to subject your personal life to the judgment of the college administrators.” However, he told his students of his reasons for leaving – first reported in Wheaton’s student newspaper, The Wheaton Record – to offer them an alternative model of Christian living. Gramm, who teaches literature, fiction and nonfiction writing, has his master of divinity degree in addition to his M.A. and Ph.D.

“I think the students can be given a false picture of what the proper Christian life should be,” Gramm says. “Whereas many of these students come from households that have been broken by divorce, and if they conform to the overall population, half of them themselves will be going through divorce. And if they are shown that God doesn’t abandon you if you are divorced and they’re shown that this is a part of life and that sometimes it can possibly be the right thing or the best thing, not necessarily the desirable thing, to do, then I think that might help them in their future lives.”

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

First off... Stop refreshing pages back to the weblog. I had a nice reply that was lost because of it.

Now that I am frustrated over the loss, the bottom line is that divorce is wrong. That is not the way God intended it in the beginning. Trash the institution of marriage, then trash God.

There is no way of divorced life that is equal to a non-divorced life.

If God is a part of your marriage, then I assure you that divorce is not even an option.

Maybe the professor needs to profess Jesus as his Lord and Saviour if he is to call himself a Christian.

God works with me and my wife, and God seems to do a very good job...

Anonymous said...

Ah, Guy. Maybe God does work for you, but, this world is a lot bigger and more complex than you think. Sometimes divorce is the best for all parties concerned: husband, wife, the children, the extend family.

To believe that if God is part of one's life, therefore divorce isn't an option is just plain ignorant. You should step out of your little world and take an honest look at it.

And STOP JUDGING PEOPLE.

Anonymous said...

I am so glad when I was looking colleges in this state, that I didnt chose this college. What kind of place tells you want to do with YOUR personal life. A oppressive place is what it is called.