US pastor who slammed Facebook admits to a having had a three-way relationship

A NEW Jersey pastor who slammed Facebook as a “portal to infidelity” – and told married church leaders to delete their accounts or resign – has admitted to having a three-way sexual relationship with his wife and a male church assistant.

Yesterday the Rev Cedric Miller – the 48-year-old leader of Living Word Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune Township – confirmed that he given evidence in 2003 in a criminal case against the assistant involved in the Miller’s threesome. The relationship had ended by that time, and the case was eventually dismissed.

Rev Miller and his wife Kim

Miller hit the headlines this week when he issued his Facebook edict. He said it came about because much of the marital counselling he has performed over the past year and a half has concerned infidelity that stemmed from the social network site.

He claimed that Facebook ignites old passions and ordering about 50 married church officials to delete their accounts with the social networking site or resign from their leadership positions. He had previously asked married congregants to share their login information with their spouses and now plans to suggest that they give up Facebook altogether.

I’ve been in extended counselling with couples with marital problems because of Facebook for the last year and a half. What happens is someone from yesterday surfaces, it leads to conversations and there have been physical meet-ups. The temptation is just too great.

One parishioner, Pat Dawson, a minister at the church, uses her Facebook account to see photos of her relatives. She is unmarried and therefore not required to delete her account, but she agrees with Miller about the dangers such sites can create.

I know he feels very strongly about this. It can be a useful tool, but it also can cause great problems in a relationship.

The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers says 81 percent of its members have used or been faced with evidence plucked from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites in divorce cases over the last five years.

About one in five adults uses Facebook for flirting, according to a 2008 report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. And a do-it-yourself divorce site in the United Kingdom, Divorce-Online, reported late last year that the word “Facebook” was appearing in about one in five of the petitions it was handling.

Posted by Barry Duke