This book brings to the forefront a subject usually left for the back hallway of the church, the quiet corner of the pastor's conference, or the anguished closed-door session of the church council. How should the sexual sins of the clergy be handled?
LaHaye's answer to the question he asks in the book title surprised me. Knowing LaHaye as a conservative author, I assumed his answer would be negative. It wasn't. He believes ministers who have sinned sexually can be restored, but only after a restorative process.
LaHaye begins with the expected horror stories of ministerial infidelity. He cites a survey indicating that 33 percent of the 300 clergy polled confessed to "sexually inappropriate behavior with someone other than their spouse." He also advances his ideas about why ministers (male) succumb to sexual temptations. He proposes 13 responses a church can make, and gives a compilation of Scripture texts about restoration.
The most useful part of the book for me was the responses offered by 13 well-known, mostly conservative (La Haye calls them Bible-believing) clergy leaders. LaHaye asked for their opinions on the question of restoring ministers to service after sexual infidelity. The variety of thoughts, scriptures, and procedures gathered from these respondents should be in the hands of any church leader considering a policy or response to this clergy problem.
One goal of the author is to get churches to implement, before the prob lem arises, a plan on how to deal with it. To meet this need, he presents an eightstep model for restoring fallen ministers.
LaHaye uses a straightforward, didactic style. The prose can be somewhat wooden, but the well-organized content adapts to quick perusal. He assumes that ministers are male and spouses are female and that marital roles are conducted from a male headship basis. Female clergy will feel excluded.
This will be a controversial book, but it should facilitate discussion of a subject that needs the church's careful thought and active attention.
