Pastor Charles Jenkins of the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago has a big problem. His congregation just found out that he has been sleeping with a woman who is not his wife and also that he paid her off for several years by giving her a cushy job at the church. We hope he wasn’t using church money for all of this, since this adds another level of complexity to the situation.
In this episode of Financial Lovemaking, Dr Boyce Watkins and S. Tia Brown discuss the good pastor’s choices, and how they might play out financially, emotionally and otherwise. There is a broader discussion about the potential legal liabilities that one might run into for using organizational resources to pay for their personal activities. Additionally, there is the question of whether or not monogamy is a reasonable expectation for any relationship.
What do you think? Are these stories becoming common to the point that there might be factors or temptations that people aren’t willing to accept?
There is also an odd issue with nude images of the pastor that ended up online and an alleged extortion attempt from a woman who said that she wanted $20,000 for not putting the images out into the public eye. So, whether this pastor was doing good or bad things at church, it appears that his personal life was becoming a bit of a mess.
Check out the video and tell us what you think.
How should churches deal with pastors that get caught in hypocrisy? Are we being unrealistic by expecting everyone to be monogamous? Only 3 – 5 percent of all mammals are monogamous. What does that say about human beings?
