National Confess Your Adultery Day

This is a fairly different story for Loving Wives, taken from a different perspective. There are no sex scenes in this story. It deals with the possible implications of confessing to an affair that had remained secret. I'm guessing that this will not be a high scorer, but take heart: at least it isn't long!

Though this story references DeGarde, Louisiana, in my continuing tribute to JimBob44, the main characters aren't Louisiana natives, and thus I did not need his translation into Cajun. Any errors are mine alone.

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This was either the greatest idea in the annals of modern Christianity, or the dumbest. The Reverend Stanley James Roberts - a somehow distant kin to Oral Roberts, though he never explained how - was a Protestant minister of some mostly undefined denomination. Like his distant relative, Roberts was ordained in the United Methodist Church, but also like the more famous Roberts, he had more than a touch of the fiery Pentecostalist preaching in him.

Unlike his famous whatever-it-was relative, Stanley James Roberts, though he saw himself as charismatic, and wanted to become a (wealthy) televangelist, was having little success at doing so. Naturally, he needed a congregation on which to base his rise to stardom, but, to be honest, he had flubbed up some of the interviews with Methodist churches looking for a new preacher. He finally landed a job at the DeGarde United Methodist Church in St Elizabeth's Parish in Louisiana.

It was hardly an auspicious job! The Reverend Roberts had envisioned a life of luxury for himself and his growing family - his wife Dottie had dutifully pushed out three children in the first four years of their marriage, including their first-born son eight months and twenty days after their wedding night, so he was only a week premature, and she already had another bun in the oven - but the DeGarde job offered only a modest salary. It did, however, also include a house for the minister and his family, and that was a big plus. It was a large house, too, something a good minister with 3½ children certainly needed: he had two boys and a girl, and if this on-the-way child turned out to be another boy, well no congregation would put up with a preacher who had both a son and a daughter sharing a bedroom. A five-bedroom house would work very well for the Roberts family, at least until Dottie got pregnant a fifth time!

The Roberts certainly weren't Catholic, but the Rev Roberts very much believed in the Biblical admonition to be fruitful and multiply, and while it wasn't exactly Dottie's idea, she eschewed birth control, in accordance with her husband's wishes.

The Roberts family settled in to their decent, white-frame house, which sat next to the large but still white frame church. The furniture was older, the couches and other upholstered items protected by slip-covers, and the wooden stuff clean enough, though clearly showing the wear of many years. Fortunately, there were congregants who were plumbers and electricians and carpenters, and the old house now had that most necessary of Louisiana fixtures, central air conditioning!

Roberts really wanted to make something of his church. There were 80 families which were currently members, but the church itself could easily hold thrice that number. His first goal was 100 families, something he saw as reasonably doable, and his preaching turned out to be pretty good for that section of the Bayou State.

Trouble was, no matter how good his preaching was, it was only heard by those people who actually went to church. The Reverend Roberts needed some kind of a hook.

It was Dottie who put the first germ of the idea into his head. "Stanley," she said, "the biggest problem is that our church is filled with women, with mothers bringing their children to church and Sunday School, but whose husbands all sit at home watching television."

Roberts knew that; it was a chronic problem for most Christian churches, wives attending services without their husbands. And so he started to turn his sermons toward the necessities of family life, husbands and wives always doing things together, with the clear message: wives, do more to get your husbands to come to church on Sunday!

It was having an effect, and if the number of families which were members didn't increase much - it was up to 84 - with more husbands attending after a while, the number of active congregants increased.

When Dottie gave birth, to another fine, strong son, the Roberts named him James Robert Roberts, a kind of odd name, but in honor of one of the churches leading congregants, James Robert Thibodreux, known to everyone around as Jim Bob, the Sheriff of St Elizabeth Parish, and someone they thought could help them with increasing the congregation's size. Sheriff Jim Bob, always willing to self-promote - he was, after all, an elected official - started to make sure that his deputies attended church as well.

Still, while hooking in the deputies and their families was a start, it wasn't much of one. So, Roberts started his campus appeal, at the University of Louisiana at DeGarde, a small satellite campus of the main University of Louisiana, but still a poor sibling to the much more popular Louisiana State University and its very successful SEC football team.

Still, UL-D had a fine communications program, and an on-campus radio station. Naturally, the NPR affiliated campus radio station couldn't broadcast Roberts' Sunday services, but he made friends with one of the professors, who just happened to be Methodist, and the professor gave Roberts a lot of tips on increasing his audience. Having his sermons broadcast was an idea anyone related to Oral Roberts thought of, but the professor suggested not only a social media presence, but that Roberts needed to come up with a 'hook,' something new to attract attention.

The Reverend Stanley James Roberts sat down with his wife, to go over ideas. She didn't have a degree in divinity or anything, but between the two of them, they often came up with some pretty good ideas.

Just four months after their son was born, Dottie was being fruitful and multiplying again!

"Well, Stanley, you've managed to get the services broadcast on radio, we've gotten more fathers to attend services, and we're on Facebook and Twitter, but I don't know what else we can do. I know that you want to get us on television, but DeGarde is just too small; there's no local station, and the college can't do a religious broadcast. We're kind of stuck."

"Maybe if the college can't help us, the individual students could, sort of as an independent study project? They could get the equipment, set it up, and at least make tapes we could market to Christian broadcasting stations?"

"OK, maybe that could be done, especially with that professor friend of yours, but what is going to separate you, separate us, from a zillion other preachers?"

"We need a theme, something that would be different, something that would grab everyone's attention."

"Yeah, well new and novel ideas just don't appear out of thin air. Something stressing Christian forgiveness?" Dottie suggested.

"Yeah, that's the ticket," Stanley responded. "But forgiveness of what?"

"It ought to be family oriented."

Just then, the Reverend Stanley James Roberts got an idea. "What tears apart families the most? What needs Christian forgiveness the most? We could even make a Twitter hashtag out of it." Dottie looked confused. "We can start #NationalConfessYourAdulteryDay! It would have the corollary that Christians should understand the frailties of others, and be prepared to forgive their spouses when their spouses confess to adultery!"

"Stanley, are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, what if a husband or wife does confess to an affair that they've managed to keep hidden, and their spouse can't forgive? What happens if this tears marriages apart, not strengthens them?"

"Dottie, don't you see? We can come up with a whole series on this, with forgiveness lessons and sermons, noting how we're expected to forgive the little things. We can tie into the Lord's Prayer, 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.'

"This'll really work, Dottie! We'll announce a national Confess Your Adultery Day, set it for a few months into the future, and then have the lessons on forgiveness building on YouTube and Twitter and Facebook, and maybe we can even get some Christian broadcasters interested in it as well!"

"Stanley, it sounds, well, fine, I guess, but about half the married couples around here are on their second marriages, you know?"

"Yeah, I know, but what if this can lower the divorce rate? And maybe it can help people who are divorced to at least forgive their exes, even if it doesn't get them back together. Dottie, this is a great idea!"

"I don't know, Stanley, it kind of worries me. We might be opening up a real can of worms here."

"Yeah, but it'll get us noticed, won't it?"

oo0oo

It was a major hit! Roberts had managed to get twelve students at UL-D to go along with his cockamamie idea, setting up a series of tapes of his sermons and stuff for YouTube.

The project was for the spring semester of 2018, which meant, for the Reverend Roberts, that he needed to set National Confess Your Adultery Day during the summer. There were sixteen Sundays in the DeGarde spring semester, and, naturally, there were the delays in getting the sermons edited and ready for broadcast. This was going to push NCYA day into late June or early July. Saturday, July 14th, that'd be a good day to set it. The next day was Sunday, when confessed adulterers and their spouses could come to church, to get reinforcement in forgiveness, and in the obligatory 'I'll never do it again' promises that would be made. It was past the Independence Day holiday, and when people were feeling good. Summer vacation season would be going full blast, and maybe the spirit of the season would help with the forgiving attitude.

It was only after the first two YouTube shows that someone told the Reverend Roberts that he might have fouled up on the day. "Didn't y'all know? That's National Nude Day!" The Indian Hills Nudist Park was not too far away in St Tammany Parish, and some sort of nudist travel club near 'Naw'lins.' Stanley was appalled, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He had seven YouTube broadcasts in the can already, plus seven Sundays worth of sermons taped for whatever broadcast he could arrange.

It was a huge hit! Christian pastors across the nation took up the idea, and the Sunday sermons were picked up by TBN, Trinity Broadcasting Network. The idea that such a private sin would be confessed, to the people who would be hurt the most, and forgiveness would be anticipated, and encouraged, seemed liberating to people. Roberts spent a lot of time doing the research, and got wildly different answers. Sex researcher Shere Hite, in 1991, put the percentage of women cheating on their husbands at 70%, and her follow-up study indicated that 72% of married men have committed adultery. But a 2004 University of Chicago study put the numbers much lower, at 25% of married men cheating.

The real answer was simple: only God knows how many married people cheat on their spouses, and the Lord wasn't telling us what that number was. As National Confess Your Adultery Day was drawing ever nearer, the Reverend Roberts was getting more and more nervous. It was obvious that most people wouldn't confess on that day, and that while the movement had gained some attention, most people would just dismiss it out of hand. But even if most people would dismiss the idea, there were millions and millions of people who had now seen his sermons and YouTube lectures, and that meant it there might be multiple millions of people who would make such confessions on, he couldn't help but think, National Nude Day.

Heck, even the National Nude Day promoters jumped on the bandwagon a bit, with the promo t if there was ever a day to confess to adultery, doing it on a nude beach would be the best place. Your partner would be seeing other men, or women, walking around nude, playing naked in the ocean, and maybe that would be a both calming and exciting place, to life your spirit to be more forgiving. Naturally, that was brought to the Reverend Roberts' attention; he didn't think that would be a good idea at all!

How many marriages would his great idea destroy? So far, the idea had worked out great, for him. TBN had loved his idea and his sermons, and the network executives had were really happy with the audience his sermons on this idea had drawn. They had so many wealthy preachers broadcasting from megachurches that this one self-effacing preacher, who was now filling his plain, small-town church was both different and inspiring.

It was Sunday, 8th, six days before National Confess Your Adultery Day, and the Reverend Roberts was in top form for his sermon. He had gotten used to the television cameras, now TBN's really professional stuff, the second-hand equipment that the DeGarde students had used now safely back in storage at UL-D.

He needed no teleprompter; an experienced preacher, he had only a few index cards in the Bible he took to the pulpit to preach, one with a general outline for his extemporaneous speech, and a couple with Bible verses he needed to get exactly right. The teachings of Jesus on adultery were recorded differently in Matthew and Mark. In Matthew 19:9, Jesus left open the possibility of divorcing one's wife if she had committed adultery, but in Mark chapter 10, that 'exception' was excluded.

"Our Lord gave us the instruction," he thundered, "that marriage is forever, and that any who divorces his husband or wife commits adultery if he marries another. In Matthew, though not in Mark, He left open the cause of adultery as allowable, but I have to tell you this: Jesus left no opening for divorcing a husband who is just a lazy bum and won't work, nor a wife who keeps a filthy house, nor spouses who drink too much, nor over money problems, over none of the other excuses that men and women give for divorce.

"Is it that much worse if the offense is adultery, is it a so much greater offense if it was an affair?

"Well, perhaps, because there is that exception in Matthew 19:9. But think about what it means: adultery is accompanied by lying, by hiding something hugely important from your husband or wife. If you have committed adultery, you have sinned against God and your spouse, but we know that God is ever-merciful, and always forgiving, if you will just confess your sins and repent.

"And now we come to it: confessing to God is easy! You are alone with your thoughts and prayers, and forgiveness is promised, if only you are resolved to, as the Lord told the woman caught in adultery, in John 8:11, 'go and sin no more.'

"Now, how hard will it be to confess a past adultery to your husband or wife? As hard as can be imagined, I would guess. But what you are doing when you confess is putting an even greater burden on your sinned-against spouse; you are asking him or her to forgive you for that sin, a forgiveness which isn't guaranteed as God's is.

"If you are currently in an 'affair,' you know the truth: you need to do more than confess the sin to your husband or wife, but you must end your affair with your girlfriend or boyfriend. What good does it do to ask forgiveness from your spouse if you continue the offense?

"This is about making better Christians of us all! We confess our sins, and we resolve to sin no more. We ask forgiveness, but are judged by our own prayer to forgive others who have sinned against us as we seek forgiveness from those we have offended.

"This is what National Confess Your Adultery Day is all about, about making us better people through forgiveness, and resolving to not need forgiveness again!

"Next Sunday, I expect to see all of you, in our church, husbands and wives all holding hands, none of us knowing what another couple has had to say to each other that very important Saturday, but knowing in our hearts that we're all better Christians, better people for it. God bless all of you!"

The Reverend Roberts had worked himself up into probably his most emotional sermon ever, and in the heat of a Louisiana summer, he was standing outside the vestibule of his church, shaking the hands of his parishioners as the left Sunday services. 'Outstanding' was the most common response to him, followed by 'remarkable' and 'inspiring.' TBN had set up cameras outside, and the greetings between the preacher and his congregants was being broadcast nationwide. The preacher was smiling, taking in the genuinely meant congratulations from his flock, happy that he had struck the right note with his sermon, but inwardly, secretly, almost greedily heartened that his goal to be a real televangelist was being realized.

Thanks to TBN and National Confess Your Adultery Day, the small church in DeGarde was full. Collections had tripled, and some much needed repairs to church property were now able to be afforded.

More, the money being collected from social media, advertising and TBN was the Roberts family's money, not that of the DeGarde United Methodist Church. Stanley fed some of that money into the church repair fund, but kept most of it. Dottie took some of that money, and redecorated the parsonage, so while they were still stuck in DeGarde, they were living a lot better. Her husband wasn't rich like his great uncle - or whatever he was - Oral, but they could replace hamburger with steak, catfish with salmon, and had nicer clothes and toys. The only reason they kept shopping at WalMart was that it was a long trip to better stores in neighboring towns.

Stanley kept making the YouTube videos, always stressing forgiveness, and he got to travel to Irving, Texas, one of TBN's affiliate studios, for a 'talk show' appearance with a very friendly host about the upcoming Day.

More, a big Methodist church in St Louis had made him an offer; they needed a new preacher, and his fame had made him a very attractive choice. If he took the job, he could get away from all of the Cajun and creole restaurants, which were the only non-fast-food restaurants in DeGarde. He'd have to speak to TBN, of course, to see if they'd continue with broadcasting his services if he left DeGarde, but Stanley felt that he'd get a positive response.

Life was just plain good.

The big day had finally come! National Confess Your Adultery Day! The day had begun hot, in the low 80s even at sunrise, with a predicted high of 93º. There were only a few clouds in the sky, most of them vanishing as the day wore on. Wryly Stanley thought, 'I guess that it would be a good day for National Nude Day,' but he'd never express that out loud.

Dottie had fixed breakfast for their large brood, not that easy a task with her eight-month-pregnant belly in the way, but she always soldiered on, doing what needed to be done. On such a hot day, it was a fairly light and cool breakfast, just cold cereal but with plenty of orange juice for the kids, and fresh brewed coffee for her husband and herself. After breakfast, she shooed the two older boys out the back door, though their daughter and still-an-infant son couldn't be allowed that freedom.

After changing the baby's diaper and turning on Nickelodeon for the girl, Dottie went back into the kitchen, where Stanley had just started the dishwasher. She stood there, almost as if steeling herself, when she said, "Honey, we need to talk."