DATING IN THE PCG.
Controled by the Minister
A few years after my wife died, I began dating again. I met a lady in another congregation of the Philadelphia Church of God (PCG), and we started seeing each other.
After a few dates, she told me that the minister’s wife had been talking to her about my deceased wife. She also said the minister’s wife had recommended that she date another single man in the church instead. These conversations made her uncomfortable, and she felt I should know about them.
I raised the matter directly with the minister, a man from my home congregation whom I had known for years. I told him I thought it was inappropriate for his wife to discuss my deceased wife with the woman I was dating and to interfere in our relationship.
He became very offended. He told me that his wife was part of his ministry: if I criticized her, I was criticizing him, and if I criticized him, I was criticizing God.
That response troubled me. I had brought him a personal concern about his wife’s conduct. Instead of addressing that concern, he treated my criticism as criticism of God Himself.
Not long afterward, I was put out of the church without an opportunity for counseling or further discussion. I was told that I was no longer a member of the PCG and that I was never to contact them again.
I raised a concern about interference in my personal life, received a response that placed the minister’s authority beyond criticism, and was subsequently excluded without an opportunity to resolve the matter.
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