UNITED STATES
Christian Today
David Robertson 23 June 2015
I assumed that he or someone close to him had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and so I promptly tweeted a reply that sympathised and sought prayer for him. And then I read that Billy Graham’s grandson, Tullian Tchividjian, had resigned as the pastor of a Florida megachurch after admitting an adulterous relationship.
It was distressing news to wake up to. Tullian is the latest high-profile pastor in the US to fall from grace and find himself on the front pages for all the wrong reasons.
Tullian issued a statement saying that his wife had had an affair and that while he had taken a sabbatical to heal his marriage he had “sought comfort in a friend” and developed “an inappropriate relationship” himself. Kim, his wife, issued her own statement saying that her husband’s reflected his own views, not hers, and asked for respect for their family’s privacy.
It is a desperately sad situation, in many ways – not just for the family and all that is involved in the breakup of a marriage with three children, but also the collateral damage to the church and to the reputation of the gospel. “Oh no, not another one” is a common despairing reaction.
Tullian is the fourth megachurch pastor to resign in recent years in Florida alone, for what is usually called ‘an inappropriate relationship’ but biblically is just called ‘adultery’. Of course, many in the secular media and wider public love this kind of scandal – it allows them to luxuriate in sexual titillation and at the same time rejoice in charges of Christian hypocrisy.
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