UNITED STATES
Patheos (blog)
September 29, 2019
By René Albert
In the Evangelical congregation I was once a part of, there was a council of elders who led the church. Each individual elder had to meet specific biblical criteria in order to be fit for the position of leadership, such as display a virtuous Christlike demeanor, refrain from alcohol and recreational drug use or certain leisurely activities that might encourage ungodly behavior. When my former Evangelical church was in the process of looking for a new pastor, one of the factors that seemingly disqualified some candidates was being single and unmarried. The reasoning behind this was that some members of the congregation preferred a pastor who could relate better to married couples with children — which, to me, isn’t a bad reason.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.