Exploring the Problem
of Sexual Self-Control and the Suffering of their Victims
I Googled Ravi Z and before
I typed his surname, 2,930,000 results appeared. The first two dealt with his problems
of sexual self-control. His organization made a public statement following an
investigation. In paragraph four they wrote:
To be victimized by unwanted sexual contact, advances,
and behavior is horrendous. It is diametrically opposed to everything we
believe about the value and dignity of every single person. We believe not only
the women who made their allegations public but also additional women who had
not previously made public allegations against Ravi but whose identities and
stories were uncovered during the investigation. Tragically, witnesses
described encounters including sexting, unwanted touching, spiritual abuse, and
rape. We are devastated by what the investigation has shown and are filled with
sorrow for the women who were hurt by this terrible abuse.
About two decades
before the Ravi story, graduate student Eloise Thomas and I began work on a
series of studies about clergy restoration in 2006. As a counselor and later as
a psychologist, I had become increasingly aware of the number of patients who
struggled with life following some form of sexual abuse. I did not know the
extent of the problem. But I did know it was all too common.
What people have not clearly stated:
Clergy sex with congregants is not consensual. Clergy are professionals in a position of authority and must take responsibility for self-control.
This is the firm position of people in the helping professions to ensure the safety of people seeking help. Congregants like clients require safety.
The Sexy
80s
I had seen the TV
stories about the high profile televangelists who were brought low by sex scandals.
According to the Washington
Post, in July 1986, the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart confronted the married Rev.
Marvin Gorman about his adultery with “several different women.”
One story came close
to home. My mother had purchased a condo in Heritage USA. After she arrived in
1987, the Bakker scandal headlines went viral (ABC
news). It was the Jim Bakker sex scandal that bothered my mother the most. Not
surprisingly, real estate values plummeted and the Disneyesque grounds deteriorated.
Then on 17 October
1987, the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart was photographed with a prostitute (Washington
Post). Eventually the story became public. Swaggart apologized and
eventually returned to ministry.
On February 23, 1988
televangelist Rev. Pat Robertson was a Republican presidential candidate. He declared
the recent Swaggart revelations were “planned” (LA
Times).
At the time of the
1980s scandals, Rev. Pat Robertson entered the news when it was reported that
he married his wife (27 Aug. 1954) only 10 weeks before their first son was
born (6 Nov. 1954). Robertson had claimed they were married 22 March 1954. In
case you didn’t know, people of that era, and Christians in particular, insisted
couples should marry before having sex. Here’s how Robertson explained the
discrepancy to the Washington
Post reported.
In a taped interview with T.R. Reid of The Washington
Post in July, Robertson indicated that he and his wife were married on March
22, 1954. In an interview with Reid after The Wall Street Journal's disclosure,
Robertson said that March 22 is his birthday and that he and his wife
considered that to be the day they married because "our son was conceived
on that day." The little legal procedure that took place in Elkton, Md.,
on Aug. 27 of that year, he told Reid, "to us, wasn't any big deal."
Why the
interest now?
Last week I finished reading Jesus and John Wayne. Du Mez reported on several problems of clergy abuse. That reminded me of the Ravi Zacharias story and my earlier research and experience. I do recommend her book to readers interested in this whole mess of clergy who abuse their congregants. Concomitantly, some Christian friends posted a metoo statement addressing sexual violence.
It all comes together as happens in life. The victims of clergy sex abuse, usually women, suffer so much
in so many ways for so many years of their life. So, I want to address this issue.
How do
people decide to restore these clergy to ministry?
So, you get the
picture right? It’s easy to see why I would be more than mildly interested as a
clinician and a connection to my mother whose plans were disrupted as a
by-product of clergy abuse. But there’s more.
All of these high-profile clergy recovered from sexual boundary violations and went back to ministry. How did that happen? How did they get restored?
A few more factors account for my trek down this forgive-restore fallen clergy path.
After my son graduated from the University of New Mexico, we had decided to look for a nice place to retire. She’s from Kansas so we considered the Midwest and decided on the Ozarks. After a nice break and the economic disaster of 2000-2001, we both went to work.
I found a teaching position and naively thought professors ought to do research
because that’s what my professors did at MU. That turns out not to be true. But
I was flipping through some journals looking for ideas and found a familiar
name. One of my friends and MU classmate was publishing work on forgiveness (I
didn’t know how famous Ev Worthington was at the time). Anyway, he sent me a
packet of forgiveness articles. I changed jobs and began teaching research
methods and statistics, which grabbed a lot of attention until I got caught up and explored forgiveness and restoration of derailed clergy.
What’s the
problem and how big is it?
Ev Worthington and
others were making a distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation. That
was helpful and made a lot of sense as a clinician familiar with abused women
who were told to forgive and stay with their abusive husbands. Forgive yes. Let
it go and live again. But going back to be abused again made no sense.
But what about
restoration? That’s when I began to think about the three concepts as different
yet related—forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration. And that eventually
led to the publication of a literature review in the American Journal of
Pastoral Counseling.
Here’s
a couple of things we found about the scope of the problem at the time of the article.
1. A study of 186 seminarians,
all men from 23 denominations admitted to extramarital sex—that was 15.6% of
the sample (Thoburn & Balswick, 1998).
2. The Hartford Institute
for Religion Research (2000) reported that 23% of 532 congregations had to deal
with the negative effects of a pastor’s sexual activity.
We reviewed the concepts
of forgiveness and reconciliation in the literature and suggested some
differences. Our focus was on the concept of restoration. And we were especially
focused on restoring clergy to ministry. There was some debate at the time
about restoring clergy who committed adultery to pastoral ministry.
Before Restoring Abusive Clergy: Ten Considerations
I think the ideas in the published article are still relevant (see
pages 38-39).
1. Assess using a wholistic
model (e.g., SCOPES) to evaluate and treat the spiritual, psychological, and other needs of the leader
and the direct impact victims. Crisis intervention comes first. Next, focus attention
on identifying stress disorder symptoms. Consider the possibility of using
empirically supported treatments for PTSD.
2. Take a forgiveness
history of the parties involved. Explore the potential for receiving and offering forgiveness. Evaluate
the strength of a disposition to forgive.
3. If reconciliation
is a desirable goal between various pairs of individuals involved with the offender, consider
employing the model presented by Gordon, Baucom et al. (2004), which has some
empirical support and includes a forgiveness component. Be sure to evaluate the safety of reconciliation to avoid another offense.
4. Educate community members about forgiveness, including the distinction between forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration.
Expectations about the forgiveness response in
others may be unrealistic if the leader believes forgiveness and reconciliation
occur together. Leaders may assume they have been forgiven if they experience prosocial
behaviors suggesting a desire to reconcile. They may assume reconciliation has
occurred if they seek and receive forgiveness. They may assume they are on the
way to restoration to the community if they perceive either forgiveness has
been granted or
reconciliation has occurred with one or more persons. Victims who believe
forgiveness requires reconciliation may be revictimized (Fincham & Kashdan,
in press). Victims may feel a sense of empowerment when they realize they can
forgive
without reconciling.
In addition, they can forgive and speak for or against a part of a restoration
plan for reasons of justice or concern about safety issues. The public
education ideas of Fincham and Kashdan (in press) appear valuable here.
5. Educate people
about restoration to community status as a separate albeit related concept.
Explain that there is no defined restoration process that will lead to a
specific outcome. Explain that restoration is a matter of perspective, and seek
to clarify the perspectives of the involved parties.
6. Educate community members about research related to
forgiveness.
For example:
a. Note that forgiveness out of obligation rather than love may not result in beneficial health effects (Huang & Enright, 2000).
b. Consider that women under moral pressure to forgive may be under pressure to reconcile as well (Gordon, Baucom et al., 2004).
c. Forgiveness appears to be associated with positive mental health outcomes (e.g., Touissant, Williams, Musick, & Everson, 2001; Wuthnow, 2000).
d. Self-forgiveness can have beneficial physical and mental health results.
e. The capacity to seek and grant forgiveness is a key to a long and satisfactory marriage (Fennell, 1993).
7. Evaluate ways, other than forgiveness, that the people may be
using to cope with the transgression event.
8. Select measures to suit your definition and documentation of progress. Presumably, it would be good to know how clients have responded to the transgression situation (current point in the process), whether they attained a state of forgiveness toward a past offender (state conceptualization), and whether they are generally disposed to forgive people (personality trait).
9. Consider viewing the problem of spouses remaining in abusive
relationships from the perspective of social exchange theory. In addition, forgiveness
has been shown to explain part of a woman’s sense of commitment in abusive
relationships (Gordon, Burton, & Porter, 2004). Although research does not
address abusive relationships
in which a man is the victim, clinicians may evaluate whether or
not the findings for women apply to men as well.
10. Consider expanding the components of the Gordon, Baucom et
al. (2004) model to treat extramarital affairs in couples within a community setting.
Presumably, many members of the community may experience a similar recovery
process albeit at a lesser level of intensity than those members who were
closely involved with the leader and the transgression.
Interested? CLICK TO DOWNLOAD THE PUBLISHED PDF ARTICLE
Three
Related Books
Parts of these books
deal with matters of sexual abuse, treatment, and considerations of
forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration. Free samples and reviews or
recommendations from others can help decide if they help with your own study of
these concerns.
Mittelstadt, M.
& G. W. Sutton (eds.) (2010) Forgiveness,
reconciliation, and restoration: Multidisciplinary studies from a Pentecostal perspective.
Eugene, OR: Pickwick
Publications. ISBN: 9781608991945 AMAZON
Sutton, G. W.
(2021). Counseling and psychotherapy with Pentecostal and Charismatic
Christians: Culture & Research | Assessment & Practice.
Springfield, MO: Sunflower. ISBN-13
: 979-8681036524 AMAZON
Sutton, G. W.
(2016). A House Divided: Sexuality,
morality, and Christian cultures. Eugene, OR: Pickwick. ISBN: 9781498224888 AMAZON
What’s next?
I’ve learned more from the studies of others and our own. Look
for more posts.
Research Article References
These are the references we included at the time of the article. They are
copied from the article. I hope they will help others with research.
Aquino, K., Tripp, T.
M.,& Bies, R. J. (2001). How employees respond to personal offense: The
effects of blame attribution, victim status, and offender status on revenge
and reconciliation in
the workplace. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 52-59.
Beck, A. T. (1979). Cognitive
therapy and the emotional disorders. New York: Meridian.
Beck, J., & Beck,
A. T. (1995). Cognitive therapy. New York: Guilford.
Berry, J. W.,
Worthington, E. L., Jr., Parrott, L., III., O’Connor, L. E., & Wade, N.
(2001). Dispositional
forgiveness: Development and construct validity of the transgression narrative
test of forgiveness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
27, 1277-1290.
Brown, R. P., &
Phillips, A. (2004). Letting bygones be bygones: Further evidence for
the validity of the
tendency to forgive scale. Unpublished manuscript, University of
Oklahoma.
Enright, R. D., &
Coyle, C. T. (1998). Researching the process model of forgiveness
within psychological
interventions. In E. L. Worthington, Jr. (Ed.), Dimensions of
forgiveness:
Psychological research and theological perspectives (pp. 139-161).
Philadelphia:
Templeton Foundation Press.
Enright R. D., &
Gassin, E. A. (1992). Forgiveness: A developmental view. Journal of
Moral
Education, 21,
99-114.
Fennell, D. (1993).
Characteristics of long-term first marriages. Journal of Mental
Health
Counseling, 15, 446-460.
Fincham, F. D, Beach,
S. R. H., & Davila, J. (2004). Forgiveness and conflict resolution
in marriage. Journal
of Family Psychology, 18, 72-81.
Fincham, F. D.,
Jackson, H., & Beach, S. R. H. (in press). Transgression severity and
forgiveness: Different
moderators for objective severity. Journal of Social and
Clinical
Psychology.
Fincham, F. D., &
Kashdan, T. D. (in press). Facilitating forgiveness: Developing
group and community
interventions. In P. A. Linley & S. Joseph (Eds.), Positive
psychology
in practice. Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Gordon, K. C., Baucom,
D. H.,& Snyder, D. K. (2004). An integrative intervention for
promoting recovery
from extramarital affairs. Journal of Marital & Family Therapy,
30, 213-231.
Gordon, K. C., Burton,
S., & Porter, L. (2004). Predicting the intentions of women in
domestic violence
shelters to return to partners: Does forgiveness play a role? Journal
of Family
Psychology, 18, 331-338.
Hartford Institute for
Religious Research. (2002). A quick question: How common is
clergy sexual
misconduct? Retrieved May 28, 2004, from http://hirr.hartsem.edu/
research/quickquestion18.html
Huang, S. T., &
Enright, R. D. (2000). Forgiveness and anger related emotions in Taiwan: Implications
for therapy. Psychotherapy, 37, 71-79.
Hughes, R. K., &
Armstrong, J. H. (1995, April 3). Why adulterous pastors should not
be restored. Christianity
Today, 39, 33-36.
Kanz, J. E. (2000).
How do people conceptualize and use forgiveness? The Forgiveness Attitudes
Questionnaire. Counseling and Values, 44, 174-186.
Lazarus, A. A. (1989).
The practice of multimodal therapy. Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins Press.
McCullough, M. E.,
Fincham, F. D.,& Tsang, J. (2003). Forgiveness, forbearance, and
time: The temporal
unfolding of transgression-related interpersonal motivations.
Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 540-557.
McCullough, M. E.,
Rachal, K. C., Sandage, S. J., Worthington, E. L., Jr., Brown, S.
W.,& Hight, T. L.
(1998). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships II: Theoretical
elaboration and
measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
75, 1586-1603.
McCullough, M.
E.,& Worthington, E. L., Jr. (1994). Models of interpersonal forgiveness
and their applications
to counseling: Review and critique. Counseling and Values,
39, 2-14.
Sandage, S. J.,
Worthington, E. L., Jr., Hight, T. L.,& Berry, J. W. (2000). Seeking
forgiveness: Theoretical context and an initial empirical study. Journal of
Psychology
and
Theology, 28, 21-35.
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