Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of nickg5
nickg5Flag for United States of America

asked on

Beyond the 10 Commandments on child birth

One of the 10 Commandments is adultery. A female member of the church who attends every week, missed three Sundays. The minister and some members were concerned about her well being, etc. In an e-mail to the minister she said that she had traveled to meet someone to discuss starting a family. She is not married so no adultery on her part. Nothing is known about her partner.

If a couple who are not married to other people have a child out of wedlock have both of them committed a sin?
There is more to this and we can post more later.
Avatar of John
John
Flag of Canada image

Common law couples are legal here where I live. They can bear children and have all the obligations of support. So nothing against the modern bible here.

I think common law relationships are legal in United States as well.

Such unions are not legal everywhere.
Avatar of nickg5

ASKER

Lady at her church missed 3 Sundays. A rare thing. People were concerned for her well being. Finally she sent the minister an e-mail and told where she went and why. To discuss starting a family with someone she has known for some unknown time.
This caused the minister to really react by saying that they had failed as a minister because the woman didn't feel comfortable in going to the minister to talk about it. And she doesn't have the confidence in the minister to reveal where and what her plans were.

Is this some philosophy or belief based on denomination?
This will circle the church talk for months trying to figure out why a minister would expect her members to seek guidance on such a thing.
What % of persons tell everyone they know about all their travel plans = ?
That is a bit of a different question. If the lady is not happy that is one thing. If the congregation shares her feelings, that is quite another. That cannot really be a question for any forum. You need to engage your organization's pastoral relations committee
Avatar of nickg5

ASKER

Religious beliefs or ? caused the minister to have certain expectations.
Were those expectations clearly out of bounds? Why or why not?
Not really, People relationships can be difficult, so there is not any way to say. Any realistic point of view must be based on interviews with the parties involved.
Avatar of nickg5

ASKER

Why would a minister expect members to be confident enough in the minister to seek guidance on their domestic choices?
It seems the minister 100% assumed child out of wedlock and being of the .......... denomination over reacted in a possibly a big way.
Was it any of the ministers business?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Tim Edwards
Tim Edwards
Flag of Canada image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of nickg5

ASKER

Tim: Both are female.

What about denomination playing a role?

We have two angles:
a. One is the member did not seek guidance before they traveled to Kansas I think it was.
b. And the minister getting very upset about possible child born out of wedlock.

Jesus was born out of wedlock.
So were other names in the Bible.

It could be a very touchy sin due to the denomination involved here.
Do all denominations cause clergy to get so upset about child out of wedlock?
Shouldn't parents expect the child be blessed by the church and it's birth be a blessing from God, regardless of whether the couple was married?
Most denominations allow same sex couples and the issues is a BIG one for society. Society has no overall answer, so none here either.
Avatar of nickg5

ASKER

Most denominations allow same sex couples.................this is not a same sex scenario.
It's a female church member (male friend) who has a female minister and this particular denomination does not allow same gender. Though same gender is not involved here.
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of Member_2_276102
Member_2_276102

...caused the minister to have certain expectations.
Were those expectations clearly out of bounds? Why or why not?
It's impossible to answer...

...Except by the minister.

We could possibly give hundreds of guesses with none of them being correct. So, exactly what are you looking for? Are you looking for a way to rationalize all of it for yourself? (Even if the reasoning is wrong?)

Is the minister asking for help? Is the woman asking for help?
Avatar of nickg5

ASKER

I spoke to the lady and asked her in confidence if she considered seeking guidance about starting a family (in or out of wedlock) by speaking to the minister. She said it never crossed her mind. And is confused on why her minister reacted so violently so as to imply that she the minister had failed the lady and the lady did not and does not have confidence in coming to the minister for guidance on such matters.

As an observer it seems the minister had high expectations.
The specific denomination does have alternative views on some things.

.........................Is the minister asking for help? Is the woman asking for help?..............
I do not personally think the woman has any obligation to announce to her congregation her plans.
The minister thinks they have failed the woman or failed to "reach them."
Personally this church tries to hard to convert. They pressure and intimidate in a subtle way.
So it looks like a conservative church and not likely reflective of society's views. But that does not mean they speak with any real authority - just a strict conservative viewpoint.
Avatar of nickg5

ASKER

If member considers a child out of wedlock then the clergy thinks they have failed that member, failed to reach them religiously, and that the member did not go to their clergy to discuss their plans.
Avatar of nickg5

ASKER

John can you help me with my desktop on a problem that exist at this moment and not related to any of my open questions. I got a message saying if I turn my system off all files and folders will be lost. I need some guidance on what to do. It's 5:20 pm EST. Thanks.
Sounds like a virus to me. Do you have an up-to-date anti-virus program running?

If it doesn't say which program is producing that message, try opening Task Manager (Ctrl-Shift-Esc) to see what programs are running. If you can see a likely culprit, or anything that looks out of ordinary, try killing it.

And, of course, now is a good time to run a full backup - best to do that before anything else.
Avatar of nickg5

ASKER

We have Trend Micro free through ISP so tens of thousands of people use it vs. the paid version and we have Lenovo Recovery which is storing over 6 GB. I could be wrong but I do not think it is a virus and I misread a popup message. It actually meant that any data with the temporary profile would be lost upon shutdown.
Did you use your normal login? If you did then your profile may have become corrupted, so Windows assigned you a temporary one. You should have seen a message that “You have been logged on with temporary profile" when you logged in.

In that case you may have to re-create your profile. Make sure you save all your user data first, from both your normal user account and from the temporary one! This sysprob link gives some ways to fix the problem.
BTW I know you were trying to contact John Hurst, but the correct way to handle this would be to start a new question and send John a message to alert him to it. Click on the username and you'll get a page with a link to send a message. Don't tack a completely different question to an old one