Beware of people calling themselves “pastors.” Of course, there are many good and decent pastors, priests, ministers, and chaplains who are doing important work. It’s the few bad apples who make news.
Many of those cloak their politics in religion, like this guy. Some are haters, and even advocate murder, like this guy. Some are murderers, like this guy and this guy. You can’t trust your children around someone just because they’re a “pastor.”
You can’t trust them with your money, either. Some pastors live it up on tithes from followers and revenue from selling religion, like these guys. The late televangelist Pat Robertson cut deals with brutal dictators and trafficked in gold and blood diamonds in his pursuit of personal wealth (see story here). Actually, for some pastors, religion is a for-profit business enterprise.
Today, June 10, 2024, I have two stories from current news about “dirty” pastors.
The first involves megachurch pastor Robert Morris, another wealth-seeking political activist religion pusher who’s accused of molesting a 12-year-old girl in 1982, when Morris was 21. He can’t be prosecuted or sued for that, because the statutes of limitation of expired.
So it’s between him and the victim, now a middle-aged woman who’s carried the scars of that encounter all her life. Think he’s contrite, or seeking forgiveness? Guess again. His lawyer is blaming the 12-year-old girl, arguing the she in effect seduced him, and trying to portray him as the victim. (See story here.)
The other story involves a pastor and his wife traveling on Alaska Airlines “for an event related to their ministry.” Aboard the plane, in flight, he punched her in the back of the head because she was upgraded to first class and he wasn’t. According to witnesses, this godly man’s exact language was, “How the hell did you get the upgrade?”
She later told police her husband “knew she had epilepsy and contact with her head could cause a seizure. She claimed he had a history of abusing her and had previously broken her finger.” He was arrested and the airline banned him. (See story here.)
The moral of all these stories is: Don’t judge people by what they call themselves, judge them by what they do. And pastors, like the rest of us, are human and fully capable of all the evil things other men do.