Calvary Chapel Pastor in Florida Pleads Guilty to Murdering his Mistress

Calvary Chapel Pastor in Florida Pleads Guilty to Murdering his Mistress

I first saw this story via Janey The Small on Twitter. This news story seems familiar – I hope I didn’t already post it to the blog.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: Christian singles: drop the “Equally Yoked” teaching. You need to judge people by their character if you want to date or marry them. You should not, for your safety, go by a label. Just because someone wears the label of “Christian” does not ensure they are a friendly, loving, ethical person.

I’d also have to say that stories like this go to show the Christian teaching of “hot, regular Christian married sex” is a great big falsehood. If married Christian sex was so great, why do I see these news stories of these men cheating on their wives?

By the way, this story also goes to show that contrary to a lot of Christian teaching, you do NOT have to earn a spouse, or be perfect or godly before God will send you a spouse. If that teaching were true, murdering slime balls like this guy in this story never would have been able to marry.

(Link): Calvary Chapel Pastor in Florida Pleads Guilty to Murdering his Mistress

Excerpt:

James Flanders, the Calvary Chapel Pastor from Florida who was suspected of murdering his mistress who he considered his “second wife” has now plead guilty to manslaughter charges as part of a negotiation for reduced sentencing and a plea deal to lessen his time in prison.
— end excerpts —

That post in turn links to this one:

(Link):  Former pastor pleads in murder case involving missing woman (VIDEOS)

April 2016

FORT WALTON BEACH — Former pastor James Ty Flanders pleaded guilty Thursday to killing Marie Jane Carlson in October, 2011 and has shown authorities where he buried her body.

Today will begin the “very tedious and time consuming” task of unearthing the corpse, according to State Attorney Bill Eddins.

…Flanders, who has been in jail facing the second-degree murder charge since last May 14, finally confessed during plea negotiations to killing Carlson, who he has said he considered his second wife.

Church Tries to Punish Girls Who Sued Over Sex Abuse by Outing Them – Singles: Don’t Take Dating Advice from Religious Groups Who Think It’s Acceptable to Harass Rape Victims – And Dump Equally Yoked Teaching

Church Tries to Punish Girls Who Sued Over Sex Abuse by Outing Them – Singles: Don’t Take Dating Advice from Religious Groups Who Think It’s Acceptable to Harass Rape Victims – And Dump Equally Yoked Teaching

This story is horrible enough as it is, and another indicator of how unsympathetic and awful churches are towards abuse victims of all kinds.

However, I also wanted to add this observation, as outlined in the next few paragraphs.

I was taught as a kid that Christian singles are only to marry other Christians, which is sometimes called “being equally yoked.”

My parents, who were Christians, would advise me when I was younger to seek out a spouse in a local church, if I wanted to marry.

In light of stories like the one I’m posting here, I don’t think I consider churches a good place to meet potential dates or mates any longer. I am questioning that.

If church members think it’s compassionate or acceptable to be hostile to child sex abusive victims and to protect the pedophile who assaulted them, one wonders how heartless and immoral the persons at that church must be in other areas, and how terrible their judgement concerning other things is.

32 Arrested, Included Children’s Minister, in Human Trafficking Case

32 Arrested, Included Children’s Minister, in Human Trafficking Case

I first spotted this via DefendTheSheep’s Twitter account.

It’s stories like this which played a role in me ditching the “equally yoked” teaching, and why I am now much more dubious about church being a good place for Christian singles to meet people to date or marry. (Not that these crimes took place IN a church, but some of the men arrested work in or for churches.)

I’m not sure if the guy in this story was also married and a father. If he is: being a parent, or being married, do not make a person more ethical or mature, as many Christians teach! A person can remain single and childless and be MORE ethical and godly than many parents and married people.

 ▶️ To Christians out there: please stop using news stories like this one to down-play the very real dangers CIS women face if or when Transwomen are  allowed to openly use CIS- women bathrooms and locker rooms (read more about that (Link): here).

Perverts prey on girls and women in or by churches AND in public restrooms and lockerooms, NOT just in or near churches! ❗

(Link): 32 Arrested, Included Children’s Minister, in Human Trafficking Case

Excerpts

May 20, 2016

by WKRN staff

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Thirty-two men and women, including a children’s minister, were arrested on prostitution and human trafficking-related charges in Knoxville.

Pro-Rape Pastor Defends Church’s Hiring of Child Rapist – Adult Singles: Dump the Equally Yoked Teaching

Pro-Rape Pastor Defends Church’s Hiring of Child Rapist – Adult Singles: Dump the Equally Yoked Teaching

I spotted this link (shared farther down page) when it was shared on WatchKeep’s Twitter today. My blog is not about child sexual abuse per se. I tend to focus, most often, on issues surrounding adult singleness.

If you are an adult Christian single who wants to be married, please reconsider following the “Be equally yoked” teaching. Whether or not the guy in this news story I have in this blog post is a “true” Christian or not is beside the point.

You can date a Christian man who you believe to be a “true” Christian – maybe you met him at church (which is pretty rare because single males do not attend churches), or maybe you met him on a Christian dating site (which some Christian men have used to select rape victims), and he shows all the outward signs of “loving the Lord” and so on and so forth – but then it is revealed he is a child rapist.

Would you really want to discover the guy you married is a child rapist, or views child porn?

I also question the pastor of this church who is defending the child rapist: could you imagine marrying a preacher, who you would assume is a godly man, only to find out he blames child rape victims for having been raped?

Also be aware that pedophiles actively seek wife material at churches. That’s right, single Christian lady: some guy who is a pedophile may start flirting with you at church or in Sunday School, hoping you will date and marry him. I did (Link): a post about this several days ago.

(Link):  Pro-Rape Pastor Defends Church’s Hiring of Child Rapist

Excerpt:

April 15, 2016

A Kentucky pastor is defending the decision to allow a convicted sex offender [Thomas Hopper] to work at his church [Truth Apostolic Church].

… Hopper was convicted of rape and sodomy of a 13-year-old girl in the early 1990s, followed by multiple criminal convictions in the early 2000s.  …

Christian Author of a “Dude’s Guide to Marriage” Book Fired From Church Pastor Job for Inappropriate Behavior With Two Women

Christian Author of a “Dude’s Guide to Marriage” Book Fired From Church Pastor Job for Inappropriate Behavior With Two Women

I hope I am understanding this story correctly. This guy who was fired – the church who fired him (I think it was a church) – is being rather vague about it.

They did say in one of their released statements that this married pastor is not guilty of adultery, but that he did something inappropriate with two women.

Knowing what I know about conservative, evangelical Christianity and some of these Reformed guys, they will nit pick over how they describe sexual sin: this guy may not have strictly performed penis in the vagina sex on these other women, but I bet you anything he probably performed some other sexual sin.

Maybe this dude-bro pastor sent these women dirty text messages, unsolicited penis photos, they performed oral sex on him (or vice versa), or something else.

Christians who cover up sexual sins by pastors, or who try to diminish them, tend to be like former American president Bill Clinton when confronted on his dalliance with Lewinisky: they finely parse their language about it. They won’t come right out and say “this married pastor got a blow job from a hooker,” or what not, so they use euphemisms.

What kills me about this guy is that he’s apparently a gender complementarian preacher who has written books with titles such as “A Dude’s Guide to Marriage,” and some other book with a title like “How to Be a Manly Man.”

Baptist Preacher Hires His Mistress To Set His Wife On Fire

Baptist Preacher Hires His Mistress To Set His Wife On Fire

This news story is another indicator of how the Christian “equally yoked” teaching is bunk: I’d rather marry an Atheist guy who would NOT burn me alive than marry (and be “equally yoked” to) a Christian preacher who would hire his MISTRESS to set me on fire.

(This article says this MARRIED Christian also stole money from his elderly mother. What a P.O.S.)

Also note how being married does NOT, contra what Christians teach, make a person more loving, responsible, godly, or mature.

And why is a 33 year old woman having an affair with a 71 year old man? GROSS.

(Yes, it’s (Link): totally gross). I guess she was just using him for his money – this article says he bought her a new car and paid her bills.

You quite obviously do not have to be godly or perfect to merit a spouse, as this jerk creep guy was married. (A lot of Christians teach that you have to earn a spouse by being a good person or by being godly or by being more “whatever.”)

That so many losers, deviants, and creeps get spouses, (even so many losers who profess belief in Christ), it goes to show that no, you do not have to achieve some level of perfection or godliness before God will send you a spouse.

Also note that both cheaters in this story are MARRIED. Christians often depict un -married women as being harlots who set out to bed married men (usually, though not always, this is done under the “Billy Graham Rule”), when in fact, it’s usually married people who have affairs with other married people.

How mind-blowing is married Christian sex (something that Christian assert) that this married Christian man was apparently seeking nooky with another woman (I presume he was boinking the other lady)?

(Link): Baptist pastor sentenced to 50 years for hiring mistress and her husband to set his wife on fire

Excerpts:

A Baptist pastor from Missouri has been sentenced to 50 years in prison last week for hiring his mistress and her husband to burn his house down with his wife inside of it, reports the Riverfront Times.

Christian Video Asks: Can A Christian Date A Non-Christian

If you are new to this blog, I would encourage you to use this blog’s search box or tags to look up the phrase “do not be unequally yoked” or “be equally yoked” to figure out my position on this issue.

Originally spotted on SCCL Facebook group, under the post, (Link): Ask a douchebro a theological question, get a remedial, two-dimensional, meritocratic answer.

I’d encourage you also to click that link, visit that thread, and read the replies under it.

That SCCL Facebook group post is about this Christian video

(Link): 516. Can A Christian Date A Nonbeliever?

Here were a few comments by some of the visitors of the SCCL group, in case you find yourself too lazy to visit there:

comment by Leah Thomason

• That was special…. I’m a Christian and I’m actually married to an Atheist. I can not stand the constant vilification of ‘unbelievers’ as defined by ‘spiritual leaders’ based on nothing. Is out marriage perfect? Nope, but I’m pretty sure it’s less messed up than a lot of equally yoked marriages out there! My husband and I love SCCL by the way!

by Daniel Jakob Eager

• I was a nonbeliever (even aggressively atheistic) when my wife (a Christian) and I started our relationship, now I am a minister.
• Jesus 1-Douchebro 0

comment by Curt Story

• I once bought into the so-called “equally yoked” trope. So I ended up dating “Christians” who were intellectually uncurious or emotionally unavailable. That was the default, and I admit my own issues played as well.
• The biggest problem I see with this whole idea…the “Christian identity” has very little to do with a person’s compatibility in a relationship.
• A couple that “prays together” or recites Bible verses at each other are engaging in a pre-programmed ritual established by evangelicals as some “cure-all” to real human needs. Good luck finding a real connection when plain emotional honesty is discouraged at a basic level.

by Nathan Kotter

• I wrote a post about the “unequally yoked” thing a long while back and I still refer to it to this day when the discussion comes up. I’m not a biblical scholar nor do I know Greek, and my statements could be way off base and there could be more to it. But this is how I always looked at it:

  What do the verses directly before the “unequally yoked” verse say?

  11 We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open. 12 You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections. 13 In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.

  So Paul is talking directly to the Corinthians. He says he’s spoken freely and his heart is wide open, but their hearts are restricted, and he’s telling them to be more open towards him.

  Now, Paul says the stuff about being unequally yoked. Okay, maybe he decided he’d said his piece about the Corinthians being shut off from him and switched gears to marriage. But what does he say after that?

  2 Make room in your hearts for us. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one. 3 I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together. 4 I am acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.

  Wait, what? Now he’s once again urging the Corinthians to make room in their hearts for him, and reiterates that they are in his heart.

  So to me, saying the “unequally yoked” verse is about marriage or dating doesn’t make any sense. You’d have to believe Paul was talking to the Corinthians, saying to open their hearts to him, then makes a completely off-topic comment about marriage, then goes back to saying to open their hearts to him? That’s not a logical flow of topics and wouldn’t make any sense in a letter. None of the context of the surrounding verses talks about marriage, the context of the surrounding verses is Paul telling the Corinthians that their hearts are closed to him.

Christian Man to Pregnant Girlfriend: Convert to My Religion or Have an Abortion

Christian Man to Pregnant Girlfriend: Convert to My Religion or Have an Abortion

I’ve said it before, and I’ll keep saying it: there is no advantage or benefit to Christian single women to keep following the “Be Equally Yoked” teaching in regards to dating and marriage when so many (I did not say ALL but MANY, or a significant portion of) Christian men turn out to be so deviant.

I would hope and assume if a man claims to follow the teachings of Jesus, he would be a person of integrity, compassion, and grace, but more often than not, that does not seem to be true. Here is another example.

(Link): Christian Man to Pregnant Girlfriend: Convert to My Religion or Have an Abortion

• Jan 23, 2015
• A Christian man got his girlfriend pregnant and urged her to have an abortion. He said that he would marry her and let her have the baby only if she would convert to Christianity for him.
• However, she was hesitant, not wanting to embrace a religion for the wrong reasons. Therefore, he continued to pressure her to have an abortion. He was afraid, he said, what his church would think. And even though he was fine having sex with her, he would not marry a woman who was not a Christian.
• [long quote by the woman about the situation]
• Sadly, she had an abortion.

——————————

Related Posts:

(Link): Christian Single Women: Another Example of Why You Should Abandon the “Be Equally Yoked” Teaching: 21-Y-O Christianity Student, Children’s Minister Charged With Murdering Fiancée He Was to Wed in August; Made It Look Like Suicide

(Link): Christian Women Sexually Assaulted by Christian Men At Christian College – College Blames The Victims / Re: Patrick Henry College

(Link):  19-Year-Old Student at Christian College Bleeds to Death After Secretly Delivering Stillborn Baby in Dorm Room

Life in prison for Satanist who dismembered and ate mother-of-three after taking her back to his house for sex – The Flip Side to Be Equally Yoked

Life in prison for Tennessee satanist who dismembered and ate mother-of-three after taking her back to his house for sex

(Link): Life in prison for Tennessee Satanist who dismembered and ate mother-of-three after taking her back to his house for sex

For all my pontificating on this blog about how stupid, unnecessary, possibly dangerous and limiting the “Be Equally Yoked” teaching is for and among single Christians, I do NOT mean to otherwise imply that any and every NON-Christian man is a safe bet for dating, companionship, or marriage.

If you are a single Christian woman, you need to be careful about the men you associate with regardless of that man’s religious beliefs.

There is no “safe bet.”

Conservative Jews question notions on dating, marrying only Jews – Equally Yoked

Conservative Jews question notions on dating, marrying only Jews

It’s interesting to see people of other faiths question this (intermarriage).

(Link): Conservative Jews question notions on dating, marrying only Jews

As for Christians, I no longer accept or agree with the “Be Equally Yoked” teaching.

If you’d like to know why I’m no longer on board with it, I have several posts on that topic, including, but not limited to these posts:

• (Link): Christian Equally Yoked Teaching is Bunk Part 1
• (Link): Christian Equally Yoked Teaching is Bunk Part 2
• (Link): Christian Equally Yoked Teaching is Bunk Part 3
• (Link): Christian Equally Yoked Teaching is Bunk Part 4

If you do a search for the phrase “equally yoked” using this blog’s search feature, you can find even more, similar posts.

I’ve also done posts about Mormon women having problems finding Mormon husbands – there are more Mormon, single women than there are Mormon, single men.

When you tell women it is sin or wrong for them to marry outside of their faith, you are dooming them to a life time of singleness.

And I use the word “doom” there because some religious ladies want very much to marry – I was one. I find myself single past age of 40, however.

I’ve had to learn to grieve and cope with and accept being single, and there were next to no resources for me; I had to find my way alone. Most literature by Christians about singles like me shames and blames me for my singleness, rather than help me navigate my life as it is.

(Link): Conservative Jews question notions on dating, marrying only Jews

A few excerpts:

• Jan 08, 2015 by Lauren Markoe

• (RNS) Whether Jews should only date and marry other Jews is not a new question, but it’s one that has come into stark relief in recent weeks.

  In two separate instances in December, groups within Conservative Judaism—the second-largest movement of American Jews—appeared to challenge some of their own rules that discourage interfaith dating and matrimony:

  • A prominent Conservative rabbi asked his Massachusetts congregation to consider allowing him to preside at weddings between Jews and non-Jews, as long as the couples committed to raising Jewish children.
  • The Conservative movement’s youth group adopted a policy that seemed to relax a ban prohibiting its leaders from dating non-Jews.
• Unlike rabbis in Reform Judaism, the largest American stream of Judaism, Conservative rabbis may not preside at interfaith marriages. Conservative Judaism has stood fast on this, even as it has embraced female rabbis and same-sex weddings and welcomed the non-Jewish spouses of congregants into its synagogues.
• But Rabbi Wesley Gardenswartz of Temple Emanuel in Newton, Massachusetts, said he floated the proposal because he wanted to keep families connected to his synagogue.
• … “Jewish tradition says Jewish marriage occurs between Jewish people,” she said. “As rabbis, our role is to teach, inspire, and promulgate that tradition.”
• … To Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, the Conservative movement stands at the same crossroads where the Reform stood about a generation ago. As he put it, an increasing number of Jews are recognizing that “intermarriage is a fact of life, as gravity is.”

That paper also contains quotes from conservative Jews who bemoan this (ie, intermarriage) as an affront to Judaism. Christians who are staunchly against Unequally Yoked marriages are the same way.

Once you start putting your religion, or rules, or the institution of marriage, above the welfare and happiness of human beings, you’ve made an idol out of marriage.

————————————–

Related:

(Link): When Mormonism Sounds Like Gender Complementarian Christianity – Also: Man Shortage in Mormonism Just Like Christianity

(Link): Should Christian Women Marry Non Christian Men? (discussed at another blog) Be Not Unequally Yoked Dangerous Teaching to Single Christian Women

(Link): ‘Chained wives,’ refused Jewish divorces by their husbands, take to social media

(Link):  Forced Child Marriages in Canadian Jewish Cult

(Link): Forget About Being ‘Equally Yoked’ – Article: ‘My Abusive ‘Christian’ Marriage’ (written by a lady at another blog)

(Link): Wife of Christian Preacher Shoots, Kills Him, Recounts Years of Physical and Sexual Abuse – So Much for the Equally Yoked Teaching and the Notion that Christian married sex is Mind Blowing

(Link): Christian Host Pat Robertson Tells Christian Woman Who Married Christian Man Who Turned Out to Be Totally Unethical That She has Discernment of a Slug – Single Women: toss Be Equally Yoked teaching in the trash can