Crap

From the bad news department we have this little tidbit. Turns out a former pastor of mine has been arrested for trying to solicite sex from a twelve year old on the internet (the twelve year old was actually a male adult police officer posing as a twelve year old in a sting type of operation). Needless to say this was quite a shock. But it already has me thinking, wondering how someone could fall into such a pit, and then I realised that it was entirely too easy. And that scares me, because there have been times in my life when I have been headed in the wrong direction, and it is so much easier to just carry on than to turn around. What would happen if I made some slightly different choices in my life, if I allowed the lure of anonymity on the internet to embolden actions that I would otherwise shrink from. Anyone who thinks that it is impossible for them to fall into such traps is fooling themselves. Because what I said about him falling into a pit was wrong. I can guarantee that it was a long journey composed entirely of small steps, most of them completely unnoticeable at the time but obvious in retrospect. And that's how it always goes - one little step, a step that 'won't make a difference' merely greases the step until you are sliding out of control. I've never been one who is completely in control in the first place. I tend to sit back and let things happen, which isn't always bad, but has very deadly consequences if I'm not careful. You can see why it worries me a little. Because I know this pastor, I know he's not a bad guy. I just feel sorry for his wife and child.
The other reason that I don't like this is because it is entirely possible that this will lead to anti-church/anti-Christian sentiments among people, which is completely unfair. I'm always conscious that claiming to be a Christian leads to higher expectations of morality and ethics, and rightly so I think. However, lost in that scrutiny is the fact that every single Christian on the face of the planet (and Muslim, and Catholic, and Buddhist, and Jew, etc) is human, and as such is completely fallible. Maybe it's just that Christians have farther to fall than those who claim no particular religious affiliation.
All in all, this sucks.

The first comment I received on this post made a good point - at this point the facts have not all been found and reported on. It is possible that he is innocent and there is some sort of mix up (someone else was using his computer or something like that). Innocent until proven guilty. That doesn't change the sentiments of my post though.