It has been about nine years since that marriage ended. And while he has addressed it elsewhere, Piper said, “I’m just kind of now at the place where I feel like I can compile thoughts to maybe contribute something encouraging to those who are navigating it.” To that end, he is writing a book.
Piper went on to describe a shift in the church he has seen that encourages him, as well as ways he believes the church can grow in ministry to people who are divorced.
“I will say I have been really encouraged over the last nine years by the trend that I see in terms of churches as a whole becoming better at compassionately responding to people who have navigated divorce or are navigating it,” he said. He sees less “stigmatizing” from Christians and fewer black and white attitudes toward divorce.
“And let me be clear, divorce is wrong,” he said. “Like, it’s wrong in the sense of, it shouldn’t exist.”
“But having navigated divorce doesn’t mean that you are in the wrong necessarily,” Piper continued, “nor does it necessarily mean that, you know, you are lesser in the eyes of God or the church or whatever. There’s so many aspects to this.”
Divorce is a tricky situation, said Piper. If a divorced single parent visits a church, “how do you make them know that you are aware of their situation and it is not a hindrance to their being loved, being welcomed?” he asked. “If you don’t talk about it, the silence is loud. If you do talk about it, you run the risk of stepping on landmines.”
“There’s just a lot of learning to still be done,” Piper said. “I’m not mad about it. It’s a hard situation.”
“I feel a little bit more freedom to talk to people about that,” he said, “because I can lead with, ‘Hey, here’s a little bit of my story. What are you willing to share?’ And usually there’s a sense of that sort of empathetic understanding: This is a safe place.”
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Piper believes there is “a lot of room for Christians to get better at building relationships in, I’d say, [a] relationally awkward context, because being friends with a divorced person is unique. You know, they are single, but maybe they don’t view themselves quite that way.”
