If the sin was pre-conversion, it would be, to me, totally unremarked. It is in the past, and forgiven. They are a new creation, now.
If it was post conversion, it is a bit trickier, but, not much. How can an adulterer help anybody, especially in a leadership position? They are not to have been in that position, anyway, unless they have had maturity in the Gospel, and a calling. Pastors are to feed the flock, not prey on them. Being prone to the sin of adultery indicates that one is not called to be a leader of weak people with weak spouses.
In re your last point, I think that if they voluntarily came forward, they should still be kicked out of the pulpit, but, if they were busted, they should also be rode out of town on a rail. I Cor 5 gives us further on that.
For further exposition, **RTFirefly **gives more of my thoughts.
I knew something else was fundamentally wrong with the whole business of allowing the pastor to stay, but I just couldn’t think of what it was, but it just came to me:
How is a newly ‘restored’ pastor supposed to lead the flock, when they can look out into the congregation and think “I can hit that anytime I want!”, knowing full well that that is the case, because they just had, or else think, “Hmmm, spouse was alright, but, dayam! if I can get a married person, how much easier would it be to get somebody UNattached!”
Say it was my spouse that had been servicing him. Should I tell my wife to be subject to the leadership of the church? My daughter/son? Should I myself be subject to the man who cuckolded me? Say my brother is a member of the church with his family; should I tell him to be subject to the leadership, and he says “What if he sleeps with my wife?” what do I say?
If it was my spouse, is she to leave the church, and I stay? Both of us? Should someone who runs off sheep from the flock be paid to be a shepherd? What do I tell the shepherd of the next church I go to?
If we do stay, and the pastor decides to preach against adultery, shall I, and the whole congregation hear from the pulpit his mea culpa, and about how he had sex numerous times with the wife of an unsuspecting church member, and, even though it was the wife who chased him, he was still the weak one because he was supposed to be guarding the flock, but, no, he gave into her Jezebel demands, and he was wrong, wrong, wrong!
I think the whole dynamic of adulterous pastor being put back into a ‘leadership’ position is more than ludicrous.
Yes, He did, but that relates to:
A) comparitive punishment severity, not comparitive sin severity. A teacher/leader is promised more severe punishment for any sin.
B) God’s judgement of the teacher/leader, not ours. How and when God judges/punishes anyone is not our concern. Any punishment we mete out is likely in addition to what God will deilver.
Perhaps the leader’s actions do call for punishment here and now. Loss of job/jail/etc. are all valid human responses in some circumstances. All I’m saying is that we don’t have perfect judgement, so we must temper ours with compassion. There is no “one size fits all” answer.
I think that the punishment tags along with the sin; let’s be real-the sin would be different, depending on who; ergo, that sin would be greater than another doing it. It also highlights that there are at least 2 levels of punishment, and I would not shun the interpretation of sin severity. And, again, those who receive greater light will receive greater punishment (again, not looking for the verse, but, it’s the verse about knowing the master’s will, and number of stripes received). Committing a sin, while having light, seems to be a greater sin than committing a sin without light.
“When Jesus was on trial before Pilate, he said: ‘He who delivers me unto you has the greater sin’ (John 19:11).
One can take it in either sense, fairly; ergo, I would not be dogmatic in either sense.
I’ve served on church councils at my last three congregations (Lutheran, ELCA and LCMS) and have never (knowingly) been in this situation before – thank goodness for that. At my current church, they dealt with this with the previous pastor a few years before we arrived and joined. That male pastor was having an extramarittal affair with another married female congregant, and that caused major problems that took many years for the congregation to heal.
My votes:
— I’d want my pastor to resign outright if s/he were cheating on his/her spouse.
— I’d want my pastor to resign outright if s/he were abetting another’s adultery.
— If my pastor were committing adultery, the pastor would not necessarily need to confess publicly.
— If my pastor were abetting adultery, the pastor would not necessarily need to confess publicly.
— If I knew about my pastor’s sin and s/he didn’t confess, whether I’d out him/her depends on <blank>.
<blank> here means I would initially discuss it with the pastor. If the pastor did not resign, I would then discuss it with 2 or 3 other congregation leaders together with the pastor. We’d have to figure it out from there.
Am curious, Skald, why do you want to know? I haven’t read the thread yet, maybe it’s there.
Okay, I’ll pretend I’m the type of Christian who goes to church*… I think he should resign, but not necessarily make a public confession. In a way I feel that a public confession would be worse, definitely more lurid at least, than quietly admitting that he doesn’t feel that he’s a good enough role model to maintain the position.
*As a universalist who isn’t also Unitarian, I usually don’t
I attended a medium-sized Southern Baptist church from ages 8 to 18 and there were three pastors there during that time. The first two (both married) had affairs. The first one had an affair with a married congregant. The second one had an affair with the unmarried organist. None of this was ever made public but everyone knew. Both pastors resigned stating that they had been “called” to new churches out of state and each had a nice sendoff party. I imagine this was the deal they cut with the church leadership to avoid outright scandal (we were genteel southerners after all) and that the new churches knew nothing about any of it. Neither divorced and the two women also left the church. I only stuck around another year or so but from all accounts, the next pastor behaved much better. Anyway, I don’t necessarily think they needed to publicly confess but to twice pretend that nothing had happened and send them off to unwary congregations certainly didn’t say much for the church.
Ah, the exception that proves the rule. Jesus Himself mentions the “unforgivable sin” in Mark 3:28-30. While there is some debate around these verses, I tend to lean toward the school of thought that they refer to final apostacy - ultimate rejection of God. This is, by definition, a sin that can not be committed by a Christian. One cannot be a follower of Christ but reject God. One can certainly claim the title “Christian” and commit apostacy, just as I can claim the title “doctor” on an internet message board. I’m giving the preachers in these scenarios the benefit of the doubt that they are not intentionally faking belief in order to seduce their flock (hi, Hal! :p), though I’m sure there have been real life cases of that as well.
