News about another fallen pastor and his pastoral assistant made me think about how I treat sin and sinners. I don’t mean people who don’t profess belief in the God of the Bible. Most of us are quite happy to put those sinners, inasmuch as we have contact with them, into the “lost” or “seeking” box. The contents of these boxes are rumored to be unaware of sin and uninterested in holiness. If they ever enter a church, they’re not expected to conform to our rules.
I mean how we treat a fellow Christian who has sinned. I find it much easier to ignore a sin or ignore the sinner. When did I last gently rebuke a brother before greater harm was done, or love a repentant brother after that harm was done? Adultery serves as a good illustration, clearly identifiable as it is.
I am currently happily married and thankful for the lack of real temptation, but I ask myself:
– If someone else asks me uncomfortable questions because he suspects I am getting dangerously close to another woman, will I listen and act?
– Is there even a venue for someone to ask me such questions? Isn’t the social risk too high a barrier?
– Am I courageous enough to ask similar uncomfortable questions when I suspect something in someone else?
If the answer to all of the above is no, then how can we expect there to be fewer affairs in the church than the national average?
And once the affair happens, there are other questions:
– Do I continue to associate with the adulterer and pour my efforts into restoring him to his wife and the church community through repentance and forgiveness?
– Do we have a process in place for public confession and rehabilitation?
As long as we treat the brother who stumbled as an outcast, as though sin were infectious and not congenital, we can’t be surprised if he who stumbles stumbles even further. I think a putative lack of Biblical knowledge or doctrinal instruction is but a minor factor here.
A pastor is of course in an even more difficult situation. His livelihood depends on his position, and his position on his integrity. To whom can the pastor in safety confess he is staggering, so that his confessor can help keep him from stumbling? And should he stumble: how can he be reconciled with those whom he has wronged when his sin and economic necessity will most likely force him to leave town?
I think our evangelical churches aren’t set up very well to handle sin, especially sin in a pastor. The only way I’d choose to be a pastor would be if I wasn’t aware of this structural flaw, or blessed with a supernatural trust in God’s grace and provision, or plain cocksure.
Maybe that’s why preaching scares me.
Oh, such good questions! Here are some random thoughts in response, though this post deserves better, but I know from experience that if I wait to do it right it will be lost in my very long back-blog. [Update: and, in fact, was lost in the backblog for nearly a month.]
Since I don’t know what/whom you are talking about, I can comment more generally. Pastors and other public figures do run a higher risk than normal of sins of power, and I include sexual sin among those. They are in a position to hear confidences — which intimacy is conducive to further intimacy — and we so often put them on pedestals, even those who don’t want to be. I used to think Billy Graham was excessively careful with his rule about never meeting alone with a woman, thus keeping himself safe both from temptation and from false accusation. But in light of other events, I now think he was wise. Only I can also now see that even this precaution isn’t sufficient: perhaps he should have not met men one-on-one, either. And maybe the limitation should not be just for pastors.
Which, of course, compounds the problem enormously. What a heavy price to pay for our sexual proclivities! To limit one’s sexual activities to one’s lawfully married spouse is one thing, but all intimacy? Don’t we need “best friends” and “confessors” and more close relationships than one? Can’t same-sex friends understand and help us in ways our spouse can’t? I believe we so, but agree that it is probably the better part of valor to keep these relationships as much in the sunlight as possible, perhaps in small groups rather than one-on-one.
Which makes the kind of loving confrontation and support you describe even harder to ask for: to make oneself vulnerable to one person is hard enough, but to a group? I guess it works for Alcoholics Anonymous, though. Perhaps in a group one is less likely to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, too.
As you said, it is especially hard on pastors. Not only are they especially vulnerable to temptation, but usually they have no pastor themselves. To whom can they turn? In a hierarchical church the bishop is the pastor’s pastor — but since he is also his boss, that is a bit of a problem. More than a bit. This is actually a concern not only for pastors but for anyone who works for a church: when your confessor is your boss, one or more likely both of the relationships is in jeopardy.
No answers, but I appreciate your questions. And I confess I’m glad you’re not a pastor — it’s not easy being a pastor’s wife, I hear. Go ahead and preach, though; I understand you do it rather well. (As does your sister. Oops, maybe I shouldn’t have painted the pastor’s lot as so problematic….)
It does raise the question if the professional pastorate is a good idea. The advantage, of course, is that such a pastor is much better trained than your average layperson, but I think it allows for laziness on our part, outsourcing, if you will, the job of understanding the Bible and caring for church members to the pro.