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HUSBAND, FATHER, MENTOR, LEADER, SINNER
Dear Professor Theophilus:
One of the leaders in my church is married and has a child. Recently I found out that he had an affair with my friend. She and I are both in the college group. I often felt guilty and angry about them, even before I knew that anything was going on. Now I feel deceived. It's true that my friend confided her crush on him to me, but I always dismissed her feelings. She and the leader were spending a lot of time together, but I assumed it was just a mentor-mentee relationship. After it all came out, my pastor reprimanded several of us for not telling him our suspicions, but none of us had ever imagined that things would go so far.
Could I have done more? Should I have told the pastor? If the leader repents and reconcile with his wife, should he be reinstated in leadership? If I think he shouldn't be, then am I guilty of holding his sins against him? I know that no leader is completely sinless, but it doesn't seem right that he should continue as a leader.
I'm sorry for the jumble of thoughts. I'm pretty confused about this.
REPLY:
I think you have more than one question. The first is "Am I right to think that I have been deceived in some way?" The adulterous pair certainly deceived the youth leader's wife, but I think a better description of the wrong done to you and the other members of the group is "betrayal."
Your second question is "Could I have done more?" Yes, I'm afraid so. You comment that you somehow felt angry and guilty about the two partners, even before you knew they were committing adultery. The anger tells me that you sensed something wrong with their relationship, and the guilt tells me that you thought you should have said something about it. If you had such strong intuitions of something wrong, you should have talked to the two of them about your concerns. If your concerns remained after talking with them, then you should have talked with your pastor.
Your final question is "If my leader repents and reconciles with his wife, should he continue in his leadership position?" Here my response has two parts.
In the first place, the former leader needs to do more than repent and reconcile with his wife. After all, his betrayal also deeply harmed the college group. It also harmed your friend — his partner. It's true that she wasn't innocent. Even so, he was supposed to be guiding her, not corrupting her. He needs to repent and apologize for those harms too.
But in the second place, he shouldn't be reinstated in his leadership position even if he does do these things. The reason is that he has shown himself unfit. Yes, he can certainly be forgiven and brought back into fellowship. By itself, however, forgiving him doesn't heal broken trust. Nor does forgiving him require you to pretend that he has the moral character, which in fact, so far, he lacks. For his own good and the good of the church, he should be under leadership — not a leader.
Perhaps some far-off day, after he has long abandoned and repented his unfaithfulness, and long continued in faithfulness, he may acquire that missing moral character, and he may even regain that lost trust. But you cannot know now whether that will ever happen; the only thing you know today is that the trust is gone and the necessary moral character is absent. Therefore, to retain him in leadership would be wrong in three ways. It would hinder his own purification; it would risk repetition of the sin; and, by seeming to take the sin lightly, it would deepen the harm to the church of his previous bad example.
Grace and peace,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS
AN EASY WAY TO GET MARRIED?
Dear Professor Theophilus:
Several years ago I held the view that there's no such thing as premarital sex because the very act of sex causes you to be married. Since then I've changed my opinion, largely because of your book The Revenge of Conscience. My problem now is that even though I've changed my opinion, I honestly don't know how to refute my former scriptural argument. Can you show me how to do it? Here it is:
- Having sex is synonymous with becoming one flesh (1 Corinthians 6:16).
- Becoming one flesh is synonymous with being married (Matthew 19:3-6).
- Therefore, having sex is synonymous with being married.
Thanks again for your help.
REPLY
Yes, I think I can help you out. Here's how I would revise your first two propositions to make them square with the biblical passages in question.
- Extramarital sex makes the man and woman one flesh (1 Corinthians 6:16).
- Marital sex also makes the man and woman one flesh (Matthew 19:3-6).
Follow closely here: It doesn't follow from these two premises that extramarital sex makes two people married. If we draw that conclusion, we would commit the same logical fallacy as thinking "Campfires make warmth, and sunlight makes warmth, so campfires must make sunlight."
If you don't mind my throwing in a little bit about natural law, let me add what I think the Bible means when it says that the sexual act makes the two people one flesh. Short of a divine provision for people called to permanent singleness, there is something missing in the man which must be provided by the woman, and something missing in the woman which must be provided by the man. This is most obvious in the physical dimension. In the case of all other biological functions, only one body is required to do the job. A person can digest food by himself, using no other gullet but his own; he can see by himself, using no other eyes but his own; he can walk by himself, using no other legs but his own; and so on with each of the other functions and their corresponding organs. Each of us can perform every vital function by himself, except one. That one is procreation.
What this demonstrates is that among human beings the male and female sexual powers are radically incomplete, and designed for each other. If we were speaking of respiration, it would be as though the man had the diaphragm, the woman the lungs, and they had to come together to take a single breath. If we were speaking of circulation, it would be as though the man had the right heart chambers, the woman the left, and they had to come together to make a single beat. Now it isn't really like that with the respiratory or circulatory powers, but that is exactly how it is with the generative powers. The union of opposites is the only possible realization of their procreative potential; unless they come together as a single organism, as "one flesh," the procreative act has not taken place.
That's what one-flesh unity means. But marriage is more than one-flesh unity; it's what sanctifies one-flesh unity. The act of marriage is the entrance into a divinely blessed and covenantally-sealed procreative partnership.
Does that help? By the way, I'm glad that The Revenge of Conscience was useful to you. You might want to check out my new book What We Can't Not Know.
Grace and pace,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS
INSTANT PURITY: NO MUSS, NO FUSS, NO BOTHER
Dear Professor Theophilus:
I found it deeply disturbing to read your column "Porn and Stuff," wherein young proclaimedly Christian men wrote in to explain their struggles with pornography and masturbation. What disturbed me is that you never once recommended the freedom that will come through Jesus Christ once these young men truly experience salvation. Allow me to explain.
After an early exposure to pornographic magazines, I spent my teen years fascinated by and addicted to pornography, masturbation and cybersex. Though I was increasingly convicted by the Holy Spirit, I could not ultimately rid myself of the addiction until I read Romans 7, realized that I no longer had to do "that which I would not," and prayed a simple prayer of faith. The next day, I was free from the addiction. Liberation was instantaneous. Exactly once after my salvation, I fell back into lust, but I immediately realized that it was no longer an uncontrollable desire.
This is the experience God has planned for all who would become sons of God. Once one has found salvation in Jesus Christ, one does not have to struggle with sin.
REPLY
Theological errors tend to come in pairs. The fact that we need moral discipline to follow Christ doesn't mean that we can do without His help; the fact that we receive His help doesn't mean that we can do without moral discipline. You don't need the first reminder, but I think you need the second one. Just because I gave practical advice about discipline, you think I was denying grace. This is a terribly dangerous mistake.
Forgiveness is instantaneous, but the freedom of perfect purity takes time. Some few individuals are delivered from particular sinful tendencies overnight, as you think that you were. But no one is delivered from all sinful tendencies overnight. If you believe that you have been delivered from all of your sinful tendencies, you have probably not examined yourself as carefully as you think you have.
Be more honest toward yourself — and be more charitable toward your struggling neighbors. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," says Paul (Philippians 2:12). Grace doesn't mean no struggle; struggle doesn't mean no grace.
Grace and peace,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS
UNREACHABLE?
Dear Professor Theophilus:
After a long time away from the Church, now I try to live my faith, but it's turning out to be harder than I expected. My questions are about talking to my two atheist friends. The first one had parents who were atheists. Since he learned everything from an atheist point of view, how can he understand when someone talks to him about God? Another atheist friend is different. He used to be a believer, then he thought "I can explain the world equally well with God or without God, so why not take the simpler explanation — the one without?" I don't know how to speak about God to him either.
REPLY
We aren't trapped in the points of view that we receive from other people. If we were, no one could ever change his mind about anything. God surrounds even atheists with clues to the truth about Himself. If you read Acts 17, you will find St. Paul reminding the Athenians of God's clues. They were idol-worshippers, yet something told them that none of their idols could save — that there was an Unknown God whom they hadn't discovered.
Here are some of the clues God has given to your first friend: The creation around him, which testifies to its Creator; the Godward longing deep within him, which nothing earthly can satisfy and the Church itself, which tells him the answer to the question that every heart secretly asks. For years I was an atheist myself. In retrospect, I see that I wasn't ignorant of the reality of God; I merely deceived myself. I knew deep down that God was real, but I told myself that I didn't know, because I had decided to live without Him.
Your second friend's mistake lies in thinking that he can explain the world equally well without God. He can't. The laws of physics don't explain love and friendship; the relationship of matter to energy doesn't explain the difference between good and evil; the theory of natural selection doesn't explain beauty; genetic predispositions don't explain the pangs of conscience. What your friend has done is exchange the vast, real world for a tiny, make-believe world containing only the things that he imagines he can explain — all because he doesn't want God to be real.
Sooner or later, despite all his efforts to shut out the real world, reality will demand entrance. When that happens, he may start asking questions which the principles of his tiny, make-believe world cannot answer. Pray that he will ask these questions, and pray that God will soften the crust of His heart so that he will be able to hear the answers. You and his other Christian friends must be prepared to be Christ's witnesses when that day comes.
Grace and peace,
PROFESSOR THEOPHILUS
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