“…I did not have an affair, but we developed a very unhealthy and sinful soul tie.”
-Dr. Brown’s email to Cantor on October 26, 2024
On February 20, 2025, BROWN was interviewed by Firefly ….. During this interview, BROWN admitted to what he called an “emotional affair” during the second half of 2001 with IS #1 via phone calls, texts, and emails. BROWN stated they “both said some sinful things to each other and that it was the most despicable thing he had ever done.” BROWN also noted that “there was never a physical, sexual relationship of any sort between us, but I don’t minimize the ugliness of my sinful emotional attachment. In the words of Jesus, it was certainly adultery of the heart.”
–James Holler, Jr., “Firefly Independent Sexual Abuse Investigations: Investigation into the Allegations of Sexually Abusive Misconduct Involving Michael Brown,” April 12, 2025 (Revised April 18, 2025), pp 12.
Recently, Firefly released a report on Dr. Brown’s misconduct, and I did a review of that report (here and here).
While I did not bother doing a deep read of the Line of Fire Board response to that report, what I hear is that they attempt to minimize Dr. Brown’s sin and dismiss the report’s hard conclusion that he had engaged in sexual misconduct. This is a far from godly way to handle the situation.
Here’s a video analyzing the report and the LOF Board’s response:
What I find interesting and predictable is how both report and this analysis downplay the finally admitted “emotional affair.”
Even the analysis tries to downplay this behavior opting for Dr. Brown’s own euphemism–“soul tie”–to make it look less bad than it was. This is a problem!
Emotional Affairs are wrong (see Mt 5:27-28)!
And as late as October 2024, Dr. Brown was covering for his emotional affair. This is a problem because lying is unbecoming for an elder. It is signifies allegiance to wrong kingdom.
Also, this behavior troubles me as someone who helps people deal with cheating spouses.
More needs to be made of the impulse to lie that Dr. Brown evidenced in his own words (see quotes at start of post). A person lying for decades has created a habit.
This is especially troubling for someone who is supposed to be leading the Body of Christ. To overcome cheating, this sort of behavior has to be broken and that does not seem to have happened in the case with Dr. Brown.
Even the brief moment of clarity by Dr. Brown offered in the 2025 Firefly interview is not redeeming since it is used to sweep the behavior under the rug along with minimization of the behavior.
And this isn’t even touching on all the problems with his abusive relationship with Sarah Monk!
I just want to point out that the Christian community is predictably minimizing the admitted emotional affair as if having an affair doesn’t disqualify one from ministry (see I Timothy 3). We need to do better!
To be clear:
Having an emotional affair where one is having sexual conversations with a married woman is less than fidelity to one’s wife and certainly worthy of reproach! This means you are NOT qualified to be an elder (see I Timothy 3:2).
