Pastors guilt singles into sticking with the proposal?

Where they married when the girl came to the pastor seeking advice? Your post seems vague on that issue?

ThisIsMe123 said:

What sadden me was, a church leader guilted her into sticking to the marriage. I mean, what kind of a person does this? I figured it was just one of those crazy fundamentlist types? It was a small church I believe, so I can see some kind of isolationism here.

Click to expand...

No, it's not at all isolated (although it can be, - it is widespread) .. look up shepherds via biblegateway, and see not how many are good shepherds, if any, but how many God Says are under judgment/ already judged, for being wicked and for leading HIS people astray....

ThisIsMe123 said:

Oh, I thought I had mentioned she was only engaged at the time (not married) when she came to the pastor wanting to back out of the engagement (I think I should have said marriage "ceremony"). Sorry abou thtat.

Click to expand...

Don't be sorry. It was clear when I read it.

ThisIsMe123 said:

Oh, I thought I had mentioned she was only engaged at the time (not married) when she came to the pastor wanting to back out of the engagement (I think I should have said marriage "ceremony"). Sorry abou thtat.

Click to expand...

Well two mistakes happened..
1) She went to a Pastor for advice on the issue.. No need to do that. If she had doubts she should have made the decision for herself there was no need to involve the pastor in the issue..

2) The pastor gave unbiblical advice.. No where in the Bible does it say God is against people pulling out of an engagement..

I think the purpose of Christian premarital counseling to find out who shouldn't be married so I think this leader was wrong. He should have spent time with her to explore why she felt this way and to decide if she was committed enough to get married. However, he may have guilted her but ultimately, she made the decision to put on the dress and say yes to this man. She needs to own that she made this decision and not blame other people.

I also knew a pastor who guilted me into marriage with someone.

I declined the whole thing.

An engagement isn't a marriage. That pastor was very judgmental to say that she must stay in that engagement. Many pastors call themselves conservative and make it sound like they are more literal with the bible and more accurate. However truth is these people are often ultra judgmental in their so-called literal interpretation of the bible. In that they actually error on the other side, when compared to a liberal.

When Joseph was suspicious of Mary having committed adultery (she was pregnant with Jesus), Joseph decided to secretly divorce her. And Joseph was declared righteous. He was later stopped by an angel of course. Keep in mind that back then in Israel an engagement did almost mean the same thing as a marriage.

I said else where that adultery and abuse are grounds for divorce. So during an engagement if she saw signs of either adultery or abuse, she would be 100% in the right to break off the engagement.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths propagated in the Church about marriage. I don't view a pastor's opinion as worth any more than anyone else's opinion. As others pointed out, the woman in the scenario ultimately made her decision, and is accountable for it. The pastor, however, was a fool if he was aware of the man's abusive nature and counseled the woman to proceed with the wedding.

That's one example where a wedding does not equal a marriage. You can have a wedding ceremony, but it doesn't mean you're married in the eyes of God. It becomes a marriage that is little more than adultery. We are only married when God blesses that marriage. I find salvation to be a good analogy.

Baptism is to salvation what a wedding is to marriage.

You can be baptized upon "receiving salvation," but saying "The Sinner's Prayer" and getting wet means nothing if you don't mean it. Likewise, you can spend mountains of money for a dress or a tuxedo and a cake and all the legal paperwork for a marriage certificate, but it doesn't mean squat to God if both of you don't mean it, and if God won't bless it.

So you can be legally married for all of your life, but if God doesn't bless that marriage, it's not a marriage. It's adultery, and the proper response to adultery is to turn away from it. If you're in an adulterous marriage, dissolve it. Get divorced, and pursue God to find the one He has for you, in His time.

I've known couples who are "married," who should not be. They aren't married in the eyes of God, and it's obvious. He beats her, she verbally abuses him, they fight over everything. The church would often say they need to reconcile, and learn to love one another. Sometimes a couple is meant to be together, and does need to learn to love again. Other times, trying to reconcile is like fitting a square peg in a round hole, and the best solution is for them to turn away from their adultery.

It is always hard when we seek advice to know the motivation of the people you are asking. I have asked for advice in the past and sometimes received the worst advice possible because the advice giver has their own idea what needs to be done. Discernment when asking advice is essential. Sometimes, people haven't even given me any advice. I remember one time I asked my father for advice and he refused to give it to me! Not exactly helpful but he explained that he wanted me to make up my own mind.

As you get older, it seems easier to see that the advice is not always beneficial for you. Being so young at the time, I am sure that it was a struggle for her to make a decision about following a valued and trusted person's advice over her own desires. I just hope and pray that we are all able to discern the right path to take in our lives.

CCHIPSS said:

An engagement isn't a marriage. That pastor was very judgmental to say that she must stay in that engagement. Many pastors call themselves conservative and make it sound like they are more literal with the bible and more accurate. However truth is these people are often ultra judgmental in their so-called literal interpretation of the bible. In that they actually error on the other side, when compared to a liberal.

When Joseph was suspicious of Mary having committed adultery (she was pregnant with Jesus), Joseph decided to secretly divorce her. And Joseph was declared righteous. He was later stopped by an angel of course. Keep in mind that back then in Israel an engagement did almost mean the same thing as a marriage.

I said else where that adultery and abuse are grounds for divorce. So during an engagement if she saw signs of either adultery or abuse, she would be 100% in the right to break off the engagement.

Click to expand...

It would seem based on your post, that the pastor did what he did to keep things in a positive light in his church which is purely vanity, nothing to do with the Bible.

But things got terribly worse, hope he learned his lesson.

Evie1980 said:

I have asked for advice in the past and sometimes received the worst advice possible because the advice giver has their own idea what needs to be done.

Click to expand...

I met my ex-wife on the 4th of July at a church barbecue and we were married on the 5th of November. About a week before the ceremony, I confided in my best friend that I was having doubts about the marriage; I didn't feel that I really loved her and that it was all about shallow emotional needs and insecurities (which it absolutely was).

He told me that she was a beautiful Christian redhead, funny, sweet, hardworking, and probably the best I'll ever do. He told me that surely I would learn to love her and the little things about her that I was concerned about would work themselves out.

Yeah...

ThisIsMe123 said:

One woman I dated, she is in her early 30s now, but had a bad marriage that lasted only a year to a man she met while both were students in college. When she graduated, they were engaged...but she had her doubts about marrying him, because he was rather verbally abusive. She wasn't happy, so she went to her pastor about having doubts and wanting to back out of the marriage altogether.

She said that he guilted her into sticking to the engagement, somehow tying the engagement as something that she very much SHOULD honor in the eyes of God, and backing out of it would anger him.

Never such I heard such a bunch of malarkey in my life. Of course, she was 19 at the time..so she went ahead with the marriage.

Very bad idea. It only lasted a year.

What sadden me was, a church leader guilted her into sticking to the marriage. I mean, what kind of a person does this? I figured it was just one of those crazy fundamentlist types? It was a small church I believe, so I can see some kind of isolationism here.

Click to expand...

After my past experiences and what I've learned, I would NEVER marry or continue to date a verbally abusive man. Unfortunately so many people misunderstand how bad verbal abuse really is and how destructive it is to a relationship and a person; sounds like the Pastor is like that. Worse, some people just think the person is being melodramatic over it and making a mountain of a molehill when they're not. A shame.