Did my post on Charles Stanley get into the New York Times?

I’m a little stunned

In 2020, I began to do profiles on Evangelical leaders. Several have gone viral — especially one on Charles Stanley, the legendary pastor in Atlanta.

For “Divorcing Charles Stanley” I spent weeks going through old books and newspapers, and focused on his divorce in the late 1990s. It’d been a lurking secret in the Evangelical world. Details had been hazy.

I found a story of a Christian woman intent on divorcing the most powerful cleric in the Evangelical world. Anna Stanley’s reasons were never revealed. But that woman fought like Hell to get away from him.

The post has over 300k views, and several copies appeared on tabloid gossip sites.

Also, several YouTube videos appeared on the subject, as have between them well over a million views.

I’m not cited, but they’re reading my post. They introduce errors. That blonde woman isn’t the Anna Stanley in question.

On April 18th, Charles Stanley died.

I had a huge spike in views. On social media, I saw, fans of Stanley were having to respond to the problem as I’d articulated it.

The usual Southern Baptist teaching was that divorced men can’t be pastors. That was the ‘rules’. But Charles Stanley got a pass. Why?

There’s long threads on the matter across social media. It’s fascinating to watch fans of Stanley trying to justify the exception. They argue, finally, that owing to his effectiveness in the religion, anything is forgiven.

So much for the ‘rules’.

They’d include graphics from my post, but never cite it.

There was also, I might note, an episode from a conservative podcaster who agreed that the divorce was badly handled, and had a detailed reading of the religious situation.

He also did not cite me, but was clearly working off my post.

Then I was looking over obituaries of Stanley.

At Christian outlets like CBN or Protestia, there was a lot of hero worship, with passing reference to his marriage. The obituary at Atlanta’s local newspaper had a little more about the divorce, but not much.

But then, I saw, Christianity Today had an obituary with a whole section on the divorce. Incredibly, it included bits from 1990s newspaper coverage that I’d included in my post.

There was Stanley talking about himself in terms that shocked me when I first saw it in an Atlanta newspaper.

“I was very, very uneasy unless I was in charge,” he said. “I was very, very combative and very, very competitive. You see, into my ministry, I brought the survival spirit. You do or die. You do whatever is necessary to win. It doesn’t make any difference what it is.”

My post wasn’t cited.

I considered that the Christianity Today writer had just noticed the same passages in his own research. The articles aren’t easily accessible. They’re at newspapers.com, and require some searching.

Another passage seemed even more a pointer to my post. Anna Stanley herself was quoted—in the only statement she ever made publicly. I’d noticed it at the end of a 1995 news article.

In the midst of the furor, she said:

“I am dismayed by my husband’s refusal to accept the critical state of our marriage. Instead, he has made repeated announcements from the pulpit that progress was being made towards our reconciliation, when in fact, the very opposite was true. I do not choose to contribute to this charade.”

Then I saw the New York Times did an obituary.

Clearly working off the Christianity Today article, the newspaper had a section on the divorce, including Anna Stanley’s quote.

As his wife openly calls him a liar, Charles Stanley comes off more like a power-crazed con artist than a holy man. Sorry, Charlie! 🔶