Martin E. Marty
Martin E. Marty
(Context - Dec. 1, 2000)
Stephen T. Davis, professor of philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, on ministers who fall, through some immoral activity. It is one of the more painful topics relating to organized religious life. Let's hear him, at leisure, because, clergy or not, we all relate to themes like this in respect to varieties of professions. But none more than in the case of ministry. Davis: "Once several years ago the senior pastor of a large Presbyterian church in the Los Angeles area, a man in his 40s who was married and had children, was caught having an affair with a woman parishioner. One day the Pasadena Star News ran an article about the situation, and the next morning the Los Angeles Times picked up the story.
"That same morning one of my colleagues at Claremont McKenna College, an economics professor who loves to scoff at religion, stopped me in the hall with this rather strange outburst: 'Well, Steve, I guess I'm going to have to keep my wife away from you from now on.'
"Completely baffled, perhaps a little slow on the uptake that day, I said, 'What on earth are you talking about?' 'Well,' he said, 'judging by what I read in the newspapers, you Presbyterian ministers are not to be trusted around other men's wives.'
"That exchange hurt. It hurt because there was absolutely nothing I could say to defend either myself or Presbyterian ministers. The pastor who got himself into trouble had doubtless never envisioned such an effect as this. His actions provided ammunition, miles away, for a sarcastic critic of Christianity whom he had never met. In the words of Psalm 69, it brought shame and dishonor on some of those who hope in God. What he did discredited all Presbyterian ministers, to a lesser extent all clergy, and maybe even all Christians." Indeed. There was nothing particularly Presbyterian about it.
Davis, again: "We live in a day and age when it is widely held that sexual gratification is a right, maybe even a sacred right. People believe that merely because 'I want something,' it follows that 'I deserve it.' In addition, the ethos of our era is that everybody is a victim. (I actually heard a minister who got in trouble over sexual issues publicly give a psychiatric explanation of his behavior, the gist of which was that it was his way of dealing with the stress of being a pastor.) But of course if everybody is a victim, then nobody is guilty of anything. And maybe the belief that they too were victims is one of the reasons so many of the clergy who fall are so quick to start talking about the need for mercy and forgiveness.
"Many of them seem to think that once they've said their mea culpas, sincerely apologized to their victims, tried as much as possible to repair the hurt they've caused, and genuinely confessed their sins to God, they should be forgiven. And perhaps they should. But the problem comes at the next step when they say: 'And therefore I ought to be restored to my church.' (We might call this argument the 'Jimmy Swaggart fallacy.') The problem is that their brothers and sisters in Christ need to see evidence that there will be no more such behavior, and this may take time. Moreover, although in God's eyes sexual sins are doubtless no more serious than the sins of pride, envy, lying, and gossiping that all Christians and clergy are guilty of, that is not how the world views things. The truth is that sexual sins by members of the clergy can do terrible damage to the body of Christ. Accordingly, it is rarely wise to move even a sincerely repentant and rehabilitated sexual sinner back into his former job."
I may have gone on a bit long with this item, but it merits attention, and Davis speaks eloquently, as when he concludes: "There is no doubt that ministers who fall are guilty of sin and do damage to the cause of Christ. The psalmist says, 'Do not let those who hope in you be put to shame because of me, O Lord of hosts. Do not let those who seek you be dishonored because of me, O God of Israel.' Maybe all of us who are clergy should carry this verse around in our wallets, or better, in our minds. At the very least, we need to live by it. If we did, there would be fewer clergy who fall from grace."--
(Perspectives, June/July 2000)
Reprinted with permission from CONTEXT, Claretian Publications, www.contextonline.org, 1-800-328-6515.