" Dr. Graham addressed the crowd at the start of the church's regular worship service. He said the church had accepted Joe Barron's resignation, which took effect immediately.
"You need to know that we are appalled and we are disgraced by this terrible action, an unacceptable action by a minister on our staff," Dr. Graham said. "I'm so sorry for the injury that this kind of behavior has brought to many people in our church and outside of our church."
Police arrested Mr. Barron, 52, Thursday morning after he drove from Plano to Bryan to meet with what he thought was a 13-year-old girl he had met online, authorities say."
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Some Questions:
~Is this a bad person doing a bad thing, or a good person who made a mistake?
~Are Pastors exempt from mistakes like this?
~What should the church do with him?
3 comments:
Only God can truly answer the first question, though of course there will be no shortage of people who will try to supplant Him.
Obviously the church needs to cut him loose from a leadership position, as to excommunication, not so sure about that one. Though it would be prudent to keep him away from minors.
If you're at this church, how would you even begin to rehabilitate this man? Or have our churches become such havens of finer-pointing that the only thing we can think of is 'how can he show his face there again?'
Given the nature of what he did, is he going to have to go Bill Buckner and go live in Idaho?
We are all techinically "bad" people who do bad things...but because of the grace of God we are made "saints", therefore, I guess christians are "good" people who make mistakes. But was this a mistake? He is a grown man who made the choice to drive to find that girl, it wasn't like he was in a bar and his judgement was impaired and he went home with someone he didn't know...he intentionally saught out a young child and went to find her. That's a little more touchy. And no, NO ONE is exempt from any sin. We are all just as human as the next, our job description doesn't make us any less vulnerable. But if we as Christians find ourselves out of the will of God to this extent they should not be put in leadership roles within the church. And likewise, the church should take on the responsibility to take in this wayward man of God and aid him in his journey back to where he needs to be. Of course this can only happen if he is willing, but it is the church's job to be there with forgiveness and support in rehabilitation.
This all brings about another question for me.
Can you "rehabilitate" someone from something like this? I don't have much knowledge on the subject, but people have told me that the rehabilitation rate for pedophilia is little to none.
Furthermore, if a man is prone to behavior like this, and/or tempted severely by this particular sin, should he have allowed himself to be placed in that position?
Does this go hand and hand with the homosexuality in the pulpit, or are they completely different subjects?
And lastly, should I have put these questions in the original "Some Questions" portion of the post?
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