Recently, I came across an article written by my endorsing organization, The National Association of Evangelicals. This article is entitled, “Can Pastors be Restored After Adultery.” It was posted in May 2012.

The article is more or less a report from a poll taken from evangelical leaders on the question posed as the post’s title:

Can pastors be restored after adultery?

Only five percent of those surveyed treated adultery as a forever-disqualifying sin preventing a pastor from returning to the ministry. Most referred to the concept of grace suggesting formerly adulterous pastors could eventually return to ministry. Many added comments requiring a rigorous restoration process.

That said, I am not planning on providing my own answer to the NAE survey question here. Rather, I want to pull out what I found interesting in regards to my own situation as a pastor divorced from an adulteress and my former denominational home, The Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA).

My former denomination, EFCA, required this of a pastor who had committed adultery:

“The Evangelical Free Church of America requires a minimum of a two year recovery time for repairing relationships, a denominationally determined and supervised recovery program, and upon completion, recommendations from the recovery team that the person return to ministry. At that point, reinstating credentials is considered.”

Now, this is especially of interest to me considering the conclusion of my ecclesiastical trial to retain my minister’s license. They granted me an exception to their Divorce Policy–i.e. my divorce was not supposed to be held against me regarding my ministerial credentials since my former wife had committed adultery per their assessment.

However, EFCA officials added a rider to that waiver:

“Additionally, since this is more than just a technical matter leading to a formal decision based on policy, the Board of Ministerial Standing requires one year of pastoral oversight. John Herman, Executive Director of EFCA Pastoral Care Ministries will come alongside the North Central District in collaboration pastorally to monitor your progress. At the end of this year a decision will be made if another year with a spiritual mentor is needed.”

-Signed Gregory C. Strand, Director of Biblical Theology and Credentialing, September 25, 2013

As if that is not bad enough, the North Central District (NCD) official in charge of that year of “pastoral oversight” interpreted that year as follows:

Post-DPE [Divorce Policy Exception] Pastoral Care for David [DM’s Last Name]

1. Input from divorce-care leader

[NCD Official] will contact the leader of the divorce care ministry that David participated in at Westwood Community Church (EFCA) in St. Cloud.  [NCD Official] will obtain his assessment of David’s overall trajectory of personal recovery.

2. Input from [local EFCA pastor]

[NCD Official] will ask [local EFCA pastor] to report to him on a quarterly basis how David is doing on basic aspects of divorce recovery:

– addressing root issues in his life that contributed to the divorce
– healing from the divorce: anger, forgiveness, grief, etc.
– overall honesty and humility

– counseling as necessary

– overall readiness for ministry

At the end of the year [NCD Official], [EFCA Official], and John Herman will confer about the results of this input to see if we are satisfied with David’s progress and can affirm the sustaining of his credential.

Remember:

I did NOT commit adultery. I was the faithful spouse in my marriage!

Yet, they still required a rigorous oversight and a vote on my credential as if I was the perpetrator of adultery as opposed to the victim.

That is what strikes me about the statement in the NAE article on pastors who have committed adultery. The only difference I see in how I was treated is that I was not required to officially go through this process for two years–yet that was certainly a possibility–and they did not immediately take my credentials.

However, if the NCD Official interpreting the year of oversight had operated as he usually did in divorce situations with local pastors–as he proudly explained to me more than once–he would have taken my credentials as well!

Yet, to this day, the major actors in my story have never bothered to apologize for what is clearly–IMO–examples of unbiblical divorce prejudice against divorced faithful spouses who happen to be fellow ministers.

Also, towards the end of my time with the EFCA, I was told that this plan was merely for support reasons. They explicitly told me that it was NOT disciplinary in nature. 

What do you think?

If a middle-management HR official came to you and gave you this plan at your place of employment, would you consider it care or correction?

In particular, would you consider a vote on your license to work, a care action or a disciplinary action?

What if that vote could not remove the license but only went into your HR file impacting your potential progression at your place of employment? Would that make it care as opposed to disciplinary in nature?

Of course, it is disciplinary. 

I went to Yale. I’m not stupid. You do not vote on someone’s credentials as an act of care but as an act of fitness assessment. Place this “care” plan in the secular world, and the disciplinary nature of it is beyond obvious.

This plan is as if the NCD Official simply took what they did with adulterous pastors–see the above quote from the NAE article–and applied it to me, a divorced adultery victim.

In the former case, that is completely appropriate:

An adulterous pastor ought to be disciplined!

However, in the later case, it is an example of unbiblical divorce prejudice:

The idea that all divorced individuals require discipline regardless of circumstances because–the prejudiced assumes–a divorced individual is always guilty of something needing correcting because they are divorced!

Since the article and my personal experience, the EFCA has done away with their Divorce Policy Exception process, thankfully. See my assessment of the new process (here, here, and here).

My point in sharing this is to point out how an evangelical denomination with good people–I am grateful for many who are members and even leaders in the EFCA today–still got this process wrong. They did not properly and appropriately differentiate their treatment of adultery perpetrator and victim.

Divorce prejudice–i.e. the unbiblical kind–is deeply, deeply entrenched. 

That is what my experience has taught me. And the only way forward, IMO, is calling it for what it is:

Ungodly, unbiblical, and unjust!

It is past time the church and denominations stopped disciplining adultery victims for being soul raped. Pastor victims included!

---

*P.S. I am more than happy to talk with any EFCA official or pastor reading this who would like the continue the conversation with me (Go to “Contact Us” tab for my contact information).

What I am sharing is what I experienced. It is historical as opposed to polemical. My purpose is NOT to disparage the EFCA or any particular EFCA official!

That said, if what I share looks bad, that is a reflection upon those actors from those times. Their words and actions were bad. That is why it looks bad. To be clear: I do not hold unforgiveness towards any EFCA actor, yet I do not forget what I experienced either. We cannot learn from past mistakes and experiences if we chose to forget them and pretend that they did not happen.