Church disciplines wife for wanting to divorce husband who admitted paedophile leanings

[RandySF]

A Dallas megachurch is facing accusations that it has failed to deal with one of its members who viewed images of child abuse and instead made his wife a subject of church discipline.

The 10,000-member Village Church, whose lead pastor is Matt Chandler, supported two of its members, Jordan and Karen Root, in their work with the SIM USA mission organisation in East Asia. Jordan Root was found to have been viewing child pornography and his appointment with SIM was terminated following an investigation and his admission of guilt.

Jordan Root entered what the church called a "process of walking in repentance" and the church was told: "1 John 1 reminds us that he is washed clean of all unrighteousness, met with forgiveness, and granted fellowship with the body. Even with egregious sin, we are now called to reaffirm our love for him." He was removed from ministry and reported to the authorities. He was allowed to attend worship at the church if he was accompanied by a member, and also forbidden to enter the church's children's ministry building.

Karen Root – now Karen Hinkley – took steps to have her marriage annulled and resigned her membership of the church. However, The Village Church has a strict 'covenant' membership policy which includes the commitment: "I will seek to preserve the gift of marriage and agree to walk through the steps of marriage reconciliation at The Village Church before pursuing divorce from my spouse."


http://www.christiantoday.com/article/church.disciplines.wife.for.wanting.to.divorce.husband.who.admitted.paedophile.leanings/54480.htm

[LeftyMom]

1. "Church discipline" has been a big trend among fundies for a while,

and the policy of not letting people transfer membership while under discipline is sadly typical.

However since there are a skillion fundamentalist denominations this isn't really much of a threat, because your new church is almost certain not to care. I've heard a lot of stories about abusive discipline of this sort, and precisely none of them ended with the person being threatened with church discipline having any trouble finding a new church.

[justiceischeap]

2. What I'm most surprised about regarding this article

is not how the church acted but by the fact there's a blog devoted to outing churches with sex abuse issues.

[avebury]

4. She was totally right to resign from that church.

The church is delusional to think that they can force her to remain a member of their church. I would be curious if she could obtain a restraining order out against the church and its leadership. She should have had a clue about how they operated when they told her that she could not separate her fiances from her husbands before they even found out he was looking a child porn.

This is a good example of what a lot of women will face if the uber Christian nuts are allowed to force their way on the general public.