Topic category: Religion & Philosophy in the News
Pastor Threatens Damnation Of Children To Silence Critics
Pastor Jason Cooley at SermonAudio homilized that, if you are critical of the pastor in front of your children, your children might apostatize from the faith in the future.
Dependent upon what the pastor is accused of doing, if the deed is sufficiently egregious, doesn't the pastor also bear some of the responsibility for this potential religious abandonment?
What this pastor was doing from the pulpit was attempting to frighten critics into silence.
Pastor Jason Cooley admonished in the sermon that one ought to largely remain silent regarding a pastor's errors or mistakes.
He likened this form of criticism and analysis to a form of backbiting or secret whispering spoken of unfavorably in Scripture.
Often a pastor's sermons consist in large part of what others have done wrong even if the names are changed.
Therefore, what is so wrong with the average Christian, as part of their own ministry, exposing errors on the part of pastors so that all throughout Christendom might be better protected against them when spiritually assaulted by similar doctrine and pastoral malfeasance elsewhere?
Scripture warns about spreading secrets and talking about that which one ought not or which there is no verifiable proof.
However, a sermon is a public oration.
As such a discourse, it is open to reflection by and cogitation upon by those that hear it. The role of the pastor is to protect the flock.
Then shouldn't it be the role of studied voices from within the flock to protect the flock from the pastor even if that protection consists of little more than assurance that more than one mind is formulating these kinds of concerns?
By Frederick Meekins
Frederick Meekins
Issachar Bible Church & Apologetics Research Institute
Biography - Frederick Meekins
Frederick Meekins is an independent theologian and social critic. Frederick holds a BS in Political Science/History, a MA in Apologetics/Christian Philosophy from Trinity Theological Seminary, and a PhD. in Christian Apologetics from Newburgh Theological Seminary.