\u201cone of the elders\u2019 wives was looking for a dropped baby bottle in the back of their van, and was down on the floor boards out of sight. And as the Johnston car was parked right next door, it was impossible not to hear the fact that Cherise was haranguing her husband Ken over his intermittent porn use. The phrase thundering hypocrite was used.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nIt\u2019s not explained what that elders wife did next, but it\u2019s pretty clear that it was run right to the pastor, and spill all of what she heard in a hurried gossipy tittle-tattle session. I\u2019m sure she thought she was helping, but truly she is not.<\/p>\n
The kindest most Christian thing you can do when accidentally overhearing something like this is to say nothing and forget it. If you must speak of it you should go to the persons involved, like the wife, and ask if there is anything you can do for her. Maybe she needs a listening ear, a friend, or other roles you could fill. Just not that of the spy for the pastor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pastor naturally made an appointment with Ken the following Tuesday, and it was one of the most spiritually effective meetings he had ever had with a parishioner. Ken confessed everything completely, got that right with God, and volunteered a handful of other things he needed to restore, including several instances of significant dishonesty at work. The transformation in Ken was remarkable, and the pastor said he had never seen anything quite so striking or complete. He began meeting with the pastor weekly for instruction and accountability.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAh yes, the fictional fruit of eavesdropping as being good spying for the pastor. In reality unless Ken or his wife approached the pastor to talk about this he needs to just butt out, not insert himself purposely into the struggles of others unless invited. Give people the space to work out their own problems without being God\u2019s spanking policeman. I am sure that this conversation with the pastor likely involved hints of being exposed if he didn\u2019t repent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe surprise came about six months later when Cherise filed for a separation, and started attending another church. She was angry with the church, and with her husband, and also with the world.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nI don\u2019t find that surprising at all. Imagine going to church where the pastor knows something super awful about your spouse. Imagine how it slips out in prayer-gossip. Imagine the snide remarks, the judgmentalism, and the likely blaming for the sin that Cherise got. The whispers that if she had just been giving her husband the right kind of sex he would not have strayed to porn. It would have been hell, a hell fomented by her pastor.<\/p>\n
Good for Cherise for having great boundaries, protecting her boundaries, knowing her needs and leaving this place of spiritual abuse that pretends it\u2019s a church instead of a self righteous gossip snake pit.<\/p>\n
I may not know much, but I have watched this scenario play out any number of times at my old church, a church so similar to Doug\u2019s and many other Evangelical churches.\u00a0 It took me exactly once telling the pastor some worrying situation about one of my friends to stop me from ever doing it again. It went sideways, worse than Doug\u2019s scenario. I will always regret I took that step. Don\u2019t you do it because the guilt afterward is a heavy burden.<\/p>\n
The woman is always blamed in these situations.<\/p>\n
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Did you see Mr. Atheist\u2019s take on the Lori Alexander and Christmas story?<\/p>\n
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