Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach….
-I Timothy 3:2, NIV (Emphasis mine)
LifeWay Research just published a study on Protestant pastor views on restoration of pastors after committing “adultery.”
The results are not so surprising to me. Only 27% are willing to commit to the position that a pastor is permanently disqualified from the pastorate after committing “adultery” as a pastor.
I am putting “adultery” in scare quotes because the moral offense is likely better described as “ministerial sexual abuse.” When a pastor uses his or her office to have sex with a congregant or anyone under their care, it is abuse of the office and that person.
Honestly, I believe the Bible is fairly clear that this is permanently disqualifying. It will never be the case that a cheater-abuser pastor is faithful to their spouse as they will always be historically a cheater-abuser. Plus, this puts such a pastor outside the category of “above reproach.”
According to I Timothy 3:2, this means the pastor is not qualified to hold the office of overseer. That is a permanent state following such a moral failure as I read the Scripture here.
That said, such a former pastor can be restored to the church as a congregant. Hopefully, they repent and are restored in that way. However, that does not mean they ought to be restored to an office of trust after abusing such trust.
In many other professions of trust, we understand this. For example, we do not talk about the eventual restoration of teachers to the profession if they sleep with a student. The permanent barring of a person from the pastorate makes sense in light of the serious nature of the moral failure.
Part of taking adultery seriously (and ministerial sexual abuse seriously) is acknowledging this as permanently disqualifying for church leadership positions.
What this study tells me is this blog is greatly needed as the Protestant church continues to struggle in taking this sin seriously. It has confirmed what I have known for years:
Taking adultery seriously is still a radical stance in our churches!
We have a long way to go when only roughly one in four Protestant ministers say such sexual sin is permanently disqualifying from the pastorate!
