Dealing with Sexual Abuse in the Church: Advice for Pastors

This *so* needed to be said. Great post.

I totally agree that the adult is the responsible party in the case of a girl trying to seduce him. If the pastor or male gives into the seduction it has only shown what is in his heart already. He gave into it because he wanted what was presented to him. It is so hard to even think that the girl would be blamed for ruining a mans ministry when he willingly gave into the temptation. Thanks for this Mark!

Thanks for your comments, guys.

For those who haven’t been following previous threads about the Concord case, we want these discussions to focus on dealing with these problems in general in our churches vs. what happened or didn’t happen in any particular case, especially the one still being sorted out in Concord.

One observation on topic: it may be helpful to note that with the law, “criminal guilt” is binary. There is a perpetrator and there is a victim. Biblically, we know that things tend to be much messier when it comes to “spiritual guilt.” I’m convinced that in the case of a very young minor and an adult, that’s a moot point. No meaningful guilt can be asigned to a 9 year old—to pick a random, obvious number. But surely none of us would assert that one minute before midnight on a 17 yr old’s birthday, he/she is incapable of sin in the matter but one minute after, he/she is capable of being an equal partner in fornication. So what we’re dealing with is the necessity of law to draw lines. Can’t be avoided. At some point you have to say this age = not capable of consent, that age = capable of consent. But in the real world maturity is not tied to age so precisely.

So again, what’s legally required must be honored fully by the church/pastor. Then what is spiritually needful must be discerned carefully where it isn’t obvious. In many of these cases it’s obvious. It becomes less obvious as the victim age is higher and the distance between the victim’s age/power and the perpetrator’s age/power is smaller.

Great job, Mark. I appreciate your post.

There are both legal and moral/spiritual issues to consider, and accepting responsibility for one’s actions does not mean accepting ‘blame’. It is a fact that if one engages in risky behavior, then you increase your chances of being victimized. It is OK to analyze the situation and say “By doing A, B, and C, I placed myself at risk”. This does not mean “By doing A, B, and C, I am to blame for someone else’s actions” or “I deserved to be forced”. At no time does this acknowledgment relieve any predator of the responsibility or blame for their crime.

I agree that most girls in our churches who are victims of abuse or sexual assault are not categorized as “high risk” victims. But a young girl who has ‘flirted with danger’ without understanding the consequences and ramifications of her actions still has serious spiritual issues to deal with, and unless those issues are addressed, she will continue to have problems with guilt and risky behavior. You can’t completely relieve a young person of the responsibility for their actions, even if the reason was that they were ignorant or naive. If a young girl wants to feel desired by someone who seems powerful from her perspective or just enjoys the ‘rush’ of seeing lust in the eyes of a man twice her age, labeling her a victim and calling it a day does not help her deal with her desires.

We also have to consider that not every situation is an assault by a 50 year old lecherous creep and a 15 year old girl. How many single young men are youth pastors and workers that are only a few years older than the girls in their youth group? Lots of girls have ‘crushes’ on their youth pastor, and will flirt outrageously without really considering the seriousness of engaging in that kind of behavior, and many young men don’t know how to effectively discourage inappropriate behavior with the kids in their charge. I think we can’t ignore the youth group/leadership dynamic when talking about this topic.

I hope at some point we discuss educating our young people in how to decrease their risk and protect themselves from predators, and congregations about the realities of sexual assault/molestation. Not to mention the increased sexualization of young people in our culture- thanks so much Miley Cyrus, et al. I don’t even follow the whole Hannah Montana phenomenon, but I’ve seen the pics of her lap-dancing some guy probably old enough to be her grandpa, posing nearly nude for some magazine, and pole dancing in her videos. Do you all really think young girls aren’t affected by this stuff, and that this influence doesn’t increase their risk? If you think that young girls are all precious little angels who never feel lust or the desire to be lusted after, we are not going to be able to deal with this issue head on. We must honestly deal with the influences of American culture on the hearts and minds of our girls.

I admit that I focused more on the responsibility of the seduced given the background of the churches and affiliations my wife and I have grown up in. Leadership was always defended and the children solely vilified. I support using the law to help with the “criminal guilt” and realize there is “spiritual guilt” on the part of the seducer (this also provides a window into the family life of the seducer and makes you have to ask the question, “Where did they learn this from?”).

Both parties have their faults in the matter whether criminally or spiritually.

Another aspect to consider is that there are reasons sexual predators victimize children/teens other than lust. Predators may feel some gratification with regards to the sexual component of their crimes, but quite often the fact that their victims are quite a bit younger indicates a desire to manipulate, dominate, and control. They are basically inadequate and have trouble relating to adults their own age, and usually are/have been dominated themselves by their mother or wife. Sometimes victims are not young and attractive, but little ol’ ladies who are not high risk victims at all- so it is very important to remember that not all sexual crimes are committed primarily for sexual gratification or because of lust.

There’s no way to wrap this topic up with three points and a poem. There is a huge body of literature out there available to us so that we can understand and deal with all aspects of sexual abuse and assault. IMO we should be taking better advantage of it.

I am sick and tired of the blame the victim mentality that I’ve been reading on here lately. Have you ever stopped to think how what you say affects the people of whom you are discussing. I was blamed and told that what happened to me was my fault. I was told that I seduced the guy. I was 9 when he first started abusing me. NINE!! I was raised in a typical IFB home ie very sheltered about sex so didn’t even know what was happening to me. There is no way I could have seduced a guy. It was NOT consensual. Yet, the same arguments that you use are the same arguments I’ve heard from many pastors/biblical counselors. It is not the victim’s fault. NEVER. Do I believe teen girls are capable of seducing an older man? Yeah, probably. But, that is when it is the man’s place to keep his pants zipped. Nobody is forcing him to do it. But, rather than you being willing to defend the victims, you constantly throw other scenarios in there where “maybe” it was consensual.

And RPittman, it isn’t always possible to fight off the perp.When you are being physically tortured while being raped (think knives and other such objects), you are in such a state of terror/fear that you can’t do anything. Do you have daughters? Would you tell your little girl that it was okay for Mr. X to hurt her since she was too scared to tell you or fight it off. The emotions involved in sexual abuse are so twisted that unless you have had years of study in this area (ie a licensed counselor) or experienced it yourself — DO NOT JUDGE or make assumptions about how a person should act or how you think they felt.

No one here is blaming the victim. It has already been said that a child as young as 9 could not possibly consent to sex. Older girls, however, can consent, whether they realize the ramifications of their actions or not, and that is why there are laws in place to protect them. The problem I see is that we are refusing to help our kids deal with the sin in their own lives if they are acting on their desires and lusts and we simply label them as helpless victims instead of addressing why they have engaged in risky behavior.

It is true that many people, usually men, do not understand what it is like to be victimized. Any woman or child who gets within arm’s reach of any man who intends to harm her is probably toast. Few women can overpower a man, no matter how many times you see women beat up men on TV. Even a small man usually has more upper body strength than the average soccer mom and can easily overpower her. How many teens and wives in the average local church are into weight lifting and kick-boxing anyway? It is ludicrous to think that if a woman or child just fought a little harder, they could get away.

Ah, but see — what makes you the discerner on whether there was sin involved on the part of the teen. Are you a mind reader? I’ve found that pastors and others will automatically judge intents/character without listening to the victim first. Engaging in risky behaviour still doesn’t make it your right to be raped.

Anna, your comment illustrates part of the reason why this is such a difficult topic to discuss. I don’t think anyone who posted in this thread would disagree with you or your testimony. Note particularly Aaron’s comment and the ages he uses as examples. No one writing here would say that a nine year old had any thought of luring or asking for abuse such as you describe. No one here, I don’t think, would blame the nine year old.

But that is not to say the same is true, necessarily, of girls beyond puberty. At some point, they are capable of sin in this matter.

Back to Mark’s article, I’d like to know where he gets his statistics from. They don’t seem right to me. Furthermore, the notion that because of those statistics, it is inevitable that 20% of the women in your church will be inevitably abused is really ludicrous. Or that 20% of the girls in your church youth group will be eventually abused! Really! If churches are such unsafe places, no one should go.

Mark’s statistics prove the old adage, “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.”

[Anna Walker] Ah, but see — what makes you the discerner on whether there was sin involved on the part of the teen. Are you a mind reader? I’ve found that pastors and others will automatically judge intents/character without listening to the victim first. Engaging in risky behaviour still doesn’t make it your right to be raped.

Anna, I already covered this in my first post. No one has said that the victim should be judged before they speak- it would be more helpful if you would address the points that are being made instead of arguing points that no one is advocating.

Sadly, Mark’s statistics are true. I wouldn’t say, though, that the rate of abuse is necessarily higher in churches, just that it is under-reported in our churches and historically not handled appropriately.

I brought up the fact that your arguments about some ages being capable of sin and some not, because even though I was MUCH younger than your line in the sand I was still treated as if I had sinned. Back to Susan R’s comment about whether it is sin or not. You can’t know someone’s heart. I was 15 when I publicly shared of the four horrific years of abuse — not just touching but violent sexual abuse/rape. My pastor who was required by law to report did not because he assumed that it was consensual. He never asked for details. Just judged me for it and told me that I should just forget about it. That I didn’t need to keep dwelling on my sin. I’m sharing parts of my story to show you that your thinking (although it sounds “good”) has the potential to greatly hurt a victim. The point of this thread is to learn how to handle sexual abuse in the church and what to do differently. There is a lot that I would have changed about how my situation was handled.

Of course you can’t know someone’s heart- and I’m not going to address objections to points I haven’t made.

If your pastor was standing in my kitchen right now I’d hit him with a cast iron skillet, and it’s tragic when cases are handled so badly by people who should know better than anyone else to protect the innocent. But you also need to understand that I’m not talking off the top of my head. I’ve been a girl my whole life, and several of those years as a young girl who began experiencing attempted sexual assaults as young as 6 years old. My parents, fortunately, did give me some tools and the confidence to use them, which is why those incidents remain labeled as attempted. I’ve spent many years educating myself on this topic, and everything I’ve said has been based on case studies and literature on criminal and victim psychology.

Here are some [URL=http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims] DoJ statistics[/URL] -

1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime (14.8% completed rape; 2.8% attempted rape).

17.7 million American women have been victims of attempted or completed rape.

9 of every 10 rape victims were female in 2003.

While about 80% of all victims are white, minorities are somewhat more likely to be attacked.

15% of sexual assault and rape victims are under age 12.

* 29% are age 12-17.

* 44% are under age 18.

* 80% are under age 30.

* 12-34 are the highest risk years.

* Girls ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.

7% of girls in grades 5-8 and 12% of girls in grades 9-12 said they had been sexually abused.

* 3% of boys grades 5-8 and 5% of boys in grades 9-12 said they had been sexually abused.

In 1995, local child protection service agencies identified 126,000 children who were victims of either substantiated or indicated sexual abuse.

* Of these, 75% were girls.

* Nearly 30% of child victims were between the age of 4 and 7.

93% of juvenile sexual assault victims know their attacker.

* 34.2% of attackers were family members.

* 58.7% were acquaintances.

* Only 7% of the perpetrators were strangers to the victim.

This is what he said:

First, sexual abuse is everywhere. Estimates of abused women range from 1 in 5 to 1 in 3. For men, abuse ranges from 1 in 7 to 1 in 5. Take the average church of 100 people, evenly split between males and females. In this accounting, 20-33 females and 14-20 males will have been or will eventually be sexually abused.

He qualifies that somewhat in a footnote, but he gives no support for his statistics - he doesn’t tell us where they come from and leaves the implication that such statistics are equally applicable for a small sample group like a church as they are for society at large. There are certain communities in our area where the likelihood is that EVERY female in the community has been sexually abused. What does that prove? It proves that there are some deep deep problems in that community.

Mark seems to suggest that in the church, because of what seem to be NATIONWIDE statistics, one can thus extrapolate the number of women in an average church will have been or WILL BE abused eventually. This is absolute BALDERDASH. It is “statistical abuse”. The reality is that in churches, far less abuse is likely to occur than the national average.

That is not to say that abuse does not happen, or that pastors shouldn’t educate themselves on the subject, or that proper policies need to be in place in order to do everything possible to prevent even the suggestion that abuse could possibly take place in the framework of church ministry. These are serious matters and we need to be serious about them.

But Mark’s use of statistics seems to be playing into the hand of a fear-mongering lobby. They suggest that the church is AS UNSAFE an environment as any other social group in our society. I think that is just wrong.

UPDATE: I see that Mark replied to some of my complaints while I was writing this. I appreciate it. I would like to see if what he thinks about the rest of my comment.

Ok, I think were all going after details here that are distracting us from the big picture of Mark’s helpful statements. Every case will be different as the details (people, ages, situation, etc.) will vary.

The first thing to do when someone comes to you with suspected abuse is to involve the authorities. It is not your place as a pastor or other Christian leader to decide if the claims are true. I am in the middle of an open investigation with my childhood rapist. My detective was very alarmed when I gave my affidavit at the number of mandatory reporters who did not report. Two of them in particular are or will be in serious legal hot water because of their failure to report.

[Mark Farnham] What I mean by “sexual abuse in churches” is the presence of people in a church who have been sexually abused at some time in their lives. In my own experience, I found that quite a few women (and some men) who were saved in adulthood and had grown up in unsaved homes had been abused as children or adults. So, this is not an indictment on Christianity. It is rather the reality of many people’s lives.

And so we can conclude that if a church has no one in its membership who has been sexually abused, that church probably hasn’t been doing the work of the gospel. If we’re bringing wounded sheep to the Good Shepherd, membership won’t be uniform, and these cases will exist.

[Mark Farnham] Don raises a good point, so I need to clarify myself. I am NOT suggesting that the church is no safer than any other place. When I talk about sexual abuse in the church, I don’t mean that I believe these statistics to be reflective of the experience of genuinely converted families in a Bible believing church. Certainly sexual abuse DOES happen in Bible believing churches and professedly Christian families. What I mean by “sexual abuse in churches” is the presence of people in a church who have been sexually abused at some time in their lives. In my own experience, I found that quite a few women (and some men) who were saved in adulthood and had grown up in unsaved homes had been abused as children or adults. So, this is not an indictment on Christianity. It is rather the reality of many people’s lives. It IS an indictment on spiritual leaders who don’t know their Bibles well enough to deal with sexual abuse properly.

Thanks Mark. I appreciate your reply.

I don’t deny that people in churches have been sexually abused. We have had more than our share of them. One poor lady is dying in the hospital right now after a lifetime of constant abuse at the hands of all sorts of wicked men, none in the church though. Thank the Lord we have never had to deal with an ongoing immediate issue involving anyone in our ministry, as some of my friends have had. I hope and pray we never have to deal with that.

I do think the clarification is important.

I grew up attended the same churches that you men pastor. My pastor was a well-respected BJ grad. If I named names — many of you would know him. My story is also not unusual. The point is that the way sexual abuse has been dealt in our Independent Baptist chuches is not right and things need to change. Hopefully, it can start now. Treat every victim with respect. Get these molestors off the streets. AND, get that victim counseling — real counseling with someone who is trained in trauma and abuse. Not nouthetic counseling, but a professional licensed counselor who knows enough about PTSD, abuse etc to actually help.

there is more to a church’s proper functions in dealing with sin in the midst of the congregation than what our society has deemed legal/illegal. It is true that the first step is to notify the authorities. Period. But it is also reasonable for the pastor to consider how to minister to both the victim and the accused. The accused may need to be removed from office or be subject to church discipline, and the victim and both families may request counseling.

The legal system considers someone innocent until proven guilty- but should the church wait to take action until the legal wheels have stopped turning? Or should they assume the worst in order to protect children? What if the charges are found to be false- does the accused have grounds to sue the church for defamation of character because they took punitive action before the verdict was handed down by the justice system?

This is not so cut&dried as what folks want to make it. We don’t simply punish the accused and ask questions later. These tragedies, as has been pointed out, create more than one victim. The whole flock is affected to one extent or the other, from the families involved to the inevitable rippling outward.

BTW, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) was originally passed in the early 70’s, but has been amended and reauthorized several times. [URL=http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/laws_policies/state/ Each state has different statutes[/URL] as to who is/isn’t a mandatory reporter. Some states still do not require members of the ‘clergy’ to report. Some states require film developers to report. It would behoove pastors to know the law in their state.

It is not as simple as forgive and forget. How I wish it was. As I mentioned previously, I am in the middle of an open investigation with my childhood rapist. There are two arrest warrants out for his arrest for sexual battery of a minor. Two warrants because he raped two little girls. If the pastor had done the right thing and dealt with it properly or the other people who knew of the situation and chose to view it as consensual or look the other way had reported it — then, he would not have been free to continue his nefarious acts. You cannot forgive without true repentance on the part of the offender. Without true repentance there is no changing of a person’s ways. There are four known victims of this man (two are in a different state). If I chose to just forget what he did and ignore it — then how high would that number be — 40?

[RPittman] Thus, the secular concepts of victimization and recovery become lifelong therapeutic processes that never achieve closure. The answer is true Biblical forgiveness, not psychotherapy. Once true forgiveness is given, one has satisfied God’s requirement (Matthew 6:14; Matthew 18:35; Mark 11:25) and one experiences closure through peace with God and the peace of God within. Needlessly to say, granting forgiveness is not easy as Christ’s disciples recognized and realized that it was an act requiring faith (Luke 17:1-10). Oftentimes, forgiveness is difficult because it violates our sense of righteous anger and hatred toward one who has caused us pain and violated our sense of self. This, however, is a wrongheaded spirit of vindictiveness encouraged by many in the victim and recovery movement.

RPittman, I think the secular concepts of victiimization etc is part of what makes me react to the statistical statements so much. You said earlier that many young people are coming forward with stories of abuse, etc. I don’t doubt that this is a huge problem, but I wonder how much of it is fed by the secular mindset that seems to permeate our thinking at every hand. I also wonder how healthy it is for these people to be hung up on the past. That is not to minimize how horrible these events are, but to question how healthy it is to dredge them up.

When crimes are committed, it is vital to do what we can to bring the criminals to justice, but sometimes that is impossible. In one case I have dealt with, the perpetrator was long dead. What good did it do for the victim to dwell on those past experiences? Better for her to forgive and live now to the glory of God. (Easily said, of course.) The past shouldn’t be allowed to cripple the present.

Children statistically do not make false claims of sexual abuse. Most children in our IFB churches are so sheltered about sex, that if they claim abuse — then it is very probable that it occurred simply because they wouldn’t have had that knowledge otherwise. If you give kids the impression that you aren’t going to believe them, then they won’t tell you what is happening. I know in my situation two of the victims never shared about their abuse because they saw how badly I was punished when I told and they were afraid of getting in trouble too. My story is NOT unusual. And, I’m not running on emotions here. I’m trying to give you facts. By “ministering” to the accused, you are showing the victim that you don’t believe them and care more about the perp than them. In the rare chance that a perp is falsely accused — then deal with that on a case by case basis. I honestly don’t think false accusations are nearly as common as people are led to believe. I think that the kid is usually too scared to continue with the investigations.

REPORT, REPORT, REPORT.

Then, wrap that little girl or teenage girl up in your arms and tell them that it was not their fault and keep repeating it to them. You as a pastor/shepherd have the responsibility to protect all of your sheep. And, if someone hurts one of your sheep, then you need to do everything you can to make sure it never happens again. Don’t wait for the victim to request counseling — offer it — give them names/phone numbers of professional counselors to help. Show them you care by keeping the perp away from them and away from the church.

[Anna Walker] Children statistically do not make false claims of sexual abuse. Most children in our IFB churches are so sheltered about sex, that if they claim abuse — then it is very probable that it occurred simply because they wouldn’t have had that knowledge otherwise.

I agree that false claims are few and far between, but I do not believe that most children in IFB churches are sheltered about sex. I grew up in IFB churches, and the kids always knew a whole lot more about the birds and bees than they let on to the adults, and many were sexually active at a very young age. It’s why my dh and I don’t allow sleepovers nor do our children attend overnight church activities or go away to camp without one of us attending as a counselor. I’ve mentioned here at SI that I saw my first R-rated movie at a ‘church’ sleepover… and it certainly wasn’t my last experience with a sexually charged atmosphere at a church function.

That was more than 20 years ago- and now more than ever children are being sexualized. Today [URL=http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/24/mass-district-policy-let-elementar…] elementary schools have policies[/URL] that make “condoms available to all Provincetown public school students and takes effect in the fall. Under the policy, any student requesting a condom from a school nurse must first receive counseling, which includes information on abstinence….without the knowledge of their parents.” If our IFB kids are attending public schools, they aren’t ignorant on sexual issues. And they aren’t likely ignorant even if they attend Christian schools. You really have to have a tight grip on your kids for them to be truly innocent in today’s world.

We need to get a clue- not only should we educate our kids on sexual issues (before the perverts do it for us) but they need to understand what they can do to prevent their own victimization. Stating that abuse can be prevented does not mean that when a child is victimized they are at fault, but it does mean that they can reduce their risk by understanding how to listen to their instincts and by parents giving them the freedom to disobey authority when they believe authority has overstepped their bounds. I teach my kids that if anyone- be it pastor, teacher, or other authority figure- makes them feel creeped out, they are to immediately leave and come and find me or their dad- and we will protect them. Any adult who cares about kids is not going to be upset that a child left a situation where they felt uncomfortable or afraid.

[Anna Walker] The first thing to do when someone comes to you with suspected abuse is to involve the authorities. It is not your place as a pastor or other Christian leader to decide if the claims are true. I am in the middle of an open investigation with my childhood rapist. My detective was very alarmed when I gave my affidavit at the number of mandatory reporters who did not report. Two of them in particular are or will be in serious legal hot water because of their failure to report.

I CANNOT emphasize this enough. While I haven’t been abused, I know of family members who have been and the utter failure on the part of the pastor to report what was clearly ongoing, graphic abuse has utterly destroyed any relationship that I could have had with the Pastor. I still can’t understand why he didn’t do report it, and it’s been at least three years since I found out. Fortunately, the victim has started getting the help she so desperately needed.

The hardest part for me personally has been knowing when to step back once the report is made. I doubt that I’m the only one who would like to be the judge, jury and executioner when abuse situations come up in the course of personal/pastoral counseling.

Blaming a victim of sexual abuse because they initiated a relationship with older men/even youth pastors is ridiculous. PERIOD.

Do we exonerate someone who shoots a child because the child was playing with a gun? Do we exonerate someone who burns a child because they were playing with matches? Do we exonerate someone who beats a child because the child hit them? Is it not abuse when a man puts a woman in the hospital. Yes, I know and have heard, ‘she hit me first.’

A Child abuser/Rapist is a sinner, period. If we want to hold onto the image we had of them, that is our own weakness and should not be directed to the victim. It is natural to want ask, “are you sure?” We do not want to believe that of ‘one of our own.’ Could have done such a thing.

Yet, DO NOT DO THAT. Do you not hear how that line of questioning ends up telling a victim that they are lying, untrustworthy. The passionate person with no control yells, “No you are lying!” And now the victim has been further victimized. Chances are the victim has been threatened with not being believed, asking that question gives the abuser credence. “Tell me what happened?” would be a better line of questioning. and following that up love and assurance that you value the victim. There is a great chance they withheld information and were just testing to see if you would believe them. IF you do not believe them, still ask more questions without a cynical nature, do not interrogate them. If you find it hard to believe then do report it immediately, find someone with experience to talk with them.

Do the promiscuous teens bent on attacking ‘Godly Men’ exist? I suppose, I have not met them in my experience. I have met adults with such a bent, but not a child. A 30 year old man has as much emotional and intellectual power over a teen as they have physical power. The promiscuous teen so often blamed is usually the victim of previous abuse, or just terrible training on what it is to be a young woman.

A Child is a child. PERIOD. Their parents encourage to become close to the youth pastor/pastor/Sunday School teacher/coach/teacher/uncle/step father/etc. I would sooner blame the parent for not protecting the child from a predator than the child for opening up their heart to an adult. I understand, their ‘opening up’ could be very sexual in nature. Our culture is saturated with sex equals love. A child, even a fully developed teen, does not understand their ‘sexuality.’ You can disagree with me, that is fine, but I would sooner take responsibility for the action as the pastor for failing to protect than blame the child who has been taught incorrect use of their God given body.

We are not talking about looking down someone’s shirt and blaming them for wearing it so low. We are talking about planned actions of deception that are executed. Even the most streetwise teen can not manipulate an adult male to that extent. It would be easier for the girl to physically defeat their rapist than for them to manipulate a ‘godly man’ into rape. What Bibles are we using that we forget Matt 18:6 and Luke 17:2? Their actions are not the result of the victim, James 1:14 IT is his own lusts, not the child’s schemes. A child opening their heart to an adult, even in the rare case where it is in a sexual manner, is NOT the sin, the abuse is the sin.

And so we can conclude that if a church has no one in its membership who has been sexually abused, that church probably hasn’t been doing the work of the gospel. If we’re bringing wounded sheep to the Good Shepherd, membership won’t be uniform, and these cases will exist.

Just want to caution about what stats—even good ones—mean. If you have any kind of “average” calculation (as in, [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_mean] mean[/URL] ), the reality is that there are not necessarily any “average” cases. Rather, the individuals/groups involved can usually be mapped on something that resembles a bell curve so you have a fair number of exceptional cases at either end and a bunch in the middle. This is if your sample is large enough.

To be more concrete, you can have 5 people in a room and calculate that their average age 21. But it is possible that none of them are even close to 21 in age (like, roughly age 10, age 10, age 11, age 40 and age 35).

So even if the national averages are accurate, there will be some churches, towns, villages, maybe even whole states or regions that are way above or way below “average.”

When a minor is sexually assaulted, that minor’s identity is not disclosed by the press or police. How should a church handle a situation if that minor also wants her/his anonymity preserved in the church? It definitely should be done, but in a small church context, how would you handle the proneness people have to talk, speculate? How can the whole church rally around a child who wants to remain the unknown victim of a predator within the church? Would you just seek to let a few people who might minister to the victim in on it and swear them to silence. Or if the victim wants it to go no further than the pastor and his wife, just have the pastor’s family minister to the victim? I know the answers to these questions; it just occurred to me that often victims do want to remain unknown and churches have to respect that.

Bro. Farnham mentioned the tactics predators use to exploit their victims- I think that an understanding of these tactics could be tremendously helpful when dealing with the victim of a molestation/assault. These situations don’t arise out of the blue- it takes time for a predator to groom his/her victim (let’s not forget that boys can be victimized as well by a man or woman). In a church situation, the element of trust is often assumed- IOW, the kids and the parents assume that the church has done it’s homework in choosing Sunday School teachers, camp counselors, youth leaders and chaperones for activities. Are our churches really making sure that the people they place in charge of children are not just knowledgeable of Scripture, but also of good character? ‘Cause let’s face it- kids do develop intimate and affectionate relationships with their teachers and counselors, and there is nothing wrong with that on the face of it, unless the person in charge is exploiting that trust for their own ends.

In a [URL=http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417163856.htm nutshel[/URL] l-

According to the researchers, in order for the process of entrapment to take place, the perpetrator must first gain access to the potential victim through various exploitive means. Olson and her team identified several communicative elements in the cycle of entrapment, including the core phenomenon of “deceptive trust development.” Deceptive trust development describes the predator’s ability to build a trusting relationship with the victim in order to improve the likelihood of sexual encounter.

Deceptive trust development is central to other manipulative strategies used by the predator such as grooming. Grooming sets the stage for abuse by desensitizing the victim to sexual contact. Grooming may include activities such as sitting on a child’s bed and watching them get into their bedclothes; “accidentally” touching the child inappropriately; showing the child pornographic images; and making contact or sex play with implicit sexual suggestions.

As perpetrators are grooming their victims and building deceptive trust, they also work to isolate them both physically and emotionally from their support network. Isolation strategies may include offers to baby sit, giving the child a ride home, and taking advantage of fragile family and friend relationships. Isolation causes the victim to become more and more dependent on the perpetrator.

A third strategy is approach, which is the initial physical contact or verbal lead-ins that occur just prior to the sexual act. Examples of approach strategies include suggestions to play sex games, more explicit discussions about sexual issues, giving a child a “rubdown,” bathing or undressing a child, and instigating wrestling and other physical games as a means to escalate sexual physical contact.

Are these tactics being used because of our ignorance in our churches? What are the kids doing for entertainment at activities- are they watching movies with sexual content? Playing games like “Baby, do you love me?” Are there games where girls encouraged to smear their youth leader head to toe with shaving cream? How are youth worker/teacher relationships with children from fragile/dysfunctional families supervised? Why do some churches even have mixed gender overnight activities?

Bro. Pittman- in Bro. Duane’s ‘defense’, I don’t think he’s aiming at anyone in this thread per se, but at the incidents where churches have ‘circled the wagons’ around the perpetrator and left the victim to fend for themselves. I think the underlying thought is that if one church leader is exposed as a lecherous creep, then the whole kit-n-caboodle will collapse. But sin unacknowledged and unpunished always seems to blossom into something pervasive and destructive.

BTW, this isn’t just a problem in churches, but in schools as well. It’s called “[URL=http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/sexual-pred… passing the trash[/URL] “.

[RPittman] There many apparent assumptions in our discussions. Whereas it is true that most sexual abusers are male, there is a significant percentage of female abusers. Newspaper headlines have revealed female teachers who had sex with their male students this past year. Also, sexual abuse is not necessarily adult abuse on children but there is a significant percentage of child on child abuse. Many of the children abusers have been abused themselves and perpetrate what happened to them at home on other children at school. A child, who left my school, returned after being abused by another student at a different school. Thus, we cannot assume that abusers are always male and adults.

I think sometimes we talk from what is statistically most probable, knowing that there are exceptions. In all the books I have on the subject, the male pronoun is used when referring to the perpetrators of sexual crimes because they are overwhelmingly adult males, but those statistics are increasingly changing. And if we think girls are further victimized because they aren’t believed, just try being a boy who feels victimized by the sexual advances of an older woman.

Y’all, call me Victorian but we don’t need to discuss the details of arousal OK? Let’s focus on what pastors and churches can do to deal w/this problem and/or prevent it.

Also, let’s shift focus a bit here. We can all agree that kids are sinners, too but in these cases the vast majority of them do not involve guilt on the kid’s part. So though it is possible where much older kids are involved, it’s rare and is not where the emphasis belongs.

FWIW, Iowa law states that any time there is a “reasonable suspicion” of abuse it must be reported (although clergy and church volunteers are not mandatory reporters in Iowa). A pastor—or “Response Team” in our child protection policy—are NOT the judge and jury, but they have a responsibility to discern whether or not there is a reasonable suspicion that abuse occurred. It is just as wrong to impugn the reputation of a church member by reporting an unreasonable accusation than it is to fail to report a reasonable suspicion of abuse.

HSAT, I’m sure there are far more instances of actual abuses going unreported in churches that there are of false accusations being reported. And our child protection policy states that all suspicions of abuse, misconduct, or policy deviations are to be reported to ministry leaders immediately. Then a Response Team is assembled to listen to the person making the report and to determine if the authorities should be notified (again, if there is a “reasonable suspicion” of abuse).

We need something much better than just a reverse recrimination against the person who comes forward to say they were abused.

Well said. If anybody here disagrees with that, I’m not seeing it here in the thread.

What I am seeing is differing emphases based, probably, mostly on what they’ve experienced. Roland’s point about focusing on future prevention isn’t the same thing as “let’s ignore the past,” but rather let’s not get stuck on past things once everything that can be done about them has been done.

Tomorrow’s post focuses on dealing with the abuser and the church and touches on some of the things that come up in the thread here. We might close this thread to continue discussion there rather than continuing it in two places at once.

Thanks everyone for not going into discussion about what happened or didn’t happen in Concord etc. We do appreciate that.

Prevention is key

• Training
• Controls
• Criminal background checks for all who work with youth
• Reporting all abuse cases to legal authorities
  

Also suggest that pulpit committees require criminal background checks on prospective pastor before extending a call

Great post. It is mind-boggling that this needs to be said, but it obviously does. If you’re reading and you doubt this approach, do Christ’s church a favour and stop counselling until you’ve settled these issues. I’m dead serious.

[RPittman]

[Louise Dan]

[RPittman] Jay, my frustration is that we are living in bitterness, vindictiveness and recriminations about the past. I’m more concerned about the present and future. Let’s get to work on curtailing and preventing sexual abuse from occurring. What do you say?

We have to be careful with this line of reasoning, because for every child who comes forward (or adult who was abused as a child), it was in “the past.” Certainly we want to prevent such abuse. But we also have to have an answer better than “forgive and forget or you’ll become bitter” for those who finally, maybe even decades later, come forward with past abuse against them. For some, just the simple statement, “You sinned against me” gets them labeled bitter and vindictive. We need something much better than just a reverse recrimination against the person who comes forward to say they were abused.

I don’t think that I said what you think I said or implied. I was just trying to counterbalance the excessive wallowing in anger and pity. Of course, I believe that we must punish the offenders and comfort the offended. Having worked in this area for a number of years, I think that I have a much more detailed counseling perspective than “simply forgive and forget.” Do I appear that naive and clueless? Give me credit for some intelligence, please. I was simply expressing my frustration with the blame game that goes nowhere. That was it. Read the fifty plus posts and see that few addressed prevention. The scenarios that you describe in your post do NOT reflect my views or practice at all.

I’ve read blogs and comments here and there by women who’ve been abused/attacked at some point in their life, and it seems many of the more vocal have become ‘man-haters’. They spew hatred toward men in general, but mostly men in authority. They appear to view the world as a place where there is a pervert behind every pulpit or staff position in a church, and any question of their emotional balance or skepticism of their portrayal of events as tantamount to being an accessory to their victimization.

Jumping off an emotional cliff does nothing to help other victims or prevent abuse. IMO it just furthers the victimization to define oneself as a victim for the rest of one’s life. Christ calls us to victory over sin, death, and Hell itself. Let’s continue to seek justice and judgment, but not forget the comfort and victory offered us through Christ.

[Susan R]

I’ve read blogs and comments here and there by women who’ve been abused/attacked at some point in their life, and it seems many of the more vocal have become ‘man-haters’. They spew hatred toward men in general, but mostly men in authority. They appear to view the world as a place where there is a pervert behind every pulpit or staff position in a church, and any question of their emotional balance or skepticism of their portrayal of events as tantamount to being an accessory to their victimization.

Jumping off an emotional cliff does nothing to help other victims or prevent abuse. IMO it just furthers the victimization to define oneself as a victim for the rest of one’s life. Christ calls us to victory over sin, death, and Hell itself. Let’s continue to seek justice and judgment, but not forget the comfort and victory offered us through Christ.

This is important for anyone who has ever been abused to learn during the process of evaluating and responding to the abuse. Often personally satisfying remedies do not present themselves in the course of dealing with ANY form of abuse. Even when we look outside the periphery of sexual abuse to all forms of suffering that humans encounter at the hands of another human we easily note that in fact, most of the time the recourse rarely satisfies the victim so that they no longer suffer any psychological injury. Unfortunately this is what is in view much of the time with regard to the penalties imposed on those guilty of abuse, namely the expectation that such penalties will produce a fulfillment and satisfaction on the part of the victim leading to wholeness of person. To depend on the satisfaction gained from the imposition of a penalty that causes suffering in another as the medium by which one will procure personal peace, wholeness, and resolution is a devils illusion. In fact such engagements only exacerbate the anger, rage, feelings of isolation, powerlessness and so on because penalties are not imposed for that purpose and cannot lead to such ends.

This is not to say that there is not a proper satisfaction of one accounting for offenses against another, the Scriptures make this clear but such a satisfaction is misplaced if one has the expectation that it is going to be the significant contributor to personal and psychological reconciliation (never minding spiritual reconciliation). And yes there is a psychological reward in learning or viewing your offender is being held accountable but it is woefully inadequate for what lies ahead regarding all a person who has been abused will need to deal with and come to terms with if they wish to recover wholeness, peace and a mature temperament.

But I digress so more to Susan’s point. What often occurs with the people she described is a dissatisfaction with the recourse in the case of abuse, either it was non-existent, too lenient or viewed as something the offender will never satisfy in the mind of the victim. And that leaves you with one of two choices. Either you are going to resolve it yourself and understand it for what it was and is or you will refuse to address what is left inside of you which no other person can remedy and take it out of the rest of society by imposing your sinister view of others onto the world and all of its context. And your life will be filled with constant exaggerations of all slights and merciless demands of elevated suffering and humiliation by all who cross your path or any offender whose victim you identify with. Your life will be one of hysteria and not peace. Your life will be one of constant anger; whether underlying passive aggressive rage, sublimation through alcohol, licentiousness or gross self-righteous crusading, in the end it will be dysfunctional and always without the context of happiness, peacemaking, resolution and fairness.

While the psychological world is right about many things it does not have within its assets Christian doctrine that brings to us divine remedy to all circumstances and the power of forgiveness and confidence in God’s plan and purpose that though someone meant it for evil, God will use their wrong for his divine good. The psychological sciences provides many insights and adjudications but it does not provide to the Christian the problem solving devices contained in Scripture which are distinctly for the believer.

Of course such Scriptural remedies do not justify the offenses of others nor do they replace rightful legal remedies but that is not what I have in view because after all the legal recourse and after all of the imposition of penalties, you still must live with yourself and the effects. What you do with that is your choice. But if you choose to stay identified with whatever abuse occurred your life will be consumed by such. You will remained controlled by the person who abused you and the abuse itself.

I am tempted to stop here but I won’t lest someone come along and misrepresent what I said. I acknowledge that recovery from abuse is a process and I certainly am not suggesting either minimizing it by ignoring it or placing it a different context so one does not have to deal with it as it truly is. I do not pretend to suggest a one-size-fits-all prescription for all circumstances. All cases are unique. What I am clearly issuing is an echo of Susan’s post that if, after some time and movement away from the circumstances, you find yourself encased in anger, bitterness, a distorted world view, hysteria and high drama in your life, you in fact have not dealt with it but are fostering it and failing to reconcile your life both psychologically and spiritually.

I’ve found that most abuse victims (myself included) are immediately tagged with the bitterness label if we desire to talk about the abuse. We’re expected to leave it in the past and ignore it. I’m actually not an angry person if you met me in real life. I’ve made a life for myself apart from the abuse. I’d say that 75% of my friends don’t even know I’ve been abused. I choose to share about it, though, when I feel like my experiences can be used to shed light on this issue. Within reason, abuse victims need the freedom to express their emotions. Those emotions are real and it provides validation that yes what happened was bad and provides closure. I’m about ten years out and I’ve come a long way as far as healing. I don’t agree that if you allow the “victim” to express anger that that means that they will become angry and vindictive for the rest of their lives. It is a journey. If you know of a victim, pray with them, love them, support them, but just don’t judge them. I also do not have an issue with being called a victim. Will I always identify myself as such — no, probably not. But, by denying the victim the acknowledgment that wrong has been done, you are also minimizing at best and denying at worst what happened to them. Something did happen. If I was a cancer survivor — no one would think twice of me mentioning the fact that I’d had cancer and that it was a hard period of time.

Do you believe that fundamentalists speak out about sexual abuse issues with the same boldness they do about other issues?

[Pastor Joe Roof] Do you believe that fundamentalists speak out about sexual abuse issues with the same boldness they do about other issues?

No.

In light of new sex education standards, the presumed innocence of children is IMO going to experience increasing incredulity. Take, for instance, the sex ed standards up for vote in Montana-

[URL=http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/14/montana-kindergarten-sex-ed/ Montana Parents Weigh In on Proposed Kindergarten Sex Ed[/URL]

According to the 62-page draft proposal, beginning in kindergarten, school nurses will teach students proper terms such as < insert specific anatomical terms here > . Once they are promoted to first grade, children will learn that sexual relations could happen between two men or two women. By the time students are 10 years old, instruction will include the various ways people can have intercourse, < insert specific ways here >, according to the proposal.

“As educators and as parents and as communities, we need to be more proactive in helping inform our students at an appropriate age what the risk factors are associated with their own behaviors so that they can make better decisions about their well-being,” Dr. Bruce Messinger, the Superintendent of Helena Public Schools, told Fox News.

Do you see the problem? If children as young as 5 and six are being schooled in the specifics of sex, there is no presumed innocence of the child, no pleading ignorance of the details of sexual activity, and quite possibly their testimony is going to be called into question. This shouldn’t matter as long as the child is under the age of consent, but I wonder how all this is going to affect how pedophiles and child molesters are treated by the legal system, and how this lost innocence is going to affect the mental and emotional development of children. It’s like schools are being given carte blanche to victimize kids, as well as doing away with the age of consent with phrases like “inform our students at an appropriate age what the risk factors are associated with their own behaviors so that they can make better decisions about their well-being”. If they can’t consent, how is it that they can “make decisions about their (sexual) well being”?

I don’t the level of education is that much of a factor from a legal standpoint. That is, the legal theory is rooted in the idea that the power the adult has in the situation removes the possibly of true consensual behavior between them. From a spiritual/sin standpoint (again, a different category from the category of ‘crime’), education could be more of a factor, thought the power dynamic is still there.

Part of the power dynamic is the lack of maturity, which is also not affected much by the information, if at all.

I’m for leaving sex out of kid’s lives (including the whole notion of “romantic relationships”) until they are much older, but I don’t think the early ed. really affects these sins/crimes a whole lot. (Edit: want to qualify that a little. Where it might muddy the waters more is in the believability of kid’s testimony in these cases. Where they had more “innocence,” it was less likely that they’d fabricate something like this. Where they have more awareness of these kinds of acts, and the trouble adults face if accused, there is more potential for false accusation.)

[Aaron Blumer] I don’t the level of education is that much of a factor from a legal standpoint. That is, the legal theory is rooted in the idea that the power the adult has in the situation removes the possibly of true consensual behavior between them. From a spiritual/sin standpoint (again, a different category from the category of ‘crime’), education could be more of a factor, thought the power dynamic is still there.

Part of the power dynamic is the lack of maturity, which is also not affected much by the information, if at all.

I’m for leaving sex out of kid’s lives (including the whole notion of “romantic relationships”) until they are much older, but I don’t think the early ed. really affects these sins/crimes a whole lot. (Edit: want to qualify that a little.

Where it might muddy the waters more is in the believability of kid’s testimony in these cases. Where they had more “innocence,” it was less likely that they’d fabricate something like this. Where they have more awareness of these kinds of acts, and the trouble adults face if accused, there is more potential for false accusation.

)

That’s my point. The veracity of a child’s testimony in this area has often been predicated on the idea that a child would not make this stuff up, and could not because they didn’t have access to sexually explicit information. The kind of sex ed that many schools are proposing is very explicit, and will completely negate this premise.

It also concerns me when a school admin is talking about how kids (and we are talking kids UNDER 10) need to know this information in order to make informed decisions- well, if they can’t legally consent, what is the point of giving the information so they can intelligently consent? Doesn’t this sound like a setup to anyone but me? I mean, we can say all the livelong day that it shouldn’t make a difference, but the fact remains that schools have parental notification policies that often allow them to counsel and treat children without parental consent when it concerns sexual activity. They can give out birth control and advice on safe sexual practices, as well as transporting girls to clinics for abortions- but they don’t treat any other physical problem in this manner. I mean, if a child presents with lower right quadrant abdominal pain, does the school diagnose appendicitis, transport the child to the hospital, perform an appendectomy, and send the kid home without notifying the parents? No sirreee- but they sure as shootin’ do when it involves removing an unborn child from the body of a young girl.

I’m tellin’ ya’ll, my Spidey sense is tingling, and when you play connect the dots on this, it creates a very disturbing pattern. Someone is planning on letting this horse out of the corral, and they are removing the fence posts one by one.

Someone…. they…. maybe I should dig that tinfoil helmet outta my closet and see if it still fits.