You have no clue what it is like to be a pastor’s family. I do. I have no idea all the people that my husband may have pitched in to help, although I know some of them. A person could take any of those instances where the recipient happened to be a woman and try to make mincemeat out of my husband’s reputation, simply because to the impure all things are impure. Believe it or not, but there are lots of people in this world who give without getting something in return. A lot of them are pastors, who are constantly being asked for help by people in various kinds of need. This is routine stuff for pastor’s families. And there are people - often women - who are perpetually needing help and keep coming back, refusing to let go until they get what they need.
My husband has one gal who keeps coming back; he knows she is lying to him and the other Lutheran pastors in the area know of her lying as well; the inter-denominational Ministerial ASsociation has long since gone past their limit on what they’re supposed to do for one person. The local Community Action office knows her and won’t give extra help to her for the same reasons. So who does she have that she can go to? The individual pastors, who know that if she doesn’t get assistance her kids are going to be without heat or food.
Pastors don’t tell people the stuff they give because it’s between them and God, and the Bible says not to do stuff to get praise from people but to not let your right hand know what the left is doing.
And most people have no idea what pastors have to deal with.
I can’t say what happened with Cain, but I can say that what he claims happened would not be out of line with what I have experienced as a pastor’s wife.
That's what I first wrote on Tuesday about what I thought would be the story.
And on Tuesday I also said that the texts were all going to be one-sided here.
-PJ
But Cain is not a pastor. That's the major difference here. Heck, I've given money to women myself without expecting anything in return but not repeatedly and always clearly as a gift where there is no chance for them to claim that there was anything remotely sexual about it.
I've spent time around pastors (and other professionals) who tell me that rule number one is to *never* be left alone with an attractive woman that's not your wife so that there's never an appearance of impropriety and that any suggestions of impropriety can be blunted by an eyewitness.
And any mercy giving ought to be tracked even if it is not made public.
As for the lying mother, if the decision is to give her money or her children freeze and starve then the children need to be removed. That home is not a good environment for children. Or, if that sounds too cold, force her to search for a job as a condition for getting gifts. All this pastor is doing is enabling the liar and teaching those around her that this is acceptable behavior with no consequences.