Can sex with a pastor be an affair?

CANADA
Canadian Mennonite

(The following article discusses a difficult topic in story form. All characters are fictional, although the events referred to are based on an amalgamation of true experiences.)

She went to her pastor for advice, not sex.

Another woman accepted her pastor’s invitation to chair a committee he oversaw, not an invitation to be sexually preyed upon.

And still another woman was encouraged by her pastor to enter the ministry, not to enter a sexual relationship with her seminary professor, who was also the on-campus pastor.

Each of these women thought they knew what they had agreed to. None of these women ever expected a pastor to do something so egregious as to manipulate them into having sex with him. The worst part of it was that each woman blamed herself for having an “affair” with her pastor and each woman hid silently in her shame. By holding his secret, each woman protected the trusted authority figure who had betrayed her.

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