What does the Bible say about confronting a minister or liars in the church?
I have not confronted a minister or people in the church I attended about spreading false rumors/slander about me during my divorce. I was the church pianist and my pastor promised me he had my back when I told him I was getting a divorce after 12 years of marriage. My ex has borderline personality disorder coupled w/ pathological lying. He is EXTREMELY manipulative and my counselor was telling me to watch my back. Out of 30 traits of murder/suicide traits, he had 10. I kept my mouth shut at church and did not want to create strife. I spoke only to the pastor. Little did I know that after my ex attempted suicide (actually a manipulation because I left) the pastor began counseling my husband. My husband used these sessions and manipulated the pastor who in turn told other prominent members that I had an affair. This was not true. The pastor never came to me about this or the person my ex accused me of having an affair with. They talked all around us. Then, they asked us to step down...again, never speaking to us directly, but to the man's parents (who was accused of having an affair with me) who were on the prayer team and the dad was a prominent deacon in the church. We were in our 30's and the pastor didn't speak with us at all. This man's family left the church and so did I. I never said a word to any one about it. I never told any one my ex attempted suicide, etc. I didn't confront the minister or any one as I thought this would create strife in the church. We live in a small town and many people believe what my ex said because the pastor helped spread it around. It's been a year and I'm so angry. I still get the looks from people...or some won't speak to me at all. I'm beginning to think I should have called out the liars and slanderers/gossips. I'm not sure what the proper response to this situation would be. This is not water under the bridge...people are still spreading these lies and I've had about all I can handle of it.
What is the difference between conflict management and conflict resolution?
I work in conflict management and would say that cm is the process through which you reach conflict resolution. Whether via a process such as mediation or learning more effective communication skills or finding a different way of responding to the conflict, for example through conflict coaching, these are all 'conflict management' practices that are designed to help achieve conflict resolution. I would describe conflict resolution as the successful creation of a 'way forward' in a difficult situation that doesn't leave resentments, anger, avoidance, distraction still bubbling away under the surface because they haven't been dealt with. On that basis, full resolution of a conflict can take some time in particularly difficult situations but effective conflict management can help it to move continuously towards resolution rather than remain stuck, or even get worse.
When a Christ centered marriage places the man in the headship?
If you take the Bible literally as some claim to do, then a marriage between a man and a woman should be based on the man being the head and leader. This would mean that the woman would have to submit to his decisions. Of course as with lots of other scriptural topics, many "literalists" do not pay attention to the verses in the Bible which call for this sort of partnership in marriage. (But don't dare say they "pick and choose"!) The reality for those strong enough in faith to admit it is that we have evolved on many issues and we do not do precisely as the Bible commanded or suggested. Slavery is a prime example. Most people have also evolved in their concept of the way in which a marriage should work, although admittedly not as many men have evolved their beliefs on this as women. I would say that most people in America view marriage today as more of an equal partnership in which both parties have an equal say and both parties contribute to the child rearing efforts. In practice, it's not always equal, of course, but our concepts and thoughts on equality are moving in the right direction. I feel equality would make a marriage better, because both human beings were created by God and both should have equal say and give equally to the best of their abilities for the success of the overall partnership.