Posted on 12/04/2019 11:20:39 AM PST by Gamecock
While 18 is still a teenager, it is also the age of consent to legally engage with other adults in sexual activity.
No, you were an adult who knew exactly what you were doing. He certainly doesn't deserve to be a pastor or involved in any church leadership position. But that doesn't make you a victim. Sounds like somebody is looking for a judicial payday.
And he wasn’t much older. So this is not like some naive 16 year olds being preyed on by an adult 20 years older.
Not against the laws of man. But I would bet Jesus would do a facepalm and have some stern words for this shepherd.
He was 23 and they were 18? I am unable to giverdam.
I have a friend who was a high-school classmate. When she was 18 she married a man who was 39. They are still together all these decades later. Not the most likely scenario to work out, but it can.
“If he was single what difference does it make?”
Fornication is the same as adultery and LGBT.
.
If 18-year-olds can be manipulated into sex they do not want, maybe we should not let them vote, because clearly they can be manipulated into voting without having a clue.
I was 25 when I met my wife. She was 19. Totally normal.
Of course, I was no youth minister.
One of my best friends married a 19 year old when he was in his 60s. I never said anything but thought it was a bad idea. He always dated real beauties including a Miss Universe from Venezuela and a Miss New Mexico.
I am really surprised that they are still married maybe 12 years later. No children.
Nothing immoral, first marriage for both but still a very bad idea.
Also. This was 17 years ago, when they were 18.
He is 41 now, which means he was 24? Yes, that is “older” than 18, but not like what you think when the women talk about “that’s what we thought it was supposed to be with an older man”.
Now, the real problem is a pastor in extramarital affairs with two people in his charge, and it is shocking that the church treated this so flippantly.
On the other hand, I knew a youth pastor who started dating one of the youth and ended up marrying her and they have kids and a wonderful life.
Plus, as a "pastor" he was in a position of spiritual trust or authority, and he abused that by making sex a perk associated with his, ahem, ministry.
The ages don't matter. If he was 39 and she was 42, it's still fornication.
Courtship, it is not.
“who started dating one of the youth and ended up marrying her”
Courting is good.
Fornication is bad.
The thing that drove it home to me why that would be a bad idea:
TONY RANDALL
When he was 84, long after his first wife had died, he remarried a 27-year old and fathered two children with her.
He never lived to see them get out of kindergarten. That always struck me as incredibly sad.
I think it’s his using the “authority” of his position as church leader combined with his offering counseling. Licensed counselors are punished if they have a sexual relationship with a client because it’s viewed as emotionally exploitative - the victims were stating they were troubled and needed authoritative help. They were in a youth group - so there’s church and parental expectation validating that the leader will not exploit troubled people who seek counseling from him.
That was my problem, after my wife died, as I thought about whether I would marry someone who still wanted children, and decided it would not be fair to the children to lose their father while they were still kids or young adults; could I go play ball with a 10-year-old if I was 70?
He was still their pastor. And married, at that.
There are lots of sins, but a pastor having sex with a parishioner, whether he’s married or single, is out of bounds.
Oh, how narrow minded and old fashioned you are! /s
Very few people want to say any sexual behavior is just plain wrong. That's why there's discussion about whether he broke the law.
And proud of it! ;)
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