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Over at Essence.com there is a frank piece about adultery in the church by Dr. Betty Price, the wife of televangelist Dr. Freddy Price, Jr. of the Ever Increasing Faith Ministry. He’s from the “prosperity gospel” approach to Christianity.
Apparently the rampant fornication by the men up in the pulpit (with the wives looking the other way), has reached the boiling point for Price, who started receiving letters from women who were engaged in affairs with pastors. A common thread — access to money, and coercion by the pastor using biblical bullsh*t. Her book is sure to rock more than a few boats in a faith community rife with denial and hypocrisy.
The first letter was from an older, mature woman. She’d just bought a luxury condo but lost her government job after 25 years of service. Her self-esteem was very low. She didn’t know what to do because she was financially strapped. And, she was older and didn’t think she would be able to find another job in this economy. She reached out to her bishop for counseling. They began an affair. It’s been going on for three years. The second woman was from a different church. She works on a committee in which she interacts with her pastor daily. They began spending long hours together. Then the affair began. Now, she is desperately trying to get out but doesn’t know how.Both of these women said they know what they are doing is wrong but expressed they don’t have the strength to leave. Both ministers have threatened and coerced these women. They told them, “If they stop the affair then they would be dishonoring God.” However, both women expressed they were benefitting financially in the relationships. They were stuck. Unsure of what to do.
Do you even have a second thought that these same women probably condemn LGBTs, even as they engage in this behavior? Price recounts her own brush with her husband’s “itch”, and this is another reason she has written the book ’Warning to Ministers, Their Wives and Their Mistresses’.
It bothers me to know many ministers have mistresses sitting right up in the church. Their wives and children are subjected to public humiliation. Some ministers even have children with their mistresses and leave their wives. I’ve talked to a lot of women and they say that in all the churches they’ve attended the ministers have been unfaithful and run around. I personally know so many that it’s scary. These women know what they are doing. Don’t be fooled. I wrote my book because I want to expose these types of men, and women, who do this.
More below the fold.Well, the blame starts at the top. If these married ministers can’t keep their peckers in their pants regardless of the women throwing themselves at them, they shouldn’t lead the flock and talk about commitment, fidelity and sin. They do need to be exposed, just as the wives who look the other way because they see their man as a big fat wallet. What is the point of religious principles and beliefs if you can’t even handle the Ten Commandments? How can you selectively condemn the LGBTs sitting in the pews? If you cruise around the web site, there’s a section that condemns homosexuality through exclusion by by design in the section “Avoiding the Sex Trap“:
Too many Christians are ensnared in the sex trap. Although God created sex for the enjoyment of a man and a woman in the context of marriage and for procreation, both fornication and adultery are weakening the fabric of the Body of Christ and making its witness of no effect. Many are falling into the sex trap because they are seeking love in all the wrong places rather than submitting themselves to God. I Thessalonians 4:3 says, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality…&qhot; Sexual immorality is not only pervasive in the world, but the Church. Sexual immorality hinders a Christian from being all they can be in God.
Of course it doesn’t state that sexual orientation itself is a sin, as far as I can tell. The church seems to do the usual head fake of “you can be alone, celibate and give when the basket comes around.”
Of course the bottom line is that those black LGBTs who are sitting there closeted (and trust me, more than half of the congregation probably knows you’re a homo), silently taking the biblical beating from the adulterer in the pulpit, the hypocrisy will continue.
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It’s common when a male power structure dominates any cultural group dogmaticallyWomen’s second place position leads to contempt towards women, then to objectification of women, and finally to an arrogant, hypocritical use for women built upon the entire “handmaiden of men” conception. It most certainly does not belong to only one race, though it may be more pronounced or perceived as more pronounced in the Black Churches due to their strong position in the Black Community.
One of my heroes, James Conolly commented on the attitudes towards women coming from the pulpit and being ingrained into a culture and state nearly a century ago:
Re: Male power structuresAnd charismatic creeps are attracted to positions where they can abuse power.
o RLY
Perhaps I’m very cynical and jaded, but the “denial and hypocrisy” part is very strong and may prevent many boats from being rocked.
It’s the same as with any position of powerPeople are attracted to the idea of being with someone in an authority position, such as pastors, politicians, and professors. And that often seems to give the person in power the idea that he deserves sex and can get away with it. Of course, the temptation can be hard to resist. We all saw Bill Clinton up close and in gory detail.
When I was growing up, my dad pastored a Methodist church, and even though our church was small and totally non-charismatic, he still had the phenomenon of women throwing themselves at him from time to time. It made my mom crazy. My dad has told me that, even though he never cheated, he had the opportunity, and there was an least one time that the temptation was hard to resist.
My best friend’s mom was in a relationship with a Presbyterian minister during our teen years. I thought he was the most wonderful person, and so did my friend. Then one day my friend’s mom gets a call from the church secretary letting her know that her boyfriend had been having affairs with three different women in the church, when he was supposed to be giving them pastoral counseling. When the shit hit the fan, he didn’t even stay to sort out the mess. He left the state, and as far I know, never came back. What an a**hole.
At least my dad and the Pres. minister weren’t anti-gay, which is more than I can say for the Baptist minister who had an affair with my uncle’s wife….
Oh she will definately rock some boats!I can see an entire movement arising from this. So often in the Church people are just waiting for someone to go first, to let the cat out of the bag, and this will do it on so many levels. In many ways the gay community often sees a united front from the Churches that isn’t actually real and infidelity in the body of Christ is one of the reasons so many would rather carry the torch for our destruction when their own houses are burning to the ground. Over and over we have seen it perpetuate the many leaders and conservatives out in public. So I think it is frankly good for the church and in the long run good for even the gay community that members begin to deal with their own pain and hopefully begin to understand ours by doing so.
I’m not sure…how shocking this will really be. The Down Low phenomenon was much more hush hush, and most women were not necessarily aware of it.
THIS is not a secret anywhere. In fact, the idea of the man of the cloth having affairs with female members of his flock has been talked and written about for ages (and tends to be more rampant the more repressed or devout the flock). Its simply no secret.
My mother’s from a small town in the South and she could tell you some stories going back decades. Indeed, while she herself is a church goer and believer, the LAST person she is likely to trust is a minister for the very reasons articulated in the article. Her mantra has always been that the people that are loudest about their piety and devotion are usually the biggest sinners. That bit of wisdon tends to apply universally.
“…dishonoring god…”???
These charlatans (and by that I mean every single person purporting to be a priest, rabbi, mullah, pastor, chaplain, llama etc) are repulsive.
I saw a tv evangelist the other day asking 1,000 people for $1,000 and they actually ran a disclaimer under him saying that there was “no guarantee that god would answer their specific prayer”
I hope the human race grows up in the next 2,000 years, but I have little expectation of it.
I have to agree with SciFi Geek on thisWomen throwing themselves at the married pastor and the married pastor getting on with as many of these women as possible?
Never heard of such a thing.
it’s not about secrecyThe breakthrough is Price is discussing it openly, as in “airing dirty laundry”. She most certainly will cause people to try to shut the conversation down.
Anything that they wish to silence is worth proclaimingas loudly as we can.
The thing is…I don’t necessarily think that its “dirty laundry” in any meaningful way. I’ve seen women talk about it openly. I sued to work at a bank on the South Side of Chicago with a bunch of 20-30 something black women. You would not believe how many had been solicited by revrends/ministers on a fairly regular basis.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, opposition to homosexuality in black churches have very little to do with religion since most of the folks in there are usually up to something that would normally get them shunned.
BreakthroughI have to agree, because I remember some black men being pissed over the male author of those “men on the downlow” books.
The original book got black women talking and paying better attention to their men; made the women a little snoopy especially if they were suspicious of their man being on the downlow.
And there’s nothing a hypocrite hates more than for somebody to be up in their business, when they think they’re free and clear to behave the same as they’ve been accusing everyone else of behaving.
I’ve Heard Of It….but have never seen it in the church I grew up in.
But that’s because even though we had a revolving door of preachers throughout the years, NONE of them were attractive enough to kiss, much less sleep with! LOL
I can tell you….In the third paragraph (below the two white boxes) Pam asks “….how can you [ministers] selectively condemn LGBT sitting in the pews? [while fornicating or committing adultery themselves].
EASY – I’ve actually asked some religious people, and they say that “straight sex” is normal, leads to reproduction etc. While they don’t “excuse” the fornicator from cheating on his/her spouse, it is “normal” sexual relations they are lusting after.
AND they truly feel (however misguided) that the Bible condemns our kind of sex.
LOL, you’re right about thatblack folks in churches are usually up to some sin!
I do think that, like all homophobia really, homophobia in the black church is a derivative of sexism, though. NOw the sexism in black churches isn’t as overt as the homophobia because…well, 65-70% of the congregation is women.
And here’s the real problem
Sex is not just for procreation, is not just for marriage, is not just for heterosexuals. It’s amazing how many people continue to insist upon monogamy (especially for women in a het context) when we see time and again its stunning failure. People put sex in this little box and expect it to stay there? Yeah, good luck with that. Here’s an appropriate quote:
But no, the hypocrisy isn’t all that shocking to me even with Dr. Price talking about it. Since the more conservative the church, the more this happens, we all know how repressed those people are. The breadth and depth of hypocrisy should not shock anyone who knows the mentality of the Holier Than Thou crowd.
Black lesbians Anne Allen Shockley and Barbara Smith have written about this phenomenonSmith, in her anthology Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, posits:
Shockley, in her 1974 book Loving Her, addresses the issue of homophobia among black women who can forgive pretty much any other sexual “sin.” She writes that according to homophobic WOC, being homosexual is still seen as a “white disease,” something white people invented to further tear apart black families. Black men and women having adulterous affairs, raising illegitimate children, all of that can be forgiven, because it’s still within the black community. But bringing in the “white disease” of homosexuality is unforgivable.
Kev, any thoughts on Smith and Shockley’s position?
The same attitudes can be found in the christian API communities. Which, living in Hawaii, always makes me laugh, that such vehemently anti-white Pacific Islanders use the white colonial occupier religion to justify hating their own brothers and sisters. But that attitude is there, and it isn’t changing any time soon.
When My Prayer Group Threw Me Out …it wasn’t because being a lesbian was so much more of a sin than any the other members might have been committing, they said. It was because I was “an unrepentant sinner.”
It was in college, and the group was associated with the fundamentalist and evangelical Assembly of God church.
I went on to co-found the state’s second gay student organization (1974).
And, ayup, it was in Maine.
Then, Astra, please accept my thanksfor your actions on behalf of all of us and the stands that you took
And I for one am glad that they put you out; you had more Christ-like work to do elsewhere.