Judging Amy

by Gregory Rumburg

The following is an excerpt from CCM Magazine's November cover story. To read more of this exclusive interview with Amy Grant, pick visit CCM Magazine's website.

What do you do when your tender Tennessee Christmas is no longer a reality? Amy Grant gives the court of public opinion her perspective as she talks about her recent divorce and the persisting tabloid rumors of an affair.

After more than 20 years in the music business, singer/songwriter Amy Grant is recognized as one of the most successful performers in Christian music, and for that, her stature has risen to mythic proportions -- the heroine of the genre. The Good Lord willing, if anything favorable came from Christian music, Amy Grant probably had something to do with it. And if something favorable needed to happen, attach Amy Grant's name to it and watch the magic transpire.

She is Christian music's own Wizard of Oz.

Or was. Last year Grant pulled the wizard's curtain wide open, first to her husband of 16 years, then to her family and, finally, to the rest of the world. For the first time to a national print audience, Amy Grant, 39, talks at length about the decision to end her marriage to fellow artist Gary Chapman, 42.

Growing up a religious woman and being taught that divorce is a sin, she acknowledges that she is only beginning to work through the aftermath of divorce, that she is not at the end of this difficult path she never thought she'd take as a Christian. Divorce has consequences one cannot imagine until they happen, she says. And she knows first-hand why God hates when marriages end.

Step Inside This House

Following weeks of speculation in the press, Dec. 30, 1998 brought news from Blanton/Harrell Entertainment and TBA Artist Management that the famous couple planned to separate. The release succinctly stated, "Gary Chapman and Amy Grant regretfully announce their separation after 16 years of marriage. They both ask for your prayers during this sad time and hope that you would respect their privacy." No further information was available as local and national media outlets reported the news. But fans and members of the music industry seemed to cling to the wording of the press release: Since divorce was not mentioned, perhaps there was hope of reconciliation.

But in March 1999, Grant filed for divorce in Chancery Court for Williamson County, Tenn., citing "irreconcilable differences." Accurate or not, the event seemed to confirm some of the conjecture surrounding the darkness and mystery of 1997's Behind the Eyes (Myrrh/A&M) [CCM September 1997].

Today, custody of the couple's three young children is shared. Grant no longer lives on the well-known Riverstone Farm, the Franklin, Tenn., estate she calls "the prettiest place on earth."

Life moves forward for the Augusta, Ga.-born singer/songwriter. On Oct. 19, Grant released, A Christmas to Remember (Myrrh/A&M), her third Christmas offering, and at the end of the month she will take her popular "An Amy Grant Christmas" tour on the road for the third consecutive year.

"I've toured the last two Christmases," she says during a late September interview in her rented home in a historic Nashville neighborhood. "It's been a kind of rough stretch for several years. It was much easier to be away."

Private Conversation

"For people that have [personally] known us and loved us a long time," says Grant, "[the divorce] was not a surprise to anybody. None of this was taken lightly. It was years in the making. Gary and I went to all kinds of -- tons of -- marriage counseling."

Casually relaxed today in a pair of white nylon running shorts and a blue sweatshirt, she continues, occasionally playing with her long shirtsleeves.

"What I find in life is that it's not so much about good and bad people, but about good and bad combinations. Gary and I had a really unique courting, a very unique marriage."

Out of respect and privacy to Chapman, their three children and herself, Grant speaks in generalities about the divorce. And although she declines to comment on any specifics of numerous marriage counseling sessions which began in 1986, she does remember wondering, "How did I wind up here?" She agrees that marriage is difficult, but nevertheless she felt like an unlikely candidate for becoming a divorce statistic. "I'm from a big family. My parents are still together, and my three older sisters are married and still together. I stood up at the front of a packed-out church and made a vow before God about -- as best I could -- how I would lead my life. And I failed in that. Failure's incredibly humbling.

"I tried at every turn to take the high road. And yet, my personal life kept just spiraling downward."

She continues, "I guess the real pinnacle came for me in February 1998. I wound up having a really intense meeting with Gary and two pastors that we both trust. I basically said, 'I'm completely laying my life out as honestly as I know how, and my desperate plea is, Is there really such a thing as healing? Does God really heal?' And I wasn't even thinking to heal our marriage; I just needed Him to heal me. So we all committed to pray. Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray."

Throughout their marriage, Grant asserts she was committed to making the marriage work. But in August of 1998, after years of counseling, Grant made a different commitment, and she went to the pastors with whom she had been meeting and to Chapman. "I said, 'I believe and trust that I've been released from this [marriage]. And I say that knowing that even the Bible says the heart's deceitful.'

"And anybody could so easily say, 'You're completely deceived,'" Grant interjects, "I guess a part of being deceived would be that you wouldn't know it. But to the best of my level of peace, I had a very settled, unshakable feeling about the path that I was going to follow."

Old Friend

Throughout the middle part of this decade to the present, the subject of Grant's relationship with country singer Vince Gill has been grist for the mill of gossip, tabloid and Internet discussion groups.

After Grant appeared on Gill's 1993 Christmas TV special, the two have worked together in a number of professional settings: Gill sang on her 1994 project House of Love (Myrrh/A&M). More recently, they have appeared in charity golf outings and Gills sings on A Christmas to Remember.

Grant says, "I didn't get a divorce because I had a great marriage and then along came Vince Gill. Gary and I had a rocky road from day one. I think what was so hard -- and this is [what] one of our counselors said -- sometimes an innocent party can come into a situation, and they're like a big spotlight. What they do is reveal, by comparison, the painful dynamics that are already in existence.

"Through all of that process in my life, Vince was a friend of mine. It's not adulterous, but it's just messy," says Grant, because her friendship with Gill existed prior to the divorce.

Grant does acknowledge that she is now dating Gill, although she clarifies that he was not her boyfriend while she was married. She is also clear to say that she was not a confidant to him when he went through a divorce in 1997.

Closing Time

Some Christian music fans, radio stations and retail stores have, in the past, drawn hard lines in the face of divorce, resulting in pulling support of the artist. Although each case is unique, history indicates Grant may face a similar fate. Grant has no argument against such decisions. "Well for one thing, it's not like I knock on their door and said, 'Here's my music for free, please listen to it.' I'm offering a product for sale that pays for my life and my children's inheritance and what I tithe and on and on and on. So I'd have no argument.

"I guess, my only feeling would be -- for somebody to take a hard line against another human being -- whatever the situation is -- I would say, judgement is usually exercised from a distance, but in more than one instance the thing that has brought about change [in people] is compassion. Jesus led by compassion. No one is ever changed because of judgment. No one's ever healed through judgment."

To read more of this exclusive interview with Amy Grant, please visit CCM Magazine, website.