"My husband is an excellent minister."

How can you say that?

"It is not for me, you or anyone else to say whether he is fit to be a minister."

Then how can you say this?

Carrying on affairs. Ruining other's marriages. That is minister of the year material.

You do not want appear to want change. Just to complain.

You asked for help and were given good advice. Now you don't like the advice so your looking for other opinions that match yours. If your opinion is correct, why did you seek the advice of others?

You need to expose.

There are times that sound information and good advice are given along with statements like the ones that you find to be insulting. If you prefer to not be subjected to that while you are looking for new information and ideas to consider, you could read other threads that deal with the issues that you are dealing with to get the information you need. There is a wealth of information in older threads that might have less of what what you find to be insulting. There have also been posters whose WH's were clergy. You might want to also check the archives (different web address) because there are many very wise posters who no longer post here (and the search function works at that site so it might be easier to find threads that deal with infidelity involving clergy).

I noticed that you listed the best interest of the children involved first and what it would do to your church to expose in the manner suggested second (imho, exposure should be carefully planned and not done before being prepared for and having a plan in place for what follows). You didn't say where saving your marriage falls on that list....and that's an important thing for you to know while developing and following a plan.

In my own situation, saving my marriage was my second priority....meaning that if I couldn't have both, which would I rather live without? Most times, the plan that I followed accomodated both my first priority and my second but there did come times when both could not be accomodated at the same time and a choice had to be made between the two. It was very painful during those times but I do not regret my decisions or the outcome of those decisions.

So, I would suggest that first you search your heart, pray for guidance, and determine your order of priority for those three important things.....and then develop a plan of action.


Although I agree that there is abuse of authority occurring, I don't agree that you are responsible for it simply because you choose to not say anything about it at this time......he alone is responsible for his actions no matter how many people know what he is doing. I would bet that there are many others who also see his abuse of power (there usually is) but haven't said anything because they have other priorities that are more important to them. It is their right to make that choice just as it is your right and responsibility to decide for yourself and your own life which of those very important priorities will take precedence over the other priorities.


Take care

25,

Please read:
Eph 4:17-24
Eph 5:1-21
Col 3:5-10
I Thes 4:3-8
I Tim 3:1-7
I Tim 4:12
Isaiah 29:13-15


He is NOT a good minister.

That is like saying that a man is a good father except for the fact that he molests his own children. A minister of the Gospel of Christ should be the spiritual father of those in his care. To cause one of them to sin is abhorrent.

Or it's like a man who is a good husband except that he has repeated affairs. He cannot be a good husband if he is committing adultery. Good husbands don't commit adultery.

Matthew 18 (NIV)15"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. 16But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' 17If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector."

These are the words of Jesus. Notice that he says try to resolve it alone first, then take someone else along as a witness and finally to turn it over to the church. The church is then to act and if the person is still not willing to do what is right they are to be treated as a tax collector or a pagan, that is, considered to be not a part of the church but part of the world outside the church, in other words, a NON-believer.

James 5:13-16 (New Living Translation)

13 Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. 14 Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.

16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.


There is no healing and no forgiveness as long as the sin is hidden.

This is not something trivial here, dear lady. It is a cancer within the body of Christ.

And you know about it and yet do nothing to stop it.

God deals with hidden sin the same as that which becomes known. (see Joshua chapter 7) What is even scarier is that He normally deals with it by causing it to be exposed FIRST and then dealing with it anyway. But it costs others even though it is hidden.

He can't be a good minister and actively engaged in sin against God for very long. God will not allow it. Sooner or later all of this will come out and then YOU will be known as someone who saw evil and stood by to do nothing about it...

In the name of protecting the innocent, you would allow the guilty to prosper.

Want to resolve this without you personally getting involved, then pray that one of these women would blow the whistle on him or that one of their husbands would get tired of it and scream it from the rafters.

There are several things at stake here. Your own marriage is in jeopardy as long as he is allowed to continue without consequences as well as the well being of your children But so are the marriages of those he becomes involved with. Even more so, those who look to him as a spiritual leader who will have their faith destroyed when this comes to light...which WILL happen eventually...with you thought of as an accomplice.

And lastly, it is a blight on the name of Christ. Just one more piece of garbage allowed to exist within the church that the world can point to and claim that Christians are a bunch of hypocrites and that Christianity is false.

Mark

She is very responsible for her ENABLING. Anyone who stands by silently while her H abuses his authority in the church and doesn't lift a finger to stop it is an accessory to the crime and is responsible. She is very responsible for enabling her H to continue to prey on his parishioners.

Had she taken steps to get him removed the FIRST TIME, there might not be a 2nd and 3rd time. I don't imagine the husbands of the women he has exploited or the church pastor will feel she is not responsible either.

LB, it is my goal to wake this woman up and encourage her to stop enabling her husband to harm others. I don't see how telling her she is not responsible helps anyone in her church. It might make her FEEL GOOD, but she should not feel GOOD about being BAD.

Thanks Mark, great post.

I agree that she would be responsible for any of HER behavior that was enabling, but that still wouldn't make her responsible for HIS abuse of authority.....that is his responsibility alone.


We don't know what she has already done to get it stopped that has been unsuccessful so far. We don't know if she even has the ability to get it stopped at this time.

In cases of abuse of authority/power, sometimes what is needed for it to stop is for it to progress to the point that it becomes apparent to many instead of to just a few. Unfortunately, that usually means that a lot more harm will be done in the meantime. But when people who are guilty of abuse of authority/power are confronted about their behavior that is consistent with it, typically they just find ways to cover it up better so that it can be hidden from others who might also be able to recognize it for what it really is. So, sometimes not doing anything more IS doing what will lead to the quickest end to it.


It was my goal to let her know that there are other resources within MB that might be better suited for her to obtain the information that she needs to make very important decisions in her life. It was also my goal to communicate that although we might want certain outcomes for all our top priorities, it might not be possible for that to happen and to take that into consideration when developing a plan of action. It was also my goal to respect that she--not me or anyone else--has the right and responsibility to determine which of those priorities is the most important to her.


She might not be able to "help" the church at this time....it might not even be "God's time" right now.....that is for her to determine as she obtains the information she needs to be able to make those decisions. I hope she prays for God's guidance throughout this process.


I don't see how anything I said to her would make her feel good about anything in her situation....it seems pretty awful. And I would not encourage her to feel good by DOING (not BEING) bad either.

What about leading by example? How can he be a good minister? Were the priests who molested young boys "good" priests? I see no good in this...

Actually she is. Her enabling ALLOWS him to continue his behavior in church, so yes, she is also responsible for his abuse of authority. Her silence allows it to prosper.



It can't become apparent if she continues to keep his secret. I agree that it would stop if it was exposed. But she is keeping that secret. That is the whole point here.

It shouldn't have to become apparent to many others if she would do the right thing. Waiting around for it "to become apparent" to others, who would do the right thing, has resulted in incident #2 and #3.



But it cannot be hidden if she exposes him. That is the point here. Her silence has enabled this.


I seriously question anyone who "respects" any priority that includes enabling an unfit minister who exploits his female parishioners. I have no respect for that.

As Christians and decent people, we do have the right - and the RESPONSIBILITY - to tell her, that her priority of protecting this unfit minister is an immoral choice that is not in keeping with Biblical principles. Keeping his secret so he can continue to exploit parishioners is not a priority anyone should respect.


Yet you tell her she is not "responsible" for his abuse of authority, when she clearly is, and encourage her to go to other threads so she can ignore the truth being spoken here.

I did go to my H and he DID listen and has repented. He is seeking help and Godly counseling. He has established accountability.

You act like no one knows about this and you forget that I know. It has been exposed to me by the hand of God. I have to listen for His direction and until or unless my H refuses to repent and find counsel then this is the course we are on.

King David was an adulterer and a murderer and yet a man after God's own heart.

Paul spent many years persecuting Christians and became the first world missionary writing most of the old testament.

We all sin.

He has confessed his sins and become and open book to me. If God wants to move beyond that exposure He knows my heart.

You say this blight is allowed to exist in the church--it isn't. It has been handled. Just not in the way you say it needs to be handled. We did scripture. I went to him, he listened, he confessed and we are working with counselors. You only go the next step if repentence does not follow.

Thank you so much.

What a crock of self-serving babble!

You are scared of being embarrassed is my guess.

What about the husbands of those other women? Will you cross the road and ignore the Samaratain?

You are a phony Christian.

Repentence is not demonstrated when one continues to deceive his victims and defraud his church. Repentence is not demonstrated by maintaining a ministerial position under fraudulent conditions. I don't know of many churches that would allow an adulterer or a predator to be a minister. Do you?

Do you think the pastor and the church board would want your H to be a minister in their church knowing that he is an adulterer and a predator of female parishioners?

What denomination are you?

Do you think that other parishioners would want their wives around your husband knowing that he is an exploiter of females?

His pastor and his church have every right to know this information about your H. They have a God given responsibility to ascertain his fitness to be a minister in this church, and they are being denied that right by your deceit.

25, this is not repentance. Repentance does not involve deceiving and defrauding others. You do your husband and your church a great disservice by enabling this.

25, what denomination is this?

I second that.

Twenty-five, I will agree with you on the title of your thread...you have handled this all wrong.

If you do not at least inform the other woman's husband, when you are perfectly capable of doing so, not only are a bad Christian, but a pretty rotten person in general.

Do the right thing and redeem yourself.

25,

There is something particularly objectionable with a preacher, coach, teacher or other person in authority taking advantage of their position of TRUST.

You need to reveal what has happened. You are in the same position of denial and silence those Catholic bishops were in who shielded those molesting preists from their rightly consequences.

Sorry but in a position of moral guidance the advisor need to be MORAL, destroying the marriages of the couples in his congregation is not in the daily duties of a good preacher.

In fact it would be better for him to go to prostitutes.

God Bless
NJ

25,

Also, my I think I'll show my wife these posts. She receintly converted to christianty and thinks ministers are all good people. I really fear the kind of manipulation that goes on at churches.

NJ

Sometimes speaking out in certain ways and at certain times actually allows it to prosper more. I think that it's important to choose the course of action that fits best with all the circumstances of the situation....including other priorities that one might have.


That is just one of the points that I saw in her original post. Besides, she is not the ONLY one who knows....and maybe some of those others would have a much "louder" voice that would be harder to silence. There are many possibilities to consider. I would encourage her to pray for God's guidance and then follow it.....and to get support from others when the guidance is difficult to carry out.


It is your right to decide for yourself what you respect and how your priorities are ordered....as it is the right of others to decide for themselves what they respect and how to order their priorities. Personally, I place the welfare of children as a higher priority than the exploitation of grown women. That doesn't mean that I "respect" or support the exploitation of grown women....it just means that if it wasn't possible for my actions to help both at the same time then I would choose actions that helped children. Others might choose differently, as is their right.


I don't disagree.....but that might not be the ONLY issue that she is dealing with and she might need to make a choice of which issue to FIRST deal with in a way that keeps Biblical principles. Imho, it is for her to decide which to deal with first. I would encourage her to pray for God's guidance in making that decision.


My reason for encouraging her to look for other threads and posts by some very wise posters who are/were well-versed in MB principles that also deal with these issues was NOT to ignore the truth here. Not at all. I will try to be more clear about it....

Twenty-five clearly stated that she didn't come here to be insulted and I know that for people who are dealing with people who have abuse of authority/power issues, being insulted, belittled and demeaned is commonplace. It appeared that she felt insulted by your delivery so I thought that other posters' deliveries might be more suited to her needs while she sought out the information she needs. I also remembered that these same difficult issues have been talked about before by posters with different deliveries so it made sense to tell her.


Twenty-five, if you need me to, I will find the address to the old MB archives for you.

25,

On second thought, your husband needs to confess from the pulpit.

NJ