Chapter 1
Church Systems, Ecology, and Clergy Sexual Misconduct
John Thoburn and Rob Baker
Chapter 2
Clergy Sexual Misconduct Overview: A Model for Prevention, Education, Treatment, and Oversight
Rob Baker and John Thoburn
Note to reader: Most chapters in this book use the pronoun he for the convenience of reading when referring to the sexual acting-out clergyperson, although in each case the person may be male or female. The pronoun she will be used when referring to the impacted spouse.
Chapter 1 notes the widespread prevalence of clergy sexual misconduct in the Protestant Church today. Some of the factors that contribute to the problem at all levels of the clergy and Church system are explored. In addition, the tone of the chapter reflects the rest of the book’s positive philosophy that recovery is possible. Chapter 2 uses a systems model that targets the education, intervention, and oversight needs of the minister, his family, the congregation, and the denominational/governing body leadership.
Chapter 1 - Church Systems, Ecology, and Clergy Sexual Misconduct
John Thoburn and Rob Baker
At the time of this writing, it has been twenty-three years since the landmark Leadership Journal survey of clergy sexual practices and it is the twentieth anniversary of the first comprehensive research study on clergy sexual misconduct (Muck, 1988; Thoburn, 1991). While over two dozen research articles have been written since 1991 on the subject of clergy sexual misconduct, the problem still stubbornly persists as a thorn in the side of the Church. Following the sensational stories profiling the sexual misdeeds of several prominent evangelical pastors in the 1980s and 1990s, the 1991 Thoburn study was one of many books and research studies exposing what had been swept under the rug for ages. Clergy sexual misconduct has greatly impacted clergy marriages and the local Church (Benyei, 1988; Blackmon, 1984; Johnston, 1996; Thoburn, 1991). There are around 600,000 ministers in the United States, meeting the needs of 300,000 Protestant congregations.
| Did you know? 1.Between 10 and 14 percent of pastors have sexual contact with someone other than a spouse while in the ministry . 2.More than 30 percent of ministers engage in sexual behavior that they consider inappropriate . 3.More than 15 percent of ministers qualify as functionally addicted to Internet pornography . 4.There is an average number of seven women victims of clergy sexual misconduct per affected congregation . This number is significant and disturbing considering that the average size of most congregations is between 100 and 700 members (Chaves & Garland, 2010). |
Just to give some perspective, parallel studies in other helping professions indicate the statistics for sexual contact between the professional and those he is helping are far lower than those for clergy. Of those surveyed, 71/10 percent of male psychiatrists acknowledged sexual contact with patients, 5 to 7 percent of psychologists acknowledged sex with their clients/patients, and 10 percent of physicians acknowledged sex with their patients (Bouhoutsos, Holroyd, Lerman, Forer, & Greenberg, 1983; Gartrell, Herman, Olartes, Feldstein, & Localio, 1986; Kardener, Fuller, & Mensh, 1973; Pope, Keith-Spiegel, & Tebachnik, 1986). Note that female therapists and physicians had sex with their patients less than 1 percent. The problem of professional helpers acting out sexually seems to be primarily a male issue. Butler and Zelen (1977) found the mean age of therapists at the time of sexual intimacy to be 43.5 years. The main reasons for the initiation of sexual intimacy by the therapist were neediness and/or loneliness—very much akin to the factors that lead ministers to act out.
Definitions of sexual misconduct include, “the overt or covert expression by the clergy person toward the congregational member of erotic or romantic thoughts, feelings or gestures that are sexual or may be reasonably construed by the congregant as sexual” (Irons and Roberts, 1995, p. 33). Emotional and sexual infidelity, a closely associated feature of sexual misconduct, “occurs when a relationship with a person other than one’s spouse is characterized by emotional intimacy, sexual chemistry, and some degree of secrecy” (Thoburn and Whitman, 2004, p. 493). Compulsive or addictive behavior, often part of the clergy misconduct complex, is defined as a pathological relationship with a mood-altering experience; it is a dysfunctional adaptation and survival mechanism for dealing with early life trauma and/or dysfunctional dynamics in the family of origin (Carnes, 1991).
The Scope of the Problem
There are two factors that contribute to sexual temptation in the ministerial role:
1.Attachment or lust. Nearly 15 percent of ministers have admitted to experiencing sexual attraction on a daily basis toward those to whom they minister and 21 percent admit to a weekly attraction (Steinke, 2006). This means that approximately 120,000 ministers deal with lust on a weekly basis—not simply lustful feelings toward strangers on the street. Rather, these ministers feel sexual attraction toward counselees and parishioners who generally have their guard down and may have affectionate feelings for their pastor. A pastor, being in a lustful frame of mind, may misinterpret spiritual affection for sexual passion, and that passion can lead to the second factor in sexual temptation.
2.Sexual arousal or romantic infatuation. Arousal is a psychological and physiological response to feelings of desire for another. Arousal is often accompanied by obsessive thinking and compulsive behavior that may include irrational elements. This form of arousal is differentiated from attraction by its emotional focus on the object of desire. If a minister’s sexual temptation in the ministerial role has progressed from attraction to emotional desire and arousal, it may culminate in sexualization of the relationship (Fisher, 2004). A sexual affair is generally preceded by an emotional affair; often there is a relative unawareness on the part of the two people of the growing attachment with the relationship eventually becoming sexualized (Steinke, 1989; Thoburn & Whitman, 2004).
The Protestant Church was faced with a major problem in the 1980s when a procession of high-profile Christian leaders fell from grace over various sexual peccadilloes. The cases of Jim Bakker, Gordon MacDonald, and Jimmy Swaggart set off a firestorm of research and writing in the area of clergy sexual misconduct. R. A. Blackmon (1984) conducted the first scientific research on sexual misconduct as part of a study on overall clergy misconduct. Leadership magazine (Muck, 1988) provided a nonscientific survey of Protestant clergy around issues of sexuality. The 1991 Thoburn study was the first full quantitative study on clergy sexual misconduct, surveying ministers in twenty-three different denominations. Close to thirty scholarly articles have been published since 1991 on the subject of clergy sexual misconduct. The latest research work has been conducted at Baylor University under the direction of Diana Garland (2011). Books written on the subject include Before the Fall by Friberg and Laaser (1998) and Understanding Clergy Sexual Misconduct in Religious Systems by Benyei (1998).
The books and articles written on Protestant clergy sexual misconduct have tended to focus on very specific areas, such as rehabilitation to the pastorate; prevention needs; traumatic effects of sexual misconduct on the life of the pastor, his or her family, or the Church congregation; and denominational polity (Ferro, 2005; Friberg & Laaser, 1998; Gaede, 2006; Hopkins & Laaser, 1995). No book since 2001, however, has explored the systemic or recursive nature of these elements one to another and how each factor influences the others. Pulling these elements together into a cohesive model is the goal of this book. By doing so, we hope to shed new light on this sensitive topic and offer new hope to those who work with this stubborn and significant problem in the life of the Church.