Because of the agony of her own marriage breakup, singer Amy Grant sees why God hates divorce, she says in an interview with CCM magazine this month.
“I know why God hates divorce because it rips you from stem to stern, and children are the total innocent recipients of a torn and shattered life,” Grant told the magazine, a leading publication in the Contemporary Christian music world.
Grant, one of the most successful singers in Christian music, ended her 16-year marriage to fellow Christian performer Gary Chapman in June. The couple have three children.
Grant, 39, said she was raised to think divorce is sinful.
“I’m from a big family,” she told CCM Managing Editor Gregory Rumburg.
“My parents are still together, and my three older sisters are married and still together. I stood up at the front of a packed-out church and made a vow before God about — as best I could — how I would lead my life. And I failed in that. Failure’s incredibly humbling.”
After years of painful counseling to try saving the marriage, and after sessions with pastors and much prayer, she now has a sense of healing about the break-up and a feeling of being “released” by God, she said.
“It makes me incredibly thankful that God is a God of second chances,” she said.
She recounted what one counselor told her: “He said, ‘Amy, God made marriage for people. He didn’t make people for marriage. He didn’t create this institution so he could just plug people into it. He provided this so that people could enjoy each other to the fullest.’ I say, if you have two people that are not thriving healthily in a situation, I say remove the marriage. Let them heal.”
Grant’s divorce has been an intense preoccupation in Christian journalism and among fans. If the Christian music past is an indicator, CCM said, Grant might lose support from some disillusioned fans. Grant said she’d have no argument with that, but she had a few thoughts on judgmentalism.
“I guess I would say, judgment is usually exercised from a distance, but in more than one instance the thing that has brought about change (in people) is compassion. Jesus led by compassion. No one is ever changed because of judgment. No one’s ever healed through judgment.”