Dealing with Sexual Abuse in the Church: Advice for Pastors
Recent events have sparked vigorous debate regarding the proper handling of sexual abuse in the church. This essay is not an attempt to directly address a specific incident, but it will certainly intersect well-known incidents at points. While I was pastoring, I dealt with a multitude of sexual abuse cases that occurred both prior to and concurrent with my ministry. The list of tragedies included several rapes of teenagers, gang rape, incest, one entire family of five children molested by the father, and bestiality. While I am certainly not the most experienced person in this regard (not by a long shot), I think I have enough experience to contribute to the conversation.
I feel compelled to write this essay primarily for the younger generation of future pastors. Unless a clear message of what is biblical, right and courageous is sounded, I fear that many of them will enter ministry confused, fearful and uncertain of the proper manner of dealing with sexual abuse. I am afraid that many will swallow the weak excuses for leadership that are often given when pastors fail to properly deal with this terrible phenomenon in the church. Too often believers defend obvious failures of leadership, offer weak excuses, or attempt to bury offenses and hope everybody eventually forgets about them.
A Word for the Pastors
Before you think I am being overly critical of pastors, let me give a few caveats that I hope will communicate my sympathy for any pastor who has to deal with sexual abuse. 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.1 This is a staggering number, and it screams for colleges and seminaries to give those preparing for ministry clear and sophisticated training on dealing with sexual abuse. In this essay I will primarily speak in terms of male predator and female victim, but the dynamic happens in every possible combination.
Second, any case of sexual abuse is messy, complex, emotional, and exhausting. Sexual abuse implies predation, and predators are notoriously deceitful, conniving, and evasive. A pastor can often feel like a detective, trying to track down and extract the truth from a situation clouded in lies, emotional devastation, fear, anger and cover-ups. In addition, a pastor cannot depend upon the police department or Department of Children and Families (or whatever it is called in your state) to be of much help in most cases. In the state of Connecticut where I pastored, DCF was rife with corruption, neglect and even abuse of children in their charge. My experience with DCF was with a few well-meaning case workers overwhelmed with caseloads often being managed poorly by bureaucrats. The police often had bigger concerns with which to deal, such as drug lords and gangs.
Finally, until the past 15-20 years, sexual abuse was never spoken of in many fundamental and evangelical circles. Only in the last decade have colleges and seminaries made concerted effort to provide quality training to future leaders. Most pastors who were trained more than 15 years ago literally have no formal training in dealing with sexual abuse. Today there are many good resources to help a pastor effectively deal with abuse, but these are recent developments. (On a personal level, I know of no more qualified experts than Chuck and Sue McLain at Calvary Baptist Seminary in Lansdale and Bruce Meyer at Maranatha. Readers would do well to take their classes.)
Understanding Sexual Abuse
Before we go any further, we need to define sexual abuse. The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect defines child sexual assault as: “Contacts or interactions between a child and an adult when the child is being used for sexual stimulation of the perpetrator or another person when the perpetrator or another person is in a position of power or control over the victim.”
There are several key components to this definition. First, sexual abuse is any contact or interaction…when the child is being used for the sexual stimulation of the predator. Contact or interaction includes actual physical contact, in addition to forcing a child to watch sexual acts or pornography, etc. I would add that lewd comments, gestures and looks also qualify as abuse.
Second, the legal definition of “child” is anyone under eighteen years old, even though the age of consent may be lower in certain states. Legally, and I think, wisely, children under eighteen are not considered to be responsible for sexual behavior with adults. This may seem like an arbitrary determination by some. As the father of seventeen- and fifteen-year-old daughters, I think this is just about right. This is not to deny the fact that some teenagers occasionally seduce adults, but the occurrences of children seducing adults are rare in comparison to the vast majority of cases where the minor is preyed upon. The reason responsibility is not placed upon the minor is simple: It is not normal behavior for a minor to initiate sexual contact with an adult. I know this point will raise howls of protest from men who have “fallen” to the charms of teenage girls, but it is simply not the case that very many teens are out there looking to initiate sexual relations with forty-year-old men. Besides, as Christians we hold adults to a higher standard. Let me say this very clearly. If a teenager should ever initiate sexual contact with an adult, it is the adult who is first and foremost responsible to resist temptation and refuse the contact.
Why so many people don’t understand this is a mystery to me. In so many instances where Christian men (especially leaders) have preyed upon teenagers, it seems that the automatic assumption is that this “godly man” would never do such a thing willingly. He must have been seduced by a perverse teenage girl. She is to blame for ruining the man’s ministry or position or life. This kind of response needs to be identified as the twisted delusion that it is.
Third, sexual abuse happens when the perpetrator or another person is in a position of power or control over the victim. This neglected point is often misunderstood or ignored in cases of sexual abuse. Having control over a victim is a powerful dynamic that can leave one absolutely in the grip of the perpetrator. Power is gained in many ways, and unfortunately religious or spiritual power is often the best tool of the abuser.
Predators use a variety of scare tactics: everything from threats of bodily harm against the victim or her family to threats of public exposure and shame and loss of family support and love. They may appeal to her sympathy and incite fear of church discipline or even damnation. Recently in our area, a “Christian” man was exposed as raping his now nineteen-year-old adopted daughter continuously from the very first night he brought her home at the age of twelve. All those years he threatened that if she told anyone, the family would reject her and have nothing to do with her. And he was right! When he was finally exposed, the negligently ignorant wife blamed all those years of abuse on the daughter and threw her out of the house. The power dynamic in sexual abuse cannot be underestimated.
If this description so far makes you sick to your stomach and afraid to ever have to deal with sexual abuse, it should. It is not for the faint of heart or the ill-prepared. Without the training I received in seminary I would have completely failed the sheep that limped into my office, broken and bleeding from the wolf-attacks they had endured. So how should a pastor deal with sexual abuse in his congregation?
Shepherding the Victim
First, a distinction needs to be made between sexual immorality and sexual abuse. They are not the same. The issue of consent is not a minor issue; it is the issue. When two adults or two minors engage in consensual sexual immorality, they are both morally responsible for their actions. When one person forces another to engage in a sexual act, there is no responsibility on the part of the victim. And by definition, there can be no consensual sexual contact between minors and adults. Why? Because adults have inherent power over minors. Again, I am aware of the rare cases where a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old may appear to be consensually involved with an adult. But even at that age, there is a power dynamic in the relationship that makes it abuse.
What does this mean for pastoral care? In the case of sexual contact between a minor and an adult, the minor ought to be considered the innocent victim unless clear and compelling evidence says otherwise. And even in such rare cases, the responsibility of the act still rests squarely on the shoulders of the adult. I am amazed at the confusion on this issue. In an attempt to somehow explain how a “Christian” man who seemed to be godly, seemed to be a good family man, and seemed to love God could do such a thing, blame is quite often laid at the feet of the minor. It is especially appalling to me when women rush to blame a teenager for sexual contact with an adult. Perhaps many women who respond in this fashion were abused themselves, and have never stopped blaming themselves for the abuse they suffered.
The main role of the pastor with the victim at this point is that of the gentle shepherd, recognizing that he is dealing with a severely wounded lamb who needs care, comfort, counseling, support, courage and more. A pastor needs to demonstrate compassion toward the victim, reassuring her that the abuse was not her fault, and that the church will be there to help her through the trauma that will unfold in her life over the next years as she comes to grips with this most devastating violation of her person.
It is not uncommon for abuse victims to suffer depression, thoughts of suicide, eating disorders, self-mutilation, and a host of other symptoms in the years following an act of abuse. Pastors need to be prepared for the long haul to minister patiently to the victim. The victim will be wracked with guilt, fear, anger and other emotions. She will be tormented with questions such as, “Could I have fought harder? Did I do anything to encourage him? Why am I such a bad person?” In addition, the victim will most likely suffer the humiliation of ignorant people making hurtful comments. All this adds up to a monumental task for a pastor in the post-abuse care of an abuse victim.
The pastor needs to take the lead in finding women who will come alongside her in the process. He needs to help the family find a good counselor and perhaps a good lawyer. He needs to fulfill the commands of 1 Thessalonians 5:14 to “encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” Above all, the pastor needs to ensure that the victim is not exposed to shame in any way for the heinous act committed against her. The one place a violated person ought to be able to go to find relief from shame and condemnation is the church. How a pastor prepares his people for this eventuality will make all the difference in the world. This will be discussed later.
(See Part 2 on shepherding the perpetrator and shepherding the church.)
Notes
1 Editor’s note: Perhaps the congregation size would need to be 200 to produce the final numbers indicated here (since the statistics are calculated based on 100 females (1 in 5 = 20/100, 1 in 3 = 33/100) + 100 males (1 in 7 = 14/100, 1 in 5 = 20/100)? Or if the average church is 100 and not 200, the ranges of abused women/men should be adjusted in half (for a congregation of 50 women/50 men). Still a “staggering number.”
Mark Farnham is Assistant Professor of Theology and New Testament at Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary (Lansdale, PA). He and his wife, Adrienne, grew up in Connecticut and were married after graduating from Maranatha Baptist Bible College (Watertown, WI). They have two daughters and a son, all teenagers. Mark served as director of youth ministries at Positive Action for Christ (Rocky Mount, NC) after seminary and pastored for seven years in New London, Connecticut. He holds an MDiv from Calvary and a ThM in New Testament from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (South Hamilton, MA). He has also studied ancient manuscripts at Harvard Divinity School and philosophy at Villanova University. He is presently a doctoral student at Westminster Theological Seminary (Glenside, PA) in the field of Apologetics. These views do not necessarily reflect those of Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary or its faculty and administration.
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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.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
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.
Both parties have their faults in the matter whether criminally or spiritually.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3
[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.
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.
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.
The sources for my statistics are many. In an article entitled “Sexual abuse in a national survey of adult men and women: Prevalence, characteristics, and risk factors” in the journal Child Abuse and Neglect: The International Journal 14:1 (1990), p. 19-28, a reported 27% of females and 16% of men had experienced childhood sexual abuse. The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) reports similar results for females (1 in 6), but differs significantly with males (only 1 in 33). Almost every other source I have come across has reported similar, though not identical, figures.
In my experience as a pastor, once we hosted a conference on counseling sexual abuse, more people were willing to speak out and admit they had been abused at some point in their lives. I do not believe this is a case of repressed memories or the power of suggestion, but rather a turning point in the life of an individual who has lived with private shame for many years finding the freedom to embrace the healing power of the gospel. Many times they were able to forgive the offender, and find forgiveness for their own sin of bitterness and hatred. While these statistics may not bear true for every congregation, I believe in every church there are more people who suffer in silence than we are aware.
Also, I was not suggesting that 20% of women in a given congregation are yet to face abuse, but sexual abuse does happen to women beyond childhood, as the case of a 74 year-old woman raped in our region a few years ago confirms. My point was simply that just because a girl makes it to her 18th birthday unmolested does not mean that she will never be a victim of sexual abuse. Unfortunately it happens all the time to women of all ages.
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