Religious Malpractice

Counselors are professionals. Before anyone can open up shop as a counselor, they must meet state-mandated standards of professional training, including supervised practice sessions. This is important because an unprofessional or sloppy counselor can put a client in danger. I heard of a case recently in which a student, practicing to be a counselor, advised her client to quit taking her meds. This brought about immediate reprimand. In fact, this student might have to look for another line of work.

But anyone can be a religious counselor. All they have to do is to be associated with a church. If it is a little rural independent church, the counselor (usually the pastor) may have no professional training whatever. The pastor can give amateur advice to people, advice that is often wrong and dangerous. Of course, they do not consider their advice to be amateur; they think they have a direct line of inerrant wisdom flowing directly from God. The most dangerous counselor in the world is one who considers himself or herself personally inerrant in dispensing “God’s” advice. Such action is respected by law enforcement and government and society as the free practice of religion.

One such pastor advised a young adult woman that because she was not what he considered to be a Christian, her life was worthless and she should kill herself. She tried to do so. Fortunately, she was as much an amateur at suicide as the pastor was at counseling, and she failed.
The pastor was apparently a shitty, abominable, satanic pastor. His statements were not even remotely Christian. But it is obvious that, were he a counselor, he would be liable for a whopping malpractice lawsuit.

But pastors of little independent churches can get away with anything. As a society, we let them dispense deadly advice and to stir up hatred. If anybody else—a teacher, a doctor, a counselor, a business executive, a writer like myself, a television personality—gave such advice, they would be thrown out on their butts (except, of course, for conservative talk show hosts). Pastors of church denominations have to meet professional standards and can be terminated by the denomination, but not so the little churches out in the sticks, where the Christians are much more dangerous than the wild hogs.

Freedom of religion does not mean that a pastor of an independent church can say whatever he or she wants, regardless of its effects. Pastors should be constrained by the same laws that the rest of us have to observe. Of course, the victim (were she not totally devastated by the incident) could sue the pastor, but this is unlikely to occur. In most aspects of life, we are protected by laws, and sometimes we have to sue; but in many churches, we have no protection at all unless we sue.

If only God would wring that pastor’s neck. But that won’t happen. God never brings any punishment on the evil. They take on God’s name as an adornment and sin boldly, while good people are struck with disease and disaster. God makes no visible difference in the world. This is what the writer of Ecclesiastes complained about, and the complaint is still valid.

Also, please remember to vote Democratic in the upcoming elections. The Republicans seek the support of dangerous religious people such as the ones described here. Also, remember to share this blog with your associates.