Ed Stetzer to Paige Patterson: "step into a well-earned retirement"

[Mark_Smith]

So, I am trying to figure out what my counseling position is supposed to be? If I as a pastor hear anything in any way that I think may be “abuse” towards a woman, I am supposed to immediately call the police and fill out a report? I am also supposed to counsel the woman (assuming it is a woman. What if a wife hits a husband? Police report? Separation? Church discipline?) to immediately leave the house? When can I start reconciliation counseling? Do I have to wait until the guy gets prosecuted? Or can I start before that? Maybe I’m never supposed to promote reconciliation since the mantra is “once an abuser, always and abuser.” Seriously, what is the standard so that 40 years from now you are not excoriated for being an “abuse supporter”? This is not sarcasm. I am seriously asking?

Also, in answering, demonstrate that you have a perfect record in this area and you have handled every situation, conversation, and sermon perfectly.

The first thing you should do in my opinion is get very educated on abuse and how it works. Until you know a lot more than a typical pastor, I would be very slow to get involved at all unless there are no better options.

There are very good secular resources that help in this area. Again, you can pretty much forget about getting any real help from Christian sources though there are a few exceptions such as Diane Langberg. I would most definitely run away from anything related to nouthetic counseling. The typical pastor would be far better referring out abuse cases to real experts rather than staying involved and giving stupid advice.

In general, yes statistics show that once an abuser, always an abuser. I have a friend who I met here on SI who does this kind of work for a ministry full time. He told me once that among “Christian” abusers, he saw a success rate of them turning from abuse of no better than 10%. So yes, telling a woman (or man) to stay in an abusive situation is dangerous and usually ignorant. It is also unrealistic for a church to think they can keep control over what is happening in a household. Abusers are skilled at shutting down victims.

All in all, the best option for almost any pastor is to not overestimate their abilities or knowledge and go get real help.

Mark, remembering that it’s at least your dream, if not your reality, of being a pastor, best practice today, and 35 years back, really, is fairly simple. You encourage the person to report the crime to the police (providing corroborating information), take steps to encourage the person to take care of her (his) safety, take steps to help the person find adequate counsel, and where possible, take steps to help the offender understand that the person abused isn’t coming back without very clear evidence of repentance.

The big difference today is that the police know better what to do with the allegations. Could you end up having done something that looks bad 40 years from now? Sure. And if/when that happens, you apologize. Just say “this is the best we knew at the time, I realize now it’s not best practice, and I’m sorry for my role in this mistake.”

Back to the story at hand, Patterson and the SBC are not as much in trouble for what he said as they are in trouble for circling the wagons to defend it today.

make it sound so easy… Call the cops. Nothing else to deal with. I seem to recall some other famous pastor repeatedly saying he called the police… He even had a phone log to prove it! Did that help his situation?

No. Why? Because the people are all still at your church!

How do you deal with all of that and stay squeaky clean?

OK- how about this. A man tells you his wife hit him the night before because he came home late with no phone call. Police? Church discipline? Separation?

A wife says he husband abusers her verbally. What do you do? Police (they laugh)? Church discipline? Separation? Counseling (uh-oh).

That’s just 2 situations.

Mark, I think Greg’s comment contains a lot which demonstrates that what you do is simple, but not easy. For my part, coming up to speed on what little I know has a lot to do with thinking through my own parents’ divorce in light of the Scriptures over the past 35 years. I’ve wrestled with the implications of the Duluth Model, which is one of the primary secular models of domestic violence, in light of the Scriptures, and in light of the fact that homosexuals and unwed couples have far higher rates of domestic violence than do married couples—my conclusion was that at least the “patriarchy” part of the model at least needed some tweaking.

Urging people to go to the police when they have black eyes or broken bones and the like is the easy part, right? No, it’s not. By the time a woman is ready to report, she’s generally been through the wringer a few times. As lousy as it might be, it’s still her relationship.

And it only gets harder as one encourages the victim to separate, tries to find adequate counsel, etc.. It’s a simple process, but hard as anything. I’ve not been directly involved often as an adult, but a person I counseled to leave, stayed. Thankfully she’s still alive. I believe I’ve missed at least one chance to encourage someone going through the same thing. She might not have been ready to talk to me, though. Thankfully she seems fine, too.