Her face was convulsed with emotion as tears ran down her cheeks, her hands twisting a forgotten handkerchief into a tight knot. She finally choked out the reason she wouldn’t go near church: “I was baptized almost seven years ago. The preacher called and convinced me that’s what I needed to do. We went right to the church, just the two of us, and he baptized me. Then he came into my dressing room and made a pass at me!”
As she told me her story, I was shocked. An extreme event? Yes. Appalling? Atypical? Yes, but sadly not a unique or isolated occurrence. Even some of the churches I’ve been associated with have had to ask for a preacher’s resignation because of sexual misconduct.
So why the sexual failings, especially among ministers? A lack of Christian devotion or sincerity is rarely to blame. I suspect something more insidious is behind the problem. I’ve noticed three subtle but powerful dangers that cause extra temptation for the “professionally religious”:
Overfamiliarity with God. It’s hardly possible to be too close to God. But it is possible to become so accustomed to the reality of God that we no longer stand in awe of him.
As preachers, our times of worship are easily identified with work. Our recreation, much of it, is wrapped up in church activities. Our career is the church; our homes are often the property of the church. Our amusement, our jokes, our funny anecdotes and ironic remembrances, our comic relief-all center on the church. We handle the things of God day in and day out.
Because of this, we may begin to lose the awe that keeps us in profound respect of the holy and righteous God who will judge his people.
Sin saturation. Compounding this tendency is our constant traffic with a numbing array of people’s sins. Rightly we speak of God’s boundless forgiveness and willingness to restore. But week after week, a torrent of sins needing forgiveness flows past our awareness until we may begin to lose sense of the awfulness of sin. We who ought to hate sin more than anyone because we so constantly see its devastating effect can become the most blas toward it.
We’ve seen so many gross sins that when we are then tempted, it may seem such a minor thing if we, too, should sin: All that forgiveness will surely cover me, won’t it?
Job overload. It seems close to blasphemy to say we need time away from the things of God. Maybe that’s why so many are unwilling to say it, let alone secure it.
Everyone else needs a break from thinking about jobs and the demands of work. Since our “job” surrounds us with the things of God, our minds need a similar rest. It’s only natural.
Yet, so much do our minds need a hiatus from constant religious exposure that we can find ourselves vulnerable to amusement far removed from the things of God, and our society offers limitless opportunities for such escape. They’re as close as the television knob, the magazine rack, or the bookstore. And they sully the hands of God’s workers.
The answer? A devotional pattern that places us starkly in awe before a fearsome God. A God-angled view of sin and its consequences. A habit of escaping the pressures of Christian work, for relaxation and renewal-activities that don’t violate the holiness of God. Easy? Not at all, but necessary.
-Bill D. Hallsted
Truman (Minnesota) Church of God
Leadership Winter 1988 p. 19
Copyright © 1988 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
