Tuesday, June 13, 2006

why never to date a pastor

this made me snort:

Where breakup books excel, however, is in detailing breakups worse than yours. In Love Hangover: Tips for Christian Singles, for example, the author describes being dumped by a pastor who explained only, "God told me to do this."

yikes.

[thanks to bookslut]

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cowardly, and dishonest. Hmmm. What was that Biblical commandment against lying again? :)

Wasp Jerky said...

Hadn't you heard? Since Bush is a liar, it isn't a sin anymore.

Anonymous said...

Only special people can date and marry pastors.

Molly Malone said...

Ouch! Having grown up a PK and grown up around other pastors, I'd've asked if he really did everything else God told him to. ... or maybe God was micromanaging him because God knows he can't do anything well enough on his own; like he needs the safety scissors or something. In which case, maybe God is doing the dumpee a favor.

Delia Christina said...

snort.
'the safety scissors.'

in the church of my youth, there was always this mystique around the pastor and, since the pastor was my dad, i just never got it. i mean, ok, he has a cool robe but really, who'd want to date a pastor?

all your dates will be ministry dates!!

(molly, i've known quite a few pastors who needed the safety scissors. they were the ones who married rather quickly.)

Delia Christina said...

joy,
you're right. it takes a special woman of extreme patience and forbearance and a unique talent for self-effacement to be a pastor's wife.

they're like any political wife; they're very shrewd, perceptive in ways their husbands aren't and not particularly idealistic. pragmatic. practical. remembering the wives i met or knew about back home, they were also, most often, smarter than their husbands. cannier.

Michael Westmoreland-White, Ph.D. said...

Well, I'm a minister's husband and find it a pretty good deal. Of course, I still know what you're talking about. When my spouse interviewed for her first position as an assistant pastor, the senior pastor invited us over for dinner. Remembering all that pastors wives did in the churches of my youth and fearful that someone would expect me to play the organ (I'm tone deaf), I asked the senior pastor if anything would be expected of me. "Oh, not much," he replied. Whereupon Mrs. Senior Pastor went into the kitchen and began banging all the pots and pans! I thought the reaction entirely justified.

Delia Christina said...

i know exactly what you're talking about.

i was visiting a pastor and his family (they were friends of my dad) and when Pastor J was going on and on about his ministry, his plans, how excited he was, how he wanted my dad to check out the church with him, blah blah blah, his wife was in the kitchen making dinner rather *loudly*.

since he'd been with my father all day, Pastor J's wife (and their three little girls) hadn't seen him all day and man was she angry.