Wake up readers, a new example of straight people ruining the sanctity of marriage just dropped!

The married pastor of The Village megachurch in Flower Mound, Texas has stepped down from his position after being caught sending inappropriate Instagram DMs to an unnamed woman.

In a not-quite-tearful apology befitting a recently disgraced YouTuber, the pastor confessed to sending “unguarded and unwise” messages containing “course and foolish joking.” That was the extent of his specifics, as he mostly referred to the entire situation with things like “what I was in” and “whatever this is.”

His complete vagueness matched with the severity of the punishment have many, including survivors of church abuse and a long-time pastor counselor, thinking that Chandler isn’t telling the whole story.

Related: Gay rumors swirl after Southern Baptist leader retires over “morally inappropriate relationship”

This pastor being caught sending inappropriate messages to a woman outside his marriage is doubly notable, given his track record on handling marriage sanctity instances in his church.

In 2015, a Village Church congregant named Karen Hinkley left her husband for being an admitted pedophile. Chandler & Co. subjected the woman to church discipline for the annulment, but let the man off scot-free because he repented.

The church later apologized for this mishandling, but only after Hinkley went public with it all.

This was an especially bad look for a pastor who met his wife at a youth church camp where he was a guest pastor and she was a high school camper.

This 2015 incident is, of course, not a Christian church’s first go-round at protecting sexual abusers. Earlier this year, the Southern Baptist Convention published a list of hundreds upon hundreds of recorded sexual abusers within the entire Baptist church system.

Related: Turns out the Southern Baptist Convention is even worse than we thought

Speaking of covering things up, Chandler stressed throughout his “apology” his desire to be transparent with the congregation. This is odd, considered he was confronted over the inappropriate DMs back in February and had church leadership keep quiet about it for the past six months while an independent investigation took place.

Presumably, he didn’t want to own up to these actions he currently acknowledges as inappropriate until he knew others thought would think so, too.

It tracks that he would want to avoid any criticism he saw as undue. In 2020, Chandler went on an infamous tirade against detractors after receiving an anonymous critical email. The sermon included him screaming to his congregation about “immature, weak little cowards” and “narcissistic zeroes” before admitting that he “probably needs to get some help.”

The pastor states in his apology that he sees himself still preaching at The Village Church for years after this and that he’s “eager to see what God has for us in this and through this.”

With all the backlash this latest scandal is dredging up against him, he may want to keep on praying on that one.

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