Earlier this week Pat Robertson told his viewers on the 700 Club that it was morally acceptable for a husband to divorce his wife who is suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s Disease because that person is “not there anymore” and that the disease “is a kind of death.”
Robert McQuilken found himself in the same situation. He was the President of Columbia Bible College and Seminary when his wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. People close to him advised him to arrange for institutionalization.
He chose to resign in 2004 so that he could care for her. In his words,
She had, after all, cared for me for almost four decades with marvelous devotion; now it was my turn. And such a partner she was! If I took care of her for 40 years, I would never be out of her debt.
Listen to his resignation speech and you can hear in his voice the love he has for his wife.
Pat Robertson is wrong. “A kind of death” is not death. Robert McQuilken’s choice is where true love lives.