Two [Not Entirely Unrelated] Stories

First, Pentecostal pastor Thomas Wesley Weeks III beats up his wife, televangelist Juanita Bynum, after an attempt to reconcile their faltering marriage fails. Then, co-pastors Randy and Paula White announce to their church that they are divorcing.

Unrelated stories? Not really, when one considers the similarity of the couples' situations--and the apathy with which their high-profile peers in the charismatic/Pentecostal community faced them.

Within months after the $1-million Bynum-Weeks wedding in '02 (second marriages for both of them) officiated by none other San Antonio pastor John Hagee, they were selling DVDs of the event on TBN and had put together a curriculum and book called Teach Me How to Love You. They were welcomed by prominent churches to conduct marriage seminars, and Bynum had styled herself as the "Dr. Ruth of Christendom." (In this disturbing clip of one of Bynum/Weeks' seminars, Weeks encourages a couple to have sex in an elevator, to spice up their marriage.)

Did anyone pull them aside and encourage them to give their marriage more time before promoting themselves as experts of matrimony?

Then, there's the Whites. Like the Weeks, they had both been married and divorced before meeting each other. The ministries of both husbands had been eclipsed in recent years by that of their more-prominent wives. Both couples had become so sought-after that they were living in separate locales to better accommodate the demands of their individual ministries.

Yet, even as their marriages were crumbling beneath them, their ministries were fully booked. Among other engagements, Paula is scheduled to host the "Satisfied Woman" event in Orlando the end of August and speak at John Hagee's Cornerstone Church in September. Juanita's recent schedule is chock-full of engagements from teaching at women's conferences to hosting TBN's "Praise the Lord."

Sure, I suppose the couples could have hidden their troubles from those closest to them, but it's probably just another situation in which "the show must go on." Both couples had built ministries on their larger than life personas. (Don't believe me? Count the number of times their pictures appear on the front pages of their Websites.) There were employees to pay. Jet fuel to purchase. Offerings to take. With that many people looking up to you, it just doesn't pay to be real.