This.

Tag

He's banging her. He's not grooming her, that phase is over.

His dick has, absolutely, come out of his pants at this point.

Assess from that reality.

If assistant pastor is married, you should include his spouse at some point. Dont need his kids and wife finding out through the church gossip, when it hits the fan.

This info has a potential to go nuclear and destroy several families and collateral damage.

some may want to shame the lady, some shame him, and some just be in disbelief. Sin sucks as it hurts the innocents more than the perpetrators.
(I fully understand we are not innocent and blameless in the eyes of God, as we all are sinful and fall short). That understanding has made me somewhat cold on the inside, not lack of forgiveness, but about reacting to feelings and actions of others.

Exactly. But they didn't judge righteously, because they couldn't.

I appreciate the answers, and would like to hear a little more specifically where that line is drawn, and for what reason.

Obviously, there are lots of pastors with lots of life experiences.  There are pastors whom are convicted murderers (or even more scandalous, tax collectors).  There are lots of pastors that have very public, checkered pasts.

So, is it OK to kill someone, then become a pastor, but not be a cheating pastor?

If that's the case, it would appear that it's the abuse of the position part that is the graver sin.  The violation of trust is worse than a murder or adulterous affair.   Dante would agree that the betrayal is the worst, but does Christ?  I don't actually know, so I guess that's why I ask you folks.

Then, the next big question is the why.  How can an adulteress or murder be restored, but not a betrayer?  Is this actually a scriptural command, or is this something of man?  If it's scripture, the question is easy to answer.  If it's of man, well... that makes it tough.  Is the motivation now because you can't trust him in positions of authority, or because you feel the need to limit him because he give you a bad name by proxy?

Not reading this whole thread, but I would want to know.
If I was OP I would let my friend decide how to proceed, because embarrassment, social reactions etc.
If I was OPs friend with the cheating wife I would want the " church leader " wretched.

Because of what he is a " church leader " and having influence over the " wife "  more than what he did ( I have a hard time blaming a compass for pointing North ).
My Hypocrisy only goes so far.

It’s been that way for a long time.

Sorry you didn’t realize sooner, or were taught Catholicism brain washing, but don’t let that effect your relationship with God.

The biggest fallacy in modern organized “Christianity” is that you need those people to be in Christ. You don’t. All anyone needs is belief, & faith, in Christ & God’s promise. From there forward your relationship with God is your own business.




I like your style.

Sorry if it was a bit snarky sounding.  I just had gone through all the pages and it would be about 7 pages shorter if people wouldn't keep posting stuff that had already been addressed.

Blackmail is a crime ..

@amos1909

Sorry to derail the thread for this one post, but I'm trying to IM you and I'm not seeing the message in my sent folder.  Have you received any IMs from me?

These are deep questions. Thanks for sharing.

If you have pics I'd tell him. I understand not telling a friend his wife/GF is cheating because a lot of times you will wind up not friends if he's a sucker but I'd probably want to know.


Being cheated on sucks but being made a jerk and everyone knowing but me is much worse.

Edit- I know he told him I'm speaking in general terms

I'll take this one.  It's really all about "when" not "what."  There is really nothing you could do prior to accepting Jesus as your savior and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Paul murdered, for example.  Scripture has standards for church leadership for when they are appointed and, of course, during their ministry.  This is from 1 Timothy chapter 3:

2 Therefore, an elder must be blameless, the husband of one wife,[b] stable, sensible, respectable, hospitable to strangers, and teachable.[c] 3 He must not drink excessively or be a violent person, but instead be gentle. He must not be argumentative or love money. 4 He must manage his own family well and have children who are submissive and respectful in every way. 5 For if a man does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, so that he won’t become arrogant and fall into the Devil’s condemnation. 7 He must be well thought of by outsiders, so he doesn’t[d] fall into disgrace and the trap set for him by[e] the Devil.

8 Deacons,[f] too, must be serious. They must not be two-faced,[g] addicted to wine, or greedy for money. 9 They must hold firmly to the secret of the faith with clear consciences. 10 But they must first be tested. Then, if they prove to be blameless, let them serve in ministry.[h] 11 Their wives[i] must also be serious. They must not be gossips, but instead be stable and trustworthy in everything. 12 Deacons[j] must be husbands of one wife[k] and must manage their children and their families well. 13 Those who serve well in ministry[l] gain an excellent reputation for themselves and will have great assurance by their faith in the Messiah[m] Jesus.

Threads like this make it easier to understand those threads where posters brag about having no friends and needing no friends



I've seen that approach work surprisingly well in some situations

So, once you're a Christian, you're no longer extended the opportunty to be restored, even after repentence and forgiveness?

And, this is only for acts of betrayal based on authority, and not other crimes?

Being removed from church leadership is not the same as being removed from the presence of God.  Two totally different subjects.

Yep. A good friend will tell you like it is even if it’s hard. And will be there for you in hard times.

I'm having the same problem. I sent @@amos1909 a message a few hours ago and it's not in my inbox.

If people ever knew how many aggressive homosexuals, pedophiles and other predators are in your average church. The inquisition would be restarted and go on an absolute rampage.

Probably already been mentioned, but sometimes things fall through the cracks in a sordid mess like this...

Assuming the preacher is married, one of you need to be sure to go fuck his old lady.

There is nothing that would cause me temptation to stray from my wife. I would rather suck start a shotgun than betray my wife. She truly is a blessing in my life.

Brings a new meaning to the Bang Bus

This is the reason why I left church. Everyone thinks they are God and the human condition ruins it all for me. My relationship with God is my own and between he and I. Not the entire congregation and nosy ass cunts and their cucked husbands.

If your buddy is actually you’re friend, you should tell him.

That can happen. Still if he’s your friend, you tell him.

Because my father made a deal with me, that as long as we got married in a Catholic church, he would pay the hall and catering.  

We were young, struggling for every dime and the priest made me aware of this information 2 weeks before the wedding.  There was no way on this planet that we could scrape together the money to pay for the hall and the food that was already booked, in under 2 weeks. No less find another Catholic church that would marry me to a not Catholic woman, in less than 2 weeks.

So we stuck with the plan and moved on with life.  I have more or less never been back though.  I went with my parents when my dad was still alive, Christmas Mass etc, but it was about being there for my parents.

I’m not sure what kind of church you went to but it doesn’t describe the kind I’ve been in. I don’t know any nosy women and the men are men.

Not all churches are created equal. And some are there for a social game and not Christ and the Gospel.

Alternate view: If we didn’t sin, Jesus died for nothing.

/just kidding. Mostly

I concur with your assessment.  I've always considered it in aggregate though, no individually.

TL;DR the entire post. But I guess it seems they were separated already, which changes things a bit.

I dont think OP is really that close if a friend he did not know they were separated if that's the case.

BTW, Update the post with significant appraisals for easier reading please.

This is the most relevant video I've ever seen posted in response to a thread topic. Totally amazing

In late, but

To the OP: What would you want done if you were in your buddy’s position.

To Stokes: It is my understanding that all sin is forgivable EXCEPT sins against the Holy Spirit. If the woman in this debacle is suffering from depression, mental illness, whatever and a church leader used his position as an aid to seduction, this would seem to me to qualify as the exception.

I don't intend this to be a definitive answer, but my answers have to come from Scripture - not necessarily direct quotes, but biblical principles must be applied to the answer. So, to start with, yes, believers come to Christ from all sorts of destructive backgrounds, and yes, we are seen as new people, with new desires and attitudes, when we come to Him.

So those who are saved out of sinful lifestyles absolutely do get to, by and large, 'start over', at least in the eyes of the church. That doesn't mean estranged spouses or children have to forgive them, or that the consequences of past sin all go away, but, in the context of the church, new believers do get a fresh start. And ideally, being moved from 'new believer' to 'serving in a leadership position' should take years, not weeks or months. So when someone has been in leadership, after years of experience as a Christian, and then they fall, yes, I think it's largely because such people have demonstrated bad judgement and when a person in leadership exercises bad judgement, it's usually because they put selfish desires (sex, money, power) over their love for the church. Maybe it didn't start with them looking for sex. Maybe it started with being careless about being in private with a counselee. But as believers we know that temptation is a thing, and should know better than to allow it to happen, and we also know that such scandals harm the church, make us all look hypocritical, and leave us in a position where the world won't listen to us because the world won't soon forget our scandals.

So, the new believer may have done dumb things as an unbeliever, but when the experienced leader does those same things, they are judged harsher (see James 3:1), because they should have known better, and they should have known the terrible consequences, and the fact that they didn't weigh those things before falling into sin, leads us to reasonably think they could do it again. It's common enough for people punished lightly for something, to do it again. So in a very practical way, it's not that we want to exclude that person from leadership, it's that we want to protect the church from future leadership failures, and we do that by taking them seriously.

So, again, we have to pull this from Scripture, not my own reasoning. So we look at the passages that give the qualifications for leadership:

1 Timothy 3;1-14
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Timothy+3&version=NASB

Titus 1:5-9
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus%201&version=NASB

1 Peter 5:1-5:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%205&version=NASB

There are other passages. There's lots of stuff woven through the Old Testament about leadership but strictly referring to church leadership, the basics are in the passages above.

In those passages we read about humility, having the right motivation, being above reproach and blameless, and 1 Timothy 3:7 even says we should have a good reputation with outsiders. I believe this is because, while those outside the church may never like us or our message, they will at least respect a man who strives to live according to what he preaches. But once they see hypocrisy in a man, they'll mock him - and rightly so - and such a man will have no ability to reach those outside the church. And he'll have no ability to gain the confidence of those in the church.

The world outside of the church will mercilessly mock the obvious charlatans who claim to be ministers. But they'll also mercilessly mock the genuinely repentant fallen leader, and those inside the church who've ever been burned will never again trust that fallen man either.

This leads to another principle I think is derived from Scripture - it is God's church, not ours. And it is God, not man, who builds His church (1 Corinthians 3:5-9). And He does not need us. No man has ever had such a fine gift of oration or logic or reason as to be indispensable to the work of the church. So, when a man falls, no matter how gifted he may be, we must recognize that God does not 'need' him in any sense. God can speak through donkeys and rocks. Knowing this, if a man fails in leadership - gross moral failure - to put him back in such a position is to dismiss the concerns of those who have to try to trust him again, the pain of those who were hurt, the mocking of the outside world, and to say that the work being done was so important that God can't do it without the fallen leader.

So we (and by 'we' I mean any church who recognizes these precepts and strives to follow them) don't put fallen leaders back into leadership. Not that we don't forgive them or love them or seek to restore them to fellowship, but that we don't put them back in leadership.

Fuck all that shit.

Cheating is unforgivable, period.

Clergy should be burnt to the ground for leveraging their positions to cheat.

Scorched earth is the only possible outcome here.

Also, from my perspective, 2 kids whom I love dearly, I would never have kids again nor marry another female ever again.

I like this method.

I appreciate the thoughtful reply.

I guess the answers here are less than satisfying.  If I'm misunderstanding what you've said, please do let me know, as my intent is to learn, not win a debate.

It would seem that sinful non-believers can, in time, be elevated (thru conversion, repentance, and presumptive forgiveness).  They have lots of room to move up.
But, sinful believers can only move down.  After a believer sins, they can never be elevated up again.

Here is what I find the stickiest.  After reading your reasons why the sinful believe can not be restored to his prior position, I'm having a hard time seeing where it's something of a biblican command.  The same steps afforded the non-believer are not being offered to the believer, and I'm not sure why.  If a core of Christianity is that everyone sins, even believers, you'd kinda expect that the same operations of grace to restoration would apply.

The reasons that the full restoration of the believer can't be acheived all seem to land on the head of what men think (both inside and out of the church).  This also includes the presumption that God does not still have leadership use of a fallen leader, that God doesn't need him anymore.

Maybe I don't understand it right.

And, admittedly, it's not really my fight.  As far as I'm concerned, the Pastor is a rat bastard, the wife is a whore, the paternity should be questioned, the husband needs therapy for his own inadequacies, and the church needs a reckoning.  The OP seems to be the only one in this story on the right track.

This!

If I were your buddy, I'd like to know.  Do the right thing.

Damn dude.

4 pages after the update

“tELL yOuR bUdDy”

Wow.

You’ve just shown exactly how a Narcissist manipulates people. They get them to believe they are worthless and must constantly prove themselves worthy of the Narcissist’s approval.

I have never been shown how organized religion does this to their believers in a more succinct statement.

Thank you for that Sir.

I was raised Catholic and had been under the spell of a Narcissistic parent well into my 40’s.

Now, I spot them inside of 5-10 minutes.

Edit:  No need to allow this to become a religion bash, so I'll further explain my position.

I'm glad mankind started believing in gods.  Harvest God, Fishing God, Hunting God.....  I've used the term Golf Gods on the course myself.  Recently even.

I'm glad that belief evolved into lifting mankind up and above wild animals and past our barbaric ancestors.

Without our ancestors belief in religion, we wouldn't have the conscience that 99.999% of wildlife do not have.

Without our ancestors belief in religion, we wouldn't think anything about stepping over and killing another man for his resources and woman and proclaim his pride in the strength of his status as an Alpha Male.

Years ago I missed a deployment with my squadron and used to see a bunch of wives in town with other guys.  I asked a Gunny if I should mention it to the husbands and he said I need to mind my own beeswax.  I did mention one of the episodes to a friend and it made it back to the husband, and I turned into the bad guy over it.  

Turns out the husband really didn't want to know and they are still married today.  There was another episode and I ended up almost being the punching bag over it so I am not sure I would do anything except send the photo to the wife and husband and let them work it out if possible.

If he didn't have a collar, it'd be extortion.

This morning's update.

I met with some church elders who have the proper authority to act in circumstances as these.

I told them what I observed.  I told them that I thought this guy was a lowlife predator.  They are going to get his side of the story and then act immediately.

Seemed like the appropriate response.  The ball is in their court now.

I do not envy their job, but good men often have to do unpleasant duties.  I hope they find the truth in this situation and take appropriate action.

Look at it this way: God didn't need him in the first place. And while 'blameless' is an impossibly high standard for any many, it's not even within the realm of possibility for someone who's had scandalous failures within a church. If you say that this is just men imposing their own standards here, I'd have to ask you: Knowing what the bible says about being blameless as a standard for leaders, how would you reconcile putting a fallen leader back into the position where he'd already abused the trust of his flock?

And by and large I think you are correct (perhaps with some nuances) on your assessment of the OP's situation.

Good job, brother.