A preacher elicits information about the faith and financial situation of certain women, not only within his congregation, but also elsewhere as he travels for speaking engagements. He arranges for his ministry to provide these women with financial support, but requires sex from them. This preacher uses religious expressions in order to gain compliance, since these women were raised to be persons of faith. This preacher prays with these women, giving thanks to God for the "opportunity" they are receiving; calls these women his "reward" for living a life of service to God; and references "godly men" in the Bible who had more than one wife. But he also warns these women that they aren't to "speak against God's anointed" by sharing this event with others.
Sound familiar? It should.
This is what apologist Ravi Zacharias did for over a decade. He preyed on women. But he lost credibility with me a long time ago. If you can preach your messages inside a Jewish synagogue or a Mormon tabernacle or anywhere else and it be accepted, then your message is not a Christian message; it is not the Gospel.
But the above descriptive paragraph is not only about Ravi Zacharias. There are dozens of preachers who are guilty of the same thing, and this is tragic. In Waco, Texas, David Koresh brainwashed his members into letting him sleep with their daughters of varying ages. In London, Ontario, some preacher brainwashed his members into a similar sex scandal. I have since forgotten the details of this one, but if memory serves I believe he was convincing older women (married or unmarried) to have sex with him. I do not think it involved young girls, but I could be wrong.
The thing is, there are a lot of wolves in sheep's clothing standing behind the pulpit who have never received the saving grace of the Lord Jesus. Whether they are there for the money (which they should not be receiving), or because they think they were called just because they have some degree (and the congregation blindly expected a degree to mean something or make some kind of difference), or because they wanted to be important, or whatever, many congregations have someone standing behind the pulpit who should not be there (really, none of them should be there because this is not a biblical practice).
Anyone can learn Christian-ese and modify their behaviour. That does not make them born again, nor brothers and sisters in the faith. We have fallen so far from biblical standards that it is not funny. Nowadays if anyone claims themselves to be a Christian, people blindly high-five them and go, "Alright! Me too!" Then their conversation goes to something worldly and that is the end of it. There are many people who have grown up in the "church" who have never been saved who think they are "Christians" just because their parents are Christians and they attend religious services. God does not have any grandchildren. You cannot ride the coattails of your parents into Heaven. You need to make the faith your own. Not make your own faith, creating a god in your own image to suit your own desires. You need to own the faith. It must be personal. Just because your parents know Jesus does not mean you do.
A lot of these "celebrity pastors" are these kinds of people. They are committing sexual misconduct just like Ravi Zacharias, but they have also never truly been regenerated and born again. For several of them, their daddy was a preacher and because of the "big bucks" he made, they decided to pursue the same venture. But God had never called them to it.
There needs to be a greater system of accountability in place. Of greater importance, one's own family and/or employees should not be part of that system. There is a natural bias. Too many "churches" do not have accountability systems in place, and even more refuse to hold their head "pastor" accountable when he does do things that are not above board (like hang out with and endorse known false teachers). Many of the subordinates do not speak out because they are cowards and hirelings. They do not want to lose their unbiblical salary and get fired, so they defend their "boss."
There needs to be transparency. This is near impossible with large organized religious institutions. It is not for biblical small-sized house churches, where everyone should be confessing their sins to one another and praying for one another and restoring each other through the process of repentance. (Restoration does not mean to former positions where abuse took place, and doing so demonstrates an ignorance of that particular "church.")