{"id":1123,"date":"2026-07-24T16:25:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T20:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mernestbritt.com\/?p=1123"},"modified":"2026-07-24T16:32:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T20:32:05","slug":"on-pastoral-scandalagain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mernestbritt.com\/?p=1123","title":{"rendered":"On Pastoral Scandal\u2026Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here we are: another pastoral scandal, and this one is somehow even closer to home than the one I wrote about just a couple of months ago. Where the disgraced and disqualified pastor in my previous essay was once a respected hermeneutical hero and dear acquaintance of mine, the subject of this present article was a friend, a cohort of sorts. We met early in my youth, and as he was a few years older than I was, I had the privilege of often enjoying his fervent preaching and passionate antics early on in his own fledgling years of ministry just before beginning my own. Our paths diverged early on: his path led to national fame and accolades while inheriting a large church, and mine led to pastoring a small church in Maine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two days ago, I learned that this man was arrested for repeatedly engaging in predatory homosexual behavior with a minor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you’re going to address it like everyone else, I’m guessing<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

You’ll be happy to know I\u2019m eager to spare you the typical \u201cthis means we need to pray harder for our leaders\u201d and \u201chey, no one\u2019s above sin\u201d and \u201cwell, he loved Jesus but just fell into sin\u201d stuff. Every other barely-informed person\u2019s social media feed is rife with sentiment like this, and not only is this sort of thing almost entirely inappropriate for when someone is exposed as a predator, but it simply comes across as cloyingly familiar and increasingly meaningless as time goes on. We need way <\/em>less “he was a good guy who made a bad choice” and more “we need maximally increased accountability to protect our flock from predators and wolves going forward.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in case I haven’t been clear, I’m fully fed up with the slogans and mantras around these sort of sick, perverse occasions. Spouting little aphorisms like “well, we’re all just one step away ourselves” and “were it not for grace” while sanctimoniously shaking our heads doesn’t quite cut the mustard when you’re dealing with someone who clearly had a pattern of sexual immorality in his life for a while. This may be presumptive, but I am confident <\/em>that you don’t do what this pastor did without having been comfortably mired in sexual sin for a protracted period of time. No, this wasn’t “stumbling into sin” or anything like it; this was predatory. It was wolf-like. And we need to start holding our “heroes” and “favorite preachers” to the same standard we would if it were a stranger engaging in depraved sexual behaviors with your <\/strong><\/em>child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you’re just ranting, then?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I am actually writing this article with another sort of corrective in mind, which is as follows: I have seen, multiple times now, the “I-told-you-so”-style posts on social media.1<\/a><\/sup> I won’t link any directly, but I will paste a quote from one of them (I’m not bothering with the “[sic]” application in this quote lest I wear out those four keys on my keyboard): “Many of you were warned over a year ago! Didn\u2019t listen then & probably won\u2019t listen now\u2026.but when the MUSIC goes, the MANUSCRIPT goes, the MODESTY goes & for sure the MORALITY will go! Exodus 32 lays that out definitively! Quit giving place to these guys who are constantly leaning left! Jezebel has joined the church y\u2019all!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ah, so he lays out a pattern, you see? He states it clearly: Music goes first, then manuscript, then modesty, and then finally morality. He’s not the only one to make this statement or similar formulations of it, but he’s ranked highly — very <\/em>highly — among my personal list of the more obnoxious and harmful pastors in the world today, so I chose his quote. Of course, as one might expect, this got over a thousand <\/em>“likes” on Facebook. Never mind that this professed pattern of slipperyslopery2<\/a><\/sup> is demonstrably false, and never mind that this boorish pastor was conspicuously silent about his “Music > Manuscript > Modesty > Morality” pattern when a KJV-only, hymns-only, suits-and-dresses-only pastor debased and disgraced himself a couple of months ago. No, this is just a convenient way to equivocate positions he doesn’t like with moral failure. And it’s a nasty, disingenuous thing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I heard a similar pattern when I was an assistant pastor at a church in Maine; interestingly, it was the pastor’s wife who said it to me: “First, the music goes, then the dress standards go, and then the Bible version changes.” She shook her head before finishing up in her southern accent: “Every time.” So for this pastor’s wife, the order was a little different, but the premise was the same: it’s a surefire pattern. Once you start surrendering your dress standards and music standards and your — gasp <\/em>— Bible translation, you’re bound for failure of all kinds. So I feel quite impelled to dismantle this inane foolishness by exposing two underlying fallacies as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Movement 1: The Slippery Slope Fallacy<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

First: It is patently untrue on its face that music standards, Bible translation choices, or even general dress standards in a church act as preventatives for predators, and the transitive implication is untrue as well: that shifting in these things inevitably leads churches down a slippery slope that results in, well, homosexual pedophilia. What an outrageous suggestion. In fact, historically, insular environments like the ones cultivated by the IFB culture often provide the best camouflage for wolves, not deterrents. Why? Because an embrace of arbitrary music standards, misinformed adherence to a particular translation of the Bible, and outlandish emphasis on odd standards of modesty are all mistaken for holiness<\/em> in camps like these. And they often are seen as a near-automatic safeguard in the church. But the facts reveal that this is simply not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2018, an 8-month investigative report3<\/a><\/sup> uncovered at least 412 accusations of sexual misconduct in 187 IFB churches and institutions in the USA and Canada. Note that these aren’t churches that had “compromised” on their “music, manuscripts, and modesty.” No, the overwhelming majority of these churches were KJVO, hymns-only, and had a list of modesty standards a mile long. But that didn’t stop sexual predators from infiltrating their churches; instead, it did the opposite: it generally facilitated them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this same report, 168 church leaders were accused or convicted of sexual abuse particularly against children, and at least 45 of those who were accused as abusers remained in active ministry after the allegations surfaced, often relocated through informal pastoral networks. Forty-five<\/em>. That’s forty-five too many. Or to source from a Lifeway study4<\/a><\/sup>: <\/p>\n\n\n\n