Not Again!

I was over at Out the Door and read John B's post about a pastor in MN who has been accused of sexual misconduct. The man may be guilty as can be. But lets assume for a moment that he's actually innocent until proven guilty. I know, what a concept!

How does this affect him and the rest of the United Methodist denomination?

Let's talk about our connection first. I see us as more unconnected these days than ever with the exception of three areas. We are connected through apportionments, iteneracy and how we are seen in negative lights by the the public.

This kind of negative publicity is one of the things that gets people's attentions. When we do something good, we're on the last page of the Religion section. When we've done something wrong, we're headlining the front page of the paper.

This is just another way of seeing our Denomination as bad. It's because when people read about this incident, many will automatically get a bad taste for us Methodists. I mean, ain't all Episcopalians liberal and believe in homosexuality? NO. But I wonder how many people believe this now?

As for these allegations against the man, as I said before, they may be true. If so, I hope he gets his due process and then has his credentials taken away. But again, what if he (or the next sap that hits the front page news) is actually innocent?

A couple years ago we had to attend an ethical training seminar to be reappointed in our Conference. It was because of all the news stories that were going around at that time in and out of our Conference. I think it was more of a way to reduce the liability to the Conference, but that could be another story. I asked the question in that meeting about how many pastors were falsely accused. There was a UM attorney there answering some of the questions. She said that about half of the accusations against clergy are true.

Of course that means that half are not, which means that half of these pastor's ministry's have been altered for no reason at all. For as long as a pastor has been accused, there will always be doubt about him/her...even when they are supposedly proven innocent.

It scares me to death what one mad and unbalanced person can do to my ministry. And so I pray that I and that my colleagues and friends in ministry first never fall into this temptation, and second are never falsely accused. Both could be devastating.

In the love of Christ,
greg