What About Ruckman?
What About Ruckman?
Peter Ruckman has been divorced two times and married three times yet he has been a pastor all along and he defends his unscriptural marital status in his book on divorce and remarriage and mocks those who challenge his qualification. His first marriage was before his conversion, and it ended in 1962 when his wife left him and filed for divorce. He began pastoring the Brent Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida, soon after that.
In 1972 Ruckman married the divorced wife of one of his former students. When a vote was taken in Brent Baptist as to whether the congregation supported his second marriage, 200 voted for it and 100 opposed it.
He subsequently resigned and started the Bible Baptist Church in Pensacola in 1974 with 17 people.
In 1988 Ruckman's second marriage ended when his wife walked out and sued for divorce.
Ruckman’s third marriage was to a member of his church, a mother of three.
Divorces do not take place in a vacuum. They take place in an environment filled with anger, carnality, hostility, bitterness, and sin. That is not judgmentalism; it is fact. Some of my divorced friends confess this as forcefully as I do. In fact, consider how Ruckman himself describes his family life in days gone by:
“I have had two wives desert me after fifteen years of marriage ... I have been in court custody cases, where seven children’s futures were held in the balance; in situations where Gospel articles were being torn out of typewriters, Biblical artwork torn off the easels, women trying to throw themselves out of cars at fifty m.p.h., mailing wedding rings back in the middle of revival services, cutting their wrists, threatening to leave if I did not give my church to their kinfolk; deacons threatening to burn down my house and beat me up; children in split custody between two domiciles two hundred miles apart, and knock-down, drag-out arguments in the home sometimes running as long as three days” (The Last Grenade, p. 339).
That is what the man admits took place. That is only a small glimpse into the sin and confusion surrounding those years. Friends, you can label me a judge if you want, but a man with that type of family life has no business in the pastorate. Let him preach on the streets. Let him preach in the jails. Let him preach in the nursing homes. Let him preach in other ways, but we must obey the Bible and reserve the pastorate formen who have godly homes.
Ruckman mocks those who call for high standards for the pastorate and who don’t believe a divorced man fits God’s requirements for the office. He calls them hypocrites and Pharisees. Consider how he describes his third marriage:
“... we got married in a regular Sunday night service after the offering was taken up: bridesmaids, wedding cake, rice, shaving cream on the car, the whole works. Standing room only. I WAS FLAUNTING MY FAITH IN THE FACE OF THE APOSTATE FUNDAMENTALISTS WHO WERE GOING TO ‘CASH IN’ ON MY MARRIAGE” (Ruckman, The Full Cup, p. 280).
On page 211 of his biography, Dr. Ruckman says that those who ask the question, “Do you think a divorced preacher is qualified for the ministry,” are “SELF-RIGHTEOUS PHARISEES.”
This mocking, ungodly attitude has encouraged other men that it’s O.K. to be divorced and remain in the pastorate and even to flaunt the same before anyone who disagrees. Yes,
sadly, many have followed Ruckman’s lead.