manipulation is an art form in church...
I've seen someone with a huge catalog of family and social issues walk into a church. I've seen those issues coming out in that person through his expression and his need to isolate himself most of the time, even when he was there to hang out with others. I've seen him cry out for help to the point that he broke down crying and shaking on the floor, and it was like, people just kind of prayed for him and shrugged him off when he went to try to find help for his problems with that group of people. He wanted to fit in but he did not know how. I've seen him act strangely, like he was trying to overcome that social barrier by changing his behavior, overcompensating, and failing miserably. I've seen the damage it caused among that group of people. It wasn't his fault, it was more that there was a whole lot more to the picture... It wasn't sin issues on his end, exactly, that were being displayed, just failure to understand why he was the way he was and not understanding how to cope with it (ingrained psychological barriers) and it coming out through his behavior, which was kind of strange, like I said. He wasn't being manipulative, he was trying... how do I say this... to come out of his shell. He was lonely.
He didn't know what he was doing at all, as if he was 23 years old physically and five years old as far as social, emotional and life skill development.
God was working through it, still is, but it might not have been evident at the time.
I've seen people try to get through to that individual as if they expected him to fly when he was barely learning to walk - to the point that the people were actively using the idea of the prophetic gift to manipulate that person.
He didn't understand at the time what was going on and he fell apart, but to be fair I don't think people really understood what was going on with that person.
Get conflicting personal interests involved from various places in administration and the membership... it was game over. I think he wanted to believe and trust everything people told him to do for advice because he had them on pedestals like none of them could do any wrong, which was a bad idea because of competition over... females and things. He wanted so badly to do right that he listened to opinions he shouldn't have and ended up just shutting down, shutting love out, which he had in the palm of his hand multiple times, it's just that he trusted what everybody said at face value and it was the wrong thing to do, only he didn't understand it at the time.
The church handed him textbook solutions like meds and therapy as they showed him the door... things that couldn't even begin to address the actual problem.
I guess he just needed someone reliable to talk to about it before he was ready for certain things and he ended up getting buried in other people's self-interest.
Anyway, he was 100% innocent in the situation. Kind of naive, but innocent.
They ended up crucifying him later because he spoke out about it.
(It was me.)