Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, and AWFUL “Christian” Infidelity Advice!

Country music star, Blake Shelton, made news recently with a tweet throwing shade at Miranda Lambert, his ex-wife.

“Blake Shelton should forgive Miranda Lambert–Here’s how I forgave my cheating ex-wife”

After recounting the situation between Shelton and Lambert, Wells shares how he connects with Shelton. He can relate to the experience of having his wife cheat on him. Wells writes,

Back in 2000, my wife of 17 years cheated on me. It was a stunning blow. We are both Christians and active members in our church. She said she simply fell out of love with me and in love with another man.

Did you notice the present tense in the second sentence? 

“We ARE both Christians and active members of our church” (emphasis mine). 

I am sorry. The Bible is crystal clear that someone who is engaging in unrepentant adultery or marriage infidelity is not a Christian.

You can cling to your lifestyle of adulterous sin, or you can follow Christ. You cannot do both! (See   I Corinthians 6:9-10, Hebrews 10:26-27, I John 3:6, etc.)

And with no mention of his ex-wife’s repentance, I find it odd for him to attend a church that would allow her to be an “active” member. That is against the Apostle Paul’s clear instructions on such matters (see I Corinthians 5:9-13).

Wells continues to share how he, too, had reason to be bitter like he ascribes to Shelton. Wells writes,

At the time of my wife’s infidelity, our son was 7 years old, an innocent victim in our relationship drama and dysfunction. For the next 12 years, though my wife had cheated on me, I paid child support and was robbed of half of my son’s childhood.

The way Wells frames this really irked me! Children are not innocent victims of the JOINT issues and drama of their parents.

They are innocent victims of willful, destructive, selfish sin of cheaters!

It annoys me when Christian leaders speak as if both parties are responsible for destroying homes when those homes would still exist had not one spouse chosen to defy God and committed adultery!

I wish Christian leaders would STOP training faithful spouses to take responsibility for the cheaters’ sins committed against them and the following consequences.

YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANOTHER’S SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES (see 2 Corinthians 5:10)!!!

Yet I digress, Wells is writing this to enlighten us as to how he successfully forgave his cheating ex-wife.

He drops this “wisdom” on us:

Early in the midst of my bitterness, when I was angry and revenge-minded, someone gave me some terrific advice. “You need to make sure you have desert tree roots of bitterness, not oak tree roots of bitterness,” he told me.

In other words, it’s normal to be bitter – but if you let it fester and take hold like a giant tree in the forest, you’re never going to bounce back and enjoy your life.

Being angry is normal. It is a healthy response to injustice. All faithful spouses have experienced some level of gross injustice. They were soul raped.

A faithful spouse who chooses to stuff, ignore, or only stoke this anger is likely to end up in the truly bitter camp. Anger is healthy. What is unhealthy is a response that allows that anger to fester into bitterness.

Bitterness is optional, not normal. 

Wells then goes on to correctly teach his readers that forgiveness is not an event but a process. After this, he starts with his three stages of getting to forgiveness.

He begins by telling us about his first stage was getting over his desire to directly inflict emotional pain on his ex-wife through pithy retorts.

In the second stage, Wells claims he gave up the desire to see this harm to happen to them from outside forces.

He writes,

Early on, I used to hope their relationship would implode or that they’d suffer some financial reversal. I wanted them to realize the decision to divorce their respective spouses was a big mistake. Eventually, I was able to let go of those sinful feelings.

Is wishing someone repents of their sin “sinful feelings?!”

The Bible I read says differently (see I Corinthians 5).

It is a good thing to wish those who are in active, sinful defiance of God to return to Him by acknowledging their actions as sin and turning from them as appropriate.

To give up this wish for their repentance is akin to wishing them to go to Hell, in my opinion. That seems far more of a “bitter” position to me.

His last step is what I expect and commonly hear in Christian circles. He talks about getting to a place where he prayed for them.

He writes,

“Can you pray that God will bless them?” a friend once asked me. Indeed, I reached that point. It was actually liberating. I continue to pray for them.

This advice is a twisting and misapplication of Jesus’ words about blessing our enemies, in my opinion. I would probably start the search for a better and truer “friend” than the one who suggested this.

When dealing with someone claiming to be a Christian who is in habitual, unrepentant sin, the Apostle Paul did not instruct us to bless them (see I Corinthians 5). He instructed us to separate from them and hand them over to Satan!

The Apostle Paul isn’t bitter; he actually loves these sinners and understands not taking the sin–like adultery–seriously is deadly for their souls!

The only appropriate blessing prayer for an adulterous spouse (or ex) is one that petitions God that God might grant the cheater the gift of repentance. 

I grow frustrated by opinion pieces like these from evangelical Christian voices. They teach bad theology (see above). And they encourage rug-sweeping the sins of the adulterous parties.

Repentance and forgiveness must NEVER, EVER be divorced in truly Christian teaching on forgiveness!

When they are divorced, you get some sort of bastardized theology like found in this piece that feeds into a culture doing real harm to faithful spouses. It angers and sickens me, honestly.

Call me bitter, if you like, but requiring “Christian” cheaters to repent isn’t bitter; it’s biblical.