Tuesday, March 30, 2021

When Clergy are Predators 01

 


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?


At least one problem is failing to distinguish among the concepts of forgiveness, reconciliation, and restoration. Christians are commanded in scripture to forgive. They are not commanded to restore clergy to ministry after a moral failure. I discover more problems as I continue on this research quest.


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.

 

 Please check out my website   www.suttong.com

   and see my books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Also, consider connecting with me on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

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More Links

Jim Bakker returns to ministry - Notice the comment about "affair" and "consensual" in light of "metoo." ABC news on YouTube.







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