“A Memphis megachurch pastor received standing ovation
during a church service on Sunday after he admitted that he had engaged in a
‘sexual incident’ with a high school student 20 years ago in Texas.”[1]
That the woman had made the man’s prior misdeeds public just days before throws
into doubt whether the pastor deserved the ovation by his loyal flock. Prompted
by the firing of Matt Lauer, the anchor of NBC’s “Today” show, the woman emailed
the pastor more than a month before his public acknowledgement at his church;
he had not responded to the woman’s email to apologize. Letting his flock in on
the secret hardly added much value to the man’s character, for damage-control
is not laudatory. The standing ovation connoted not only praise on the man and
a revalidation of the pastor’s continuance as a religious leader. That a
Christian leader could be validated as such, rather than invalidated and thus
shown the door, throws into question the integrity of religious leadership
itself.
1. Matthew Haag, “Megachurch Pastor Admits to Illicit ‘Sexual Incident’,” The New York Times, January 10, 2018.
The full essay is at "A Megachurch Pastor as a Christian Leader."
