The church I grew up in had a youth pastor who impregnated a teen still in high school, married her due to the scandal, and then abused her emotionally and physically enough that she committed suicide, now a teen mom who never managed to graduate from high school. To my knowledge, even this didn’t drive anyone else from the church, but seeing a childhood friend destroyed and the institution that enabled it doing nothing to the clergy who destroyed her was one of the final straws for me. Last I checked, a couple of decades ago, he was the pastor of his own church. I doubt his congregations ever knew, or would care if they did know – he’s a white man with an ivy league degree, charismatic, good with children . . . how could that be wrong.
(edit: spelling.)
