Ask Andrea

A married church leader is tempting one of my family members to have sex. My family member is innocent, doesn’t want to get involved, and is evading the situation. How can we confront this sinning member, how can we solve this effectively in a Christian way? Please guide us.
Thank you,
Myrah

Dear Myrah,

Your remedies and solutions will depend on the exact position of this person in the church and your organizational structure. For instance, if it’s the senior pastor, report him to the denominational authorizes or the church board, or whoever is responsible for disciplining/firing him. If there is no such structure, no higher authority you can appeal to, and no one this person is accountable to besides God, don’t walk, RUN from the church. Out of concern for others, you should warn the other members of the church and let it be known why you are leaving.

Otherwise, handle this according to the scriptures (see Mt 18:15-17). Assuming this is a young female her father (throughout this, insert husband if she’s married) should first confront the man in private and give him a holy telling off. Yes, Dad has every right to get in the face of someone threatening his family like this. You can be both loving and firm. Stand on the scripture and politely but firmly confront him.

The next step will be take one or two others with you. At this point (or sooner if the holy spirit leads) bring in the the church leadership, those in place above him, such as a senior pastor, elder, or board member. They may stick to the biblical structure and go with you to confront him again, or go right into whatever disciplinary structure they have in place.

Biblically, in the last step, it’s taken before the entire church and they’re ex-communicated if they still don’t repent (stripped of membership and office and treated as an unbeliever). But you’ll have to follow whatever procedures are in place at your church. If the remedy doesn’t lead to his dismissal or repentance, again, don’t walk, run from this church and warn your brethren, as I detailed earlier.

First and foremost is protecting the victim of this harassment. If Dad isn’t in the picture or isn’t able to fulfill his biblical role, Mom can step up, but it’s preferable to ask another male friend or relative who can be trusted to fulfill the father’s natural protector role. Do not go light on this guy. He’s most likely a wolf, not a sheep. If you have reason to believe you’re dealing with a sociopath, do not confront him, but go directly to church authority. A sociopath will not respond favorably and will take measures to ensure the leadership believes him rather than you if you tip him off that you’re on to him.

That said, your average wolf is a coward at heart and will back off when Dad gets in their face. Once they discover their target for dinner has someone keeping watch over them, they will typically prefer to move on to easier prey who don’t have fathers protecting them. Sorry, Mom, but predators usually don’t find you particularly scary. Dads with a backbone, however, they usually don’t want to mess with. All I’m saying is be firm and assertive, standing your ground on the word of God. With the Holy Spirit’s guidance, Dad can politely and lovingly tell this guy off without getting violent, screaming, etc. This is not a time for meek and mild. This calls for strength. The Lamb of God we emulate is also the Lion of Judah. So long as Dad goes in under prayer covering, having sought God’s guidance and leading, Dad should be fine.

Again, if Dad’s not available, Grandpa, big brother, Uncle, Pastor, close family friend/spiritual father can be effective as well, especially if he’s committed to being involved in her life as a paternal substitute. As a last resort, Mom, go yourself in the power of the Holy Ghost and let Father God do the telling-to through you. This also goes for older sisters, aunts, and grandmothers if you happen to be the only person keeping watch over the lamb.

Note to Husbands: as I said in the parenthetical earlier, this all applies to you if the victim in question happens to be your wife. Your father-in-law handed the responsibility over to you when you said I do.

In Christ’s Love,
Andrea Graham

Laser & Sword Magazine–first e-issue free!

Popularity: 24%

 by Andrea J. Graham

As a result of a potent combination of the attack on fatherhood and disintegrating families that we discussed last time, many Americans, true believer and secularist alike, operate under their personal variant of one of two popular understandings of who the God of our fathers is.

The first views God as an inept namby-pamby who can be tricked and is quick to forgive—the sliver of truth all good lies have mixed in. Paul must not have known what he was talking about in Galatians 6:7-8, as the god we believe in would never think of allowing us to suffer the consequences of our actions.

This god also is not someone you can expect much help from when trouble inevitably does come, and even if he seen as such, he’s certainly not a god worthy of honor. Sure, we often show him lip service and shower him with praise. But the intent is, at least in part, to stroke his ego with empty platitudes in order to grease the palm that hands out blessings, the assumption being our god, like all fathers, is too stupid to know what we’re up to.

We don’t rely on his grace so much as his approval of anything we set our little hearts on, for he loves us far too much to deny us anything we desire. Or else he simply knows he created us with enough sense to figure out what’s best for ourselves. He respects our boundaries and majority rule and wouldn’t dare to butt in on matters that don’t concern him, such as how we conduct our lives outside the confines of the church walls.

On the other hand, many of us struggle under the idea that God is a cruel tyrant, able, but unwilling to help us, for he in his righteousness is angry with us at any hint of wickedness, real or imagined. We may try, but we never quite feel like we have pleased him and sense we are unable to please him, imaging God is not fully aware we’re frail fallen creatures made of dust and incapable of attaining, at least on our own, the degree of purity that the citizens of Heaven must possess in order for Heaven to remain Heaven.

No, this god expects us to obtain perfection in our own strength, without any help from him, and grows wroth at always having to bail us out and is infuriated that we can’t stand on our own two feet and fall flat on our rumps every time we try. True, we often cling to the hope Christ can make intercession for us, yet we still live under a cloud of fear, just “knowing” one false step, and we’ll be struck by the proverbial thunderbolt this god evidently borrowed from Zeus.

Nothing but absolute perfection can please this god—and it’s true that no mortal can stand before the Lord of Hosts on our own merits and live, but this god, if we’re honest with ourselves, actually despises us, wishes Christ never went and paid the penalty issued against us, and is looking for an excuse to go back on his promise and cast us into Hell. In the meanwhile, he seeks every opportunity to bring pain and suffering into our lives for no other reason than his own sadistic pleasure.

We don’t pray to this god, because he won’t answer. We don’t expect or seek blessings from this god, because he won’t give them–unless we manage to twist his arm with enough good deeds, and then only so those points won’t go towards the “entrance fee” apparently not covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. The last thing we expect is this god to keep any of the promises in the bible, as he only made those promises so he could take them away from us as punishment, or they’re only for select favored people, which usually doesn’t include us.

If we’re fortunate, this god has gotten so mad, he’s walked off entirely, abandoning us to follow the natural laws that govern the universe or be swallowed up.

And a miracle? Forget it. This god isn’t in the miracle business anymore. And don’t expect anything to ever change—not for the better, anyway. You’ll just get more of the same old same old, though that’s the only way he’s reliable.

Indeed, it’s this god’s will we stand by and let the world get worse and worse, as he’s looking forward to the events of in John’s Revelation and getting to bathe a world he’s eager to condemn (see John 3:17) in his holy wrath. Of course, he’d turn around punish us for doing his will that we allow evil to reign if Christ would let him (see Phil 2:7-8 , but I’m sure you know what Christ is expected to make him do instead (see John 15:10)—for those that are good enough, anyway. The worst of us will have to get our acts together just in time to become martyrs or else. The revelation isn’t about a final push to draw people to him, no, it’s all about getting back at those dirty rotten sinners, one last hurrah before Christ will force him (see 1 Cor 15:28) to lay aside vengeance and blood shedding and punishing and oh yeah, the thunderbolt, too.

It goes without saying, among believers, most of us who think this way certainly love Jesus with all our hearts, but we’d just rather avoid His father if we at all can. If we’re totally honest with ourselves, we wouldn’t want to be in the same Heaven as him, either, if the alternative wasn’t Hell. Don’t ask us to explain the trinity, though. We’ll get a convenient headache. < good natured ribbing> Of course, some of us have dumped God the Father for Jesus the Father, Jesus the Son, and Jesus the Holy Spirit.

Some of us, though, flicker between the two opinions, unstable, wanting to believe in the namby-pamby god, but secretly afraid God’s really the tyrant and not about to have anything to do with him if he is—and in all our back and forth, never arriving at the truth.

The devil doesn’t care which lie we believe in, as neither is a god we can trust, a god we can respect, a god we can even truly love. We’re much too filled with fear of the tyrant, and too busy taking advantage of the namby-pamby while keeping the Jesus Heaven Insurance Card in our back pockets. We’re certainly too busy trusting in our phony get-out-of-hell-free card (the one that promises we can sin all we want and get into Heaven) to place our trust in the true saving grace of the Perfect Father, who saw a world filled with broken people enslaved to sin and incapable of doing anything pleasing to Him, who willingly sacrificed His only begotten Son on our behalf, to free us not only from the penalty of sin, but ultimately from sin itself, who when we acknowledge our wrong and submit to His authority, will come sweeping into our lives and day by day remake us into His holy image, so long as we allow His Spirit to work in us, and will continue this work in us until the day we are ushered into Christ’s Kingdom. (Phil 1:6)

And a Perfect Father who means what he says and does what he says He’ll do, every time, all the time, just on time, without second thoughts or reluctance born of remorse? For many of us who profess the name of Christ, that’s simply unbelievable.

In truth, God is far more just and righteous than the tyrant, and his love and forgiveness render the namby-pamby’s an obscene mockery, but in separating God’s justice/righteousness from God’s love/forgiveness, and vice versa, both are rendered lies.

Behind all the lies, is that crafty old serpent, waging a war on fatherhood and the proper role of men, not merely to attack and decimate the family, or even the culture and civilization, but to strike out against and slander the Perfect Father Himself.

Knowing the devil is striking out at us ultimately to hurt our Eternal Father, protecting ourselves from this attack will bring the brethren to a place where we have to start making what for many will be some tough counter-cultural choices. And being far more careful of the media we expose ourselves and our children to is only the beginning, but the rest God must reveal to you. He may call you to step out into some form of activism (political or otherwise), to educate on these matters within your local church body, to make a difference in your own community and model the love of the Father for a child who does not have a godly father in their life. You may even be called to create media that truly honors the Lord and a biblical world view.

Trackposted to Rightwing Guy, Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson’s Website, Is It Just Me?, The Random Yak, The HILL Chronicles, stikNstein… has no mercy, basil’s blog, Blue Star Chronicles, and Stuck On Stupid, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Popularity: 34%

In the past forty or so years, the traditional role of the father has been all but destroyed in our culture. In a relatively short time, we’ve gone from producing shows like Father Knows Best and model families like the Cleavers to the Brady’s to shows like Step by Step (a ‘90s remake of the later that I once followed faithfully for the record) to Ellen, Friends, the Simpsons, King of the Hill, and their successors.