DEAR ABBY: Fifteen years ago, at our pastor's urging, we were to confess our sins during a church service to our designated prayer partner. My sin, I confessed, was that I was having "out-of-wedlock sex." (I was a 40-year-old divorcee at the time.)
My prayer partner quickly told her husband, who told the pastor, who told his wife. The latter two paid me a visit and I was put out of the church. The emotional trauma of this action was devastating.
"Mystified's" pastor had no right to disclose what he was told to his gossiping wife, just as my prayer partner had no right to blab my sin to her husband. The church I attended dissolved. -- STILL HURTING IN HOLLIDAYSBURG, PA.
DEAR STILL HURTING: I don't blame you for feeling traumatized. Your confidence was violated, and then you were publicly shamed. I'm not surprised that the church eventually dissolved. By the time they were finished evicting "sinners," there was no one left to attend.