Hypocritical Pastors

The BBQ Pit
1

Being a fairly new poster, I am hesitant to post this pit thread. It might even be better off in Great Debates, except that it is about a particular person.

I first heard of this Prostestant Christian minister when my neighbor’s father died. Her dad was a very kind, loving person, who occasionally attended said pastor’s church but was not an official member. (He also donated lots of money to this pastor’s church, but that did not seem to affect this pastor’s decision, which shows at least some strange kind of integrity).

When her dad died very suddenly (no illness, just didn’t wake up one morning) the family then tried to make funeral arrangements. They called this guy and asked him to do the sermon, and he refused, because the deceased was not a member of the church. When my neighbor brought up that he had attended the church occasionally, and donated liberally to church causes, the pastor replied “We are not saved by good works but by faith alone.”

Eventually my neighbor’s s.o. found a Catholic priest who did not even know the dead man, but did the sermon out of kindness.

When the original incident occured, my neighbor wrote to the bishop-type regional official somewhere in the state to report it. She got back an answer that while they would investigate her complaint, the pastor had always had glowing reports wherever he was stationed, and he was very well-liked. That was the last she heard of it.

Fast forward about six months to problems between a parent and a child, both who are members of this Protestant church. The parent, who is single, would like help in dealing with some of the problems the child (a young teenager who formerly attended the private church school) is having, such as being prematurely and perhaps unsafely sexually active, academic problems in school, disobedience to the parent, to name a few).

The parent approaches the minister and asks if he would counsel the child, because the parent really needs some help. The pastor replies that since both of the child’s parents (who are divorced from each other) are living in sin, and neither of them attends church regularly, the child is merely modelling the behavior of the parents, and the minister refused to help.

[Sorry if this is difficult to read, but some people on the board know where I live, and I don’t want to mention anything more specific that might give away any identities.]

I am “living in sin” with the other parent, the person who did not request the help from the pastor. I have met this minister, and he has always been very friendly and kind, and I actually liked the guy. I found out about the first incident before I met him (and thought maybe it was a fluke) and the second incident six months after it happened, and after I met the minister.

I am greatly disappointed. This man is a fairly well-respected member of the community, and has never come across as a fire and brimstone, fundamentalist-type Christian. The denomination is not of that type either, so I am mystified. Is this a prevalent attitude amongst Protestant pastors? I usually have a pretty good intuition about people, and I think I was wrong in this case.

I think he is a hypocrite. I think that he takes more of the Protestant message of Luther to heart than the original message of Christ, whose teachings are supposed to be the basis of Christianity (do unto others, etc.)

I am not a Christian and I don’t believe I am living in sin. I have had two unfortunate marriages and would be highly surprised at myself if I married again. But I always try to be kind to people unless they give me a really good reason not to be. Then I just avoid them.

What do you folks think about this?

[If this is the wrong forum, mods. please move it for me. I posted here because I think it might generate some fairly strong feelings.]

2

That’s tough. Funny, there are some rules, but many ministers and priests will be lenient.
For example, my cousin married a Methodist, and 2 kids (now three) neither of them baptized until a few years ago.
Recently, my cousin’s wife converted to Catholicism.
She had to attend all these classes. While the priests were nice, some of the teachers of the classes were rather snooty and holier than thou.

3

He is a hypocrite.

For the funeral. He wasn’t being asked to bury the deceased in hallowed ground. He was being asked to give the memorial sermon. Funerals and memorials are for the survivors, not for the deceased. Also, how the hell did the preacher KNOW that the gentleman didn’t have “faith.” He attended church. He gave to church works. IT sounds like he believed to me. He just wasn’t a member of this particular church. Maybe because ne knew what a putz the pastor was.

As for not giving guidence. A true man of God knows that when people are straying from the path, that is when they need his guidence the most. To help them become better people in the eyes of the lord. To refuse to help them is against his duties as spiritual leader of his flock.

And some people wonder why I am agnostic. It is preachers and priests like this that make me distrust all organized religions.

4

Moot point, perhaps, but in any religious organization (in most organizations, secular or not) you’re going to find people like this. If you can get beyond them you’re fine.

5

If you notice, all religion biols down to basically one thing: be nice to your fellow man (and don’t get shitty with me over the PC-ness of this, you know I mean human being here).

The differences in relgions stem from individual leaders prideful attempts to steer followers in their own particular manner. This is a GD, and truly one for the ages. To the OP, though, this guys symbolizes most of the reasons I stopped attending organizes religious services many years ago. As ** Revedge** noted, the cerimony is for the living, it’s purpose is to honor and remember the passed, not an attempt to bring new converts to the church. The mission of pastors, priests, ministers, whatever, is to act as an intermediary, a messenger if you will. Some have found the power they acquire to be something they can use for good, others for their own good. This guys is an ass, he should be willing to help someone in need regardless of their denomination. That he isn’t willing to help those that need it makes him a hypocrite and a disgrace regardless of the “good” he does, since it apparently only applies to the choosen few.

6

My opinion, this guy is definately hypocritical. He declined to perform the funeral because the deceased was not “Holy” enough. He declined to offer counsel to a family because they were not “Holy” enough. This pastor passes judgement and goes further to deny those he has passed judgement on spiritual guidance.

I am not a bible scholar, but I think it says something about not judging or you will be judged yourself. I would think that this pastor would seize the opportunity to counsel persons he feels to be living in sin in order to show them the way he thinks they should live. The only thing this pastor has done is to alienate the community members that do not meet his standards.

7

Thanks, everybody, for your input. I have been doing a lot of thinking about this lately, and I have come to the same conclusions that most of you have.

I think there is some kind of story about the lost sheep, and how Christ expends extra energy away from the flock of those who are already saved to retrieve the straggler. This person seems to hold himself and his righteous flock above the general populace, instead of being open to the “stragglers.”

In social situations, until recently, he was polite and an interesting conversationalist. The last time we saw him, his manner seemed cooler. Because my s.o. still has one child attending that school, and I will be attending sports events the child participates in, I will probably somewhat have to put up with the guy for at least one more year. If he ever asks me anything about my living situation, I will probably tell him what I think about his past actions and his opinions.

8

Spider, was the Catholic priest by any chance from…uh…St. Mary’s? That big red church downtown?

A neighbor of ours belongs to the catholic church in Gilman. His girlfriend had a baby and the priest their refused to baptize the infant because the parents are living in sin and the baby was born out of wedlock. He called up the diocese (at that big red church downtown) and they had no problems performing the act. Of course, the priest in Gilman is the same one with 2 DUIs :rolleyes:

Honestly, Spider, I think it has a lot to do with this area - there are soooo many uptight conservatives in this area.

9

The priest was from Holy Spirit and used to live across the street from us before they built the new Holy Spirit. He now lives in a different parsonage.

I think you are right about the area, though. When my family moved to Minnesota from Illinois over thirty years ago, we moved to Sauk Rapids. At that time, our next door neighbors were Catholic, and our diagonal neighbors were Lutheran. Because of that, those two families barely associated. And it caused great consternation to parents if their children dated people outside their faith (even if the kids were only in the 8th or 9th grade at the time, and it didn’t even really qualify as a date).

Not all of the people were like that, of course, and there are fewer now. It just surprised me that this highly respected, seemingly nice guy would behave in this manner.

Your story sounds pretty familiar for this area also. Someone I worked with said her minister told his congregation that children born out of wedlock are children of the devil.

10

Spidey, he’s not a hypocrite IMHO. He sincerely believes the hokum he’s putting out.

However, in my book he’s not a very good Christian, based on your reports. That’s a whole nother rant.

11

Thanks for your reply, and I guess I would have to agree with you. But it really disappoints me. When my neighbor first told me about the guy, I hadn’t met him, and when I did, I thought he must just have been having a bad day that other time because he always seemed so kind and nice (until recently). But I believe you’re right about his ideas not really matching up to what most people would consider good Christianity.

12

Hmmm. The priest who pastors the Byzantine Catholic Church I attend is absolutely uncompromising when it comes to morality. He pulls no punches when it comes to teaching that abortion is murder, that sex outside of marriage is wrong, etc…

Of course, he’s equally adamant about teaching that God forgives sin.

My catechist’s son and his live-in girlfriend had a baby together. Shortly after the child was born, the couple started attending our church. Fr. Francis accepted them unconditionally as part of the family (it’s a very small parish, where everybody knows everybody). Catechist and the parents were hesitant to approach Fr. Francis about having the baby baptized, because of his, um, illegitamate status. So, finally, Fr. Francis came to them and demanded to know when they were going to get the kid baptized.

Shortly after the baby was duly dunked in holy water, the mother entered the adult catechism program. We’re now working on getting the couple married.

Any priest who would deny a child baptism because of its parents’ marital status, or lack thereof, is an ass.

BTW, once when Fr. Francis was delivering a sermon on God’s love for mankind, he grabbed the baby in question and held him up before the congregation. “This is the proof that God loves us,” he said. “He gives us children.”

13

What a wonderful story. It cheers me up considerably. Thanks!

14

I used to work with this very nice lady, we used to sit down after work and talk about all sorts of things including religion. She told me often how wonderful her pastor was and asked if I would like to go to church with her sometime…agnostic that I am I decided to go and see if perhaps someone had finally discovered the truth…

Her esteemed and beloved pastor was one of the biggest wastes of skin I have ever met. The crap he spewed from the pulpit was unbelievable.

He said:
“If a godless muslim came and asked him for help he would turn and walk the other way”.

“If a church member came to me with the stench of alcohol on him/her he would turn them away”.

“If a woman came to my house wearing pants I would turn her away”. (Women in this congregation only wore dresses).

“Catholics are living in sin”.

“Protestants are living in sin”.

“Homosexuals will go to hell”.

“Only the King James bible holds the truth, this is the only bible we will use”.

So after this one sermon I was introduced to this guy and he invited myself and my friend over after services. My friend and his wife went off to the kitchen and the good reverend and I retired to his livingroom to talk. After we went through the obligatory twenty questions he asked me how I felt about the sermon.

I told him that I had friends who were Muslim and although I did not agree with their theology I would never deny them help. What a person wears has little bearing on what’s inside and if they needed help I would give it. If one of your parishoners was drunk don’t you think they would really need your counsel? I asked what his deal was on the King James bible as I own many versions and find that newer translations are more accurate although I like the language in the KJV. He had a translinear bible on his desk and actually had to agree with me on this. I asked how he could say for sure that everyone else was wrong. He didn’t have any good answers.

Each moment I thought for sure he would just toss me out the door because I am sure he didn’t have parishoners who would talk to him like this. He remained polite the whole time. It was kind of spooky to see how his flock adored him.

I went to church with my friend a few more times, the good pastor never again spoke to me or invited me back for another talk although the rest of the parishoners were nice sheep, er… people and treated me really well.

I told my friend what I thought of her pastor and that I had a very bad feeling about him because of what he told people from the pulpit. We stayed on good terms and continued our daily chats as before. She had a lot more questions for me and eventually left the church when she thought the pastor had taken too much of a liking to her …

People like this are all about, it is our choice whether we will believe them or not.

If there’s a hell there is a seat waiting for them.

15

SpiderWoman

You don’t need a priest or pastor for baptism. Jesus is a toll-free direct line. Simply do it yourself in His name.

Jesus said, “In all truth I tell you, before Spidey was, I am.”

16

There is a denomination here similar to the one that you relate. When my friend (who doesn’t drive) wanted to attend her childrens’ Christmas play at this church, I took her because her husband was out of town and I stayed and watched, and talked with her pastor and her friends. Her pastor later told her that I was tempting the men of the congregation by wearing pants rather than a dress. (I was always of the opinion that wearing dresses makes you more easily sexually available to men).

This was many years ago, and my friend is still my friend, and she just seems to ignore things about me that don’t agree with her religion, and never discusses me with her pastor.

Lib:

While that baptism thing may be true for your particular view of religion, many people take comfort in this ritual within a church and feel sad when it is denied to them within the denomination of their choice.

Within your view, is a person actually baptized by accepting (spiritually) the Christian ideals?

17

agisofia wrote

I’m not disagreeing with the above,but my questions have always been more about the “hypocritical members” more than the hypocritical pastors.I don’t mean so much those who say they are Catholic, but still have sex out of marriage,but rather those who don’t believe in major tenets of a religion. To use a Roman Catholic example ( I think it would also work for Byzantine Catholics)if you don’t believe baptism makes any difference,don’t believe a priest can absolve you,don’t believe in transubstantiation and don’t believe you are required to go to Mass every Sunday and holy day ( not just don’t go-don’t believe it’s a requirement), why would you want to have your child baptized (receive communion,be confirmed etc) in a religion that teaches all of those things?

18

Baptism is an act of God, not man. Mull over this passage, and ask any follow-up questions if you think they are necessary.

One day as he was teaching the people in the temple courts and preaching the gospel, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him.

“Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,” they said. “Who gave you this authority?”

He replied, “I will also ask you a question. Tell me, John’s baptism — was it from heaven, or from men?”

They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us, because they are persuaded that John was a prophet.”

So they answered, “We don’t know where it was from.”

Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

— Luke 20:1-8

19

I think you definitely have a point here. But as agisofia mentioned, sometimes including people in the rituals and not judging them, draws them back in to the main beliefs and they then become more active, non-hypocritical members. When the pastor or priest judges them rather than helping them, it may just serve to send them further away.

20

Doreen-

Personally, I wouldn’t. I think that a lot of people involve themselves in religous rituals more for social or cultural reasons than because of any religious conviction-
if you grew up in a predominately Catholic neighborhood, your parents would have you baptized, you would be confirmed, receive holy communion (not necessarily in that order) because, well, that’s what you did. There may be family pressures involved as well. My parents were basically unbelievers- my mother came from a nominally Catholic family, my father grew up in a staunchly Catholic household, but didn’t really believe. They had me baptized at the insistence of my paternal grandmother, who was convnced that if I died unbaptized, I would go to Hell. Basically, she was one of those Catholics who gives Catholicism a bad name.

I have a real hard time with people who say “I’m Catholic/Lutheran/Muslim/whatever, but I don’t believe what the church teaches about…”

If you don’t believe the teachings of your professed faith, you don’t really belong to that faith. You would be best off examining your conscience and deciding to either “get with the program” (which is basically what I decided to do even before setting foot in a Catholic church) or leave and find a denomination/religion whose teachings are more in line with your own personal beliefs.

I don’t believe in “cafeteria style religion”.