It seems that sexual abuse is rampant in the Evangelical church. Whether this perception is reality is unknown. Perhaps the internet, where reports of sexual abuse are widely and quickly disseminated, gives us a false perception of the depth and scope of the problem. Since there is no government or religious body that collect data on sexual abuse in churches there is no way to how big the problem actually is.
Evangelicals, when confronted with horrific stories of sexual abuse within their ranks, are quick to say that the abusers are outliers and their actions, while regrettable, are not reflective of Evangelicalism as a whole. Simply put, Evangelicals want the public to believe that when sexual abuse occurs in their churches it is perpetrated by rogue individuals and not a systemic problem.
In this post I will contend that sexual abuse in the Evangelical church is a systemic problem. What Evangelicals believe and how those beliefs are put into practice make Evangelical churches havens for sexual predators. Unless fundamental changes take place, predators will continue to roam the halls of America’s Evangelical churches.
Inerrancy and Bible literalism
Most Evangelicals believe the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of God. Most Evangelicals, to some degree or another, are literalists.
This is an important point to understand. It is the foundation of Evangelicalism. The Evangelical mantra, God said it, I believe it, and that settles it for me, is not a meaningless catchphrase. Evangelicals sincerely believe this. They pride themselves in being people of the book.
Evangelicals are taught from an early age that God requires obedience. A person can not be a good Christian (or perhaps a Christian at all) unless they obey the teachings of the Bible.
Church Government structure
Almost all Evangelical churches have a congregational form of church government. Congregational government, in theory at least, grants the congregation the power to make church decisions. I say in theory because in most churches the day to day decision making is done by the pastor and/or a church board or elder board. The congregation trusts their leaders to act on their behalf.
In many Evangelical churches, business meetings are rarely, if ever held. One large church I attended while in college didn’t have one congregational business meeting in the three years I attended the church. Yet, as a Baptist church, they proudly stated they had a congregational form of government. Evidently, the congregation consisted of only the pastor and a few church leaders.
Authority
Most Evangelicals believe the Bible teaches a hierarchal form of authority. In the church, the pastor is the God’s spokesman. He leads, guides, and directs the church. He teaches the church what God wants them to know. He is the de facto head of the church, the CEO. (under God, led by the Holy Spirit)
This model of authority is found throughout the church. Assistant pastors, youth pastors, principals, and teachers all have authority over their respective ministry.
In the Evangelical home, the husband is the head of the home. The father and mother are the head of the children, and the children, well…….they are head over no one expect the family dog.
Teachings on obeying those in authority are prominent in Evangelical churches. Church members are reminded of authority God has given the pastor. (obey those that have the rule over you) Wives are reminded that they are to obey their husbands. Children are taught from an early age that they are to obey their parents (and other adults) without question.
According to the Bible, God takes great pleasure in the Evangelical’s obedience. To obey is better than sacrifice, the Bible says. As the old song goes, Trust and Obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to Trust and Obey.
It is this notion of Trust and Obey that enables sexual abuse to take place.
Naïve Trust and Forgiveness
The Evangelical gospel is all about having new life in Christ, old things pass away and all things become new. No matter how vile a person is, Jesus can forgive them, cleanse them from sin, and give the repentant sinner a clean slate, a new start.
Evangelicals are trusting people. When a person testifies that Jesus has changed their life they tend to believe them. When someone new comes into the church and tells them about how Jesus changed their life they rarely doubt the person’s testimony. People are taken at face value.
One former pastor friend of mine believed that his church should not do criminal background checks on church leaders and teachers. After all, what is in the past has been forgiven by Jesus. It is under the blood, my friend said.
Many of us are shocked when we see church congregations supporting members, pastors, or church leaders who have been accused of sexual abuse or other criminal behaviors. Can’t they SEE what is clear for all to see? Sadly, they can’t. Their heightened trust of their fellow Evangelicals and their willingness to quickly forgive causes them to ignore or dismiss even the most vile of behaviors.
Protect the Ministry at All Costs
Sadly, many Evangelicals churches are willing to sacrifice individual church members for the sake of the perpetuity of the church. The church MUST be protected at all costs. After all, if the church is closed who will be a witness for Jesus in their community? God surely, for the sake of lost souls, wants the doors of the church to remain open.
Since Evangelical churches tend to be Independent churches, even if they are part of a denomination, the members have a vested interest in keeping THEIR church open. When confronted with matters that could hurt the church, Evangelicals tend to circle the wagons to protect the church from attack.
What about the individual? What about the young boy abused by his Sunday School teacher? What about the teen girl seduced by the youth pastor? While most every Evangelical would say these are terrible acts, they don’t think the ministry of the church should be destroyed because of the actions of one person. Rarely, does an Evangelical congregation consider their own culpability in the abuse.
I am of the opinion, based on what I know about the Evangelical church, that parents should NOT entrust their children and teenagers to Church leaders, pastors, and teachers. The potential for abuse is too great. Even church nurseries are fertile grounds for abuse.
Evangelical churches, due to their commitment to what the Bible teaches, are not prone to change. They often are monuments to arrogant intractability. That said, there are some things I think Evangelical churches can do to lessen the risk of sexual abuse.
Background Checks
Everyone that has ANY contact with the children and youth must have an ANNUAL background check. This includes nursery workers.
Background checks are not a cure-all. Many predators do not have a criminal record. Bob Gray, former pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, was a sexual predator for 50 years before he got caught. Aaron Thompson, of Grace Church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, was a sexual predator for years before he was caught. Neither of these perverts had a criminal record at the time of their arrest.
Adherence to the law
Most states require complaints of sexual abuse be reported to the police or child protective services. Evangelical churches routinely ignore this legal requirement. Surely, our pastor would NEVER do THAT! Again, church members can be quite naïve.
Often suspected abuse is reported to the pastor or a leader in the church. These reports MUST be immediately turned over to authorities. Let the authorities, trained in investigating these matters, determine the validity of the complaint. Church leaders who do not report abuse should be criminally prosecuted. The pastor of Grace Church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma should be in the same cell as Aaron Thompson. If more pastors ended up in prison for failure to report then maybe, just maybe, pastors will be more willing to report sexual abuse. (or abuse of any kind)
New Church Members
Sexual predators KNOW that churches are fertile grounds for them to ply their seductions. Way too many Evangelical churches give new church members quick and easy access to the church’s children and youth. Volunteers are hard to come by and predators know that. So they join a church, wait a few months, and then volunteer to work with the youth. All the church knows is that the secret predator is a Christian who is “called” to work with youth.
Evangelical churches should institute a waiting period for all new members. At least a year. During this time the new member should be carefully observed. Church leaders should make multiple visits to their home. Maybe, an unannounced visit or two. Church leaders MUST know the person who may be working with the children or youth some day.
Youth Programs and Groups
I think youth groups should be abolished. The opportunities for abuse and temptation are too great. Teen girls often become infatuated with the youth pastor and this infatuation can have terrible consequences. Parents, seemingly ignorant of teenage hormones, trust their daughters and sons with the good looking, personable, sold out for Christ, youth pastor. Sadly, more than a few teens end up being taken advantage of. (and regardless of the infatuation, people in places of authority are ALWAYS responsible for what happens)
Any program that gives adults intimate access to the children and youth of the church should be stopped. These programs are a modern invention. Children used to sit in church with their parents. It is not uncommon these days for children to NEVER be in church with their parents. They have their own classes, their own programs. Personally, I think this is an abdication of the responsibility parents have for their children.
Pastors
Pastors have too much power, control, and authority in the Evangelical church. I realize things are the way they are because churches think the Bible teaches pastors are the head of the church. (and it does, depending on how you interpret the Bible) It is almost impossible for Evangelicals to ignore what the Bible teaches, but, in this case, they must. They must tell the Apostle Paul to take a hike.
I am not sure what kind of government structure is best for the church. The Catholic church with its Episcopal form of government has its own sex abuse scandal. If leaders are moral, ethical people then it doesn’t matter what form of government a church has. Good people will do the right thing.
Evangelical pastors should be stripped of their autocratic, CEO power. Pastors are supposed to be preachers and teachers and care for the general welfare of the church body. Let a church board, comprised of a cross-section of the church, govern the day to day affairs of the church. This board should hold regular church-wide business meetings. Everything MUST be made public. No secrets. Not like the one church I pastored, where my fellow pastor said, How much does the church need to know? My reply then and now is EVERYTHING. Light dispels darkness AND exposes cockroaches.
Pastors will surely fight this loss of power but for the sake of the church this must happen. When only the pastor knows of a claim of abuse he can easily ignore or bury the claim. However, when a large number of people know it is not so easy to bury abuse complaints.
Pastors and churches who refuse to do right by sexual abuse victims should face criminal prosecution. Of course this why churches incorporate. To avoid personal liability churches incorporate. This makes the corporation responsible rather than the individual. Fortunately, in many states individuals can,in some cases, be criminally prosecuted and if individuals in a church hide, dismiss, or fail to report sexual abuse they should be criminally prosecuted.
On a personal note, I had many faults as a pastor but when it came to matters of abuse, I reported every claim of abuse that I knew about. I felt I owed it to the children of the church to protect them from abuse. (even though I now know my teaching on corporeal punishment helped promote abuse)
I have always been a cynical person, not very trusting. I have always thought that true change is not easy. Just because someone got saved didn’t mean they were instantly a good person. Bad behaviors before Christ often remain bad behaviors after Christ. I know Evangelicals want to think otherwise but, after pastoring thousands of people, I know better. Evangelicals are not special or different from the rest of humanity. They have the potential to do very bad things just like the rest of us.
I am quite cynical that the Evangelical church will do what is necessary to combat sexual abuse. I suspect criminal prosecutions and million dollar lawsuits will do more good than anything else. But, even then, look at the Catholic church. Has there really been much change in the church when it comes to matters of sexual abuse? Church leaders continue to stymie police investigations and deny the pervasiveness (and the reasons for it) of sexual abuse in the Catholic church. Leaders remain in power and life goes on.
Here is what I know for sure. Children and teenagers deserve to be protected from abuse. I feel a personal obligation to speak on behalf of those who most often have no voice at all.
You are absolutely right that reporting to the authorities must be stepped up. As all medical or educational personnel are mandated reporters of any suspected child abuse, I wonder if, despite separation of church and state, it would be constitutional to have mandated reporting by any pastor or church leader with any degree of responsibility for the children? I have not personally known of any situations, but several have made the news in this state in recent years.
You mention lack of business meetings. When I was growing up in the missionary Baptist church, the regular monthly business meeting after Wednesday service was open to any member who cared to stay. Any member present had a vote. Something similar was done in southern Baptist churches. In recent years in this area, the mega Baptist churches have somehow wrested control from the members and hired huge staffs, and there are no public business meetings. You can’t see the senior pastors without an appointment, and if they think you’re not going to be pleasant, there won’t be an opening on their calendar. I don’t know exactly how it happened, because I wasn’t attending, but friends and relatives who belong to these huge churches seem to have unwittingly lost control and don’t know how to get it back. We’re talking churches of several thousand members, with huge staffs nobody voted to hire, the organizational structure for controlling them somehow vanished. This is like a coup in a small government, or an unfriendly takeover of a big corporation. It is very profitable for the perpetrators.
I don’t agree with abolishing youth groups. They were a safe, fun, low cost part of social life for me and a lot of my friends. There has to be a better way. Such as parents paying attention and being involved themselves. And always teaching young children that if anyone, anywhere, does anything that makes them uncomfortable to tell their parents at once. I don’t recall any event involving a youth class or activity in my youth that didn’t have several adult sponsors present, not just one. That is probably a wise policy.
For me, what this comes down to is the famous saying: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Anytime ANY organization is built upon the ediface of absolute power for the top rungs of the hierarchy, abuse — in all its various forms — goes hand-in-hand with it. When there are not checks-and-balances, you can be sure that some people will become way out of balance and, at least in their own mind, ANYTHING they do is sanctioned and/or sanctified.
Hi Bruce,
This is an excellent post. I suspect that the cases that are detected are only the tip of the iceberg and it would be great it some social scientists were to examine the whole issue and the relative importance of the major reasons you suggest.
Abuse of children is totally inexcusable at any time and more so in churches where perpetrators claim to be “born again”. Pastors trying to cover up the abuse need to have criminal charges laid against them (as you rightly suggest) for failure to report any alleged abuses where it can be established that they failed in their duty.
I wonder if a detailed social scientific analysis would bring to light a higher incidence of abuse in evangelical churches than elsewhere in the population or not. I suspect it would. I also wonder if it would be greatest in the more stricter Fundamentalist evangelical groups than in other Evangelical groups and would it be more prevalent in Calvinist churches? I simply do not know.
Many thanks for raising awareness of a problem that I suspect is deeper than most of us think.
Shalom,
John Arthur
I think authoritarianism leads to higher rates of abuse. Those of us raised by the belt were routinely disciplined with methods that are now considered by many people to be child abuse. In the Evangelical church a lot of abuse is covered up with Bible verses that promote abuse.
Years ago a family in the church I pastored had a rebellious daughter. They, based on reading a verse in the OT, were going to shave their daughters head (she had long hair) to shame her and punish her for her rebellion. I was horrified and convinced them not to do this. Imagine the trauma this would have caused this girl?
Hi Bruce,
Yes, I agree with your insights. John Shelby Spong in his book, “The Sins of Scripture”, points out these texts of hate and these are the very texts that some Fundamentalists use to physically abuse children.. This is one of the reasons why Fundamentalism is so dangerous.
Shalom,
John Arthur
This commentary took my breath away. You’ve shared an important message with the world about abuse in religious congregations. Thank you!
In addition to real accountability and democracy, congregations need clear policies and protocols regarding sexual abuse. All congregations should have written policies about responding to sexual abuse claims and the presence of known predators in the community. The United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalists have really lead the way in this regard, but other congregations have been slow to follow.
I am so glad that there are people like you who will be a voice for those that don’t have one!
Deadtreereader: That isn’t a church, it’s a corporation. >:-(
I agree with you on the youth groups — if the organization takes the appropriate steps, such as background checks, parental oversight, empowering children to report ANY uncomfortable interaction, and fostering a culture of openness, I don’t see why kids can’t have their own social/religious groups. Are all children’s groups everywhere to be abolished because there might be abuse at some point in time? What about Boy or Girl Scouts? Big Brother/Big Sister programs? Summer camps? Sports? Sure you can have the kids with you in church, but I can tell you from my own experience that they’re probably not getting much out of it — I spent most of my time drawing on the church bulletins or the guest cards. Sunday school is a good way to not only keep the kids amused during services, but it also gives the opportunity to teach them things on their own level. (Not that I’m all that excited about religious indoctrination, but I’m talking about the principle of the thing, here.)
I used to attend a Zen Buddhist Temple in town. It would really have been a stretch to ask the children to attend with parents; in fact, adults were asked NOT to bring smaller children to the meditation part of the services. Our temple actually had a “Dharma School,” one of the first in the country. It has been highly successful and, judging from the annual “skit Sunday” at the end of the school year, the children seem to get a lot out of it. I don’t have any children myself, so I don’t know what checks and balances were in place against abuse other than mandatory parental involvement (on rotation), but it was obvious that the children’s group served a purpose for both children and adults, so why take it away on a big “if”?
There are lots of awful, harmful things in the world, and we have to do the best we can to protect the innocents in our charge from them, but wrapping them up in a familial cocoon (sometimes the family is no better!) is not the answer. I think a big part of a real answer is empowering the children to say no. No adult must be elevated so high in the child’s universe that it would seem a betrayal or sin to report that adult if they behave inappropriately. Children must be given ownership of their own persons and bodies, This ownership, and due diligence on the part of families and congregations/sanghas/organizations, can go along way to fighting abuse while giving kids opportunities to socialize and learn outside the family.
“Evangelicals, when confronted with horrific stories of sexual abuse within their ranks, are quick to say that the abusers are outliers and their actions, while regrettable, are not reflective of Evangelicalism as a whole.”
Christians like to claim they are all one big spiritual body, with the same spirit dwelling in all of them, except when it isn’t convenient – then they are like, “No that guy has nothing to do with us!”
I have no doubt that child sexual abuse occurs in both secular and religious organizations. However, when a family is part of an organization that has religious dogma in place that says things must be handled internally, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the abuse is more likely to occur there.
It is also no surprise that churches are reluctant to do background checks. Shouldn’t the guidance of the holy spirit be better than any background check? I think the very fact that background checks need to be done is very telling, and that’s precisely what the church is afraid of.
“When someone new comes into the church and tells them about how Jesus changed their life they rarely doubt the person’s testimony. People are taken at face value. ”
Unless, of course, the person is a woman who wants to be in ministry, or a person of a visible minority.
Bruce, thank you for this post. It’s very sobering, and something that all people in the church need to consider, and take very seriously. I know the evangelical church that I attend frequently with my husband, has put some safeguards into place. They require background checks for all the youth workers, and do not allow children to be alone one on one with any adult.
I
It’s sad that our culture has come to this. But, I agree that there are sexual predators who will specifically target church youth groups. I think this has been true also for organizations like the Scouts, camps, and other places where kid’s congregate.
Becky.
Very insightful post — thank you! The largest of the evangelical groups
is the Southern Baptist Convention, which is also the largest
Protestant denomination in the land . . . which means a whole lot of
kids and congregants are placed at greater risk by the refusal of
Southern Baptists to implement effective clergy oversight and
accountability mechanisms
This is an excellent article and I can, unfortunately, confirm that many churches have a “just forgive” attitude towards sexual abusers.
My wife was aghast, when our Vineyard pastor said he’d have no problem putting a sex offender in children’s ministry, provided he was now saved.
She pressed him on the issue and he basically said, well he’s forgiven now, we can’t hold it against him.
Have been in ministry for many years and have seen sexual offender be hidden within the church staff more than once. Meanwhile men who did something along the lines of “having an emotional affair” with a women are brought before the church as an example and set out of their ministry and left to rot. Everyone expects for “church staff” to be above standard of the average church goer. So even if you do not put the offender in children’s ministry per say you are still putting them into a position of authority and church leadership. When someone is seeking out private council or a trusting person for help who are they going to approach? A member of the church staff of course. I do understand the concept of forgiveness but should we really forgive and forget to a guy who is only one year into his probation? How about is it really ok to move a guy who pleads to a lesser charge and let him keep being youth minister? While I understand both sides of the argument of punishment vs forgiveness I feel like the government was put in place for our protection. So no one including a pastor should have the right to forgive a sex offender and hide him while he is still paying his dues to the government. By hiding him I do mean no one in the church is aware of the offence accept the church staff. As well we make him live in an area not close to the church so that when people look at sexual registry’s his name will not come up. I really take issue with the fact that the person at the pulpit is to be wise in all his ways would put children at risk to help his buddy. I have left the evangelical world and moved on to a Messianic congregation. There is no Sunday school, or children’s ministry. All children sit in service with their parents. Its not high tech, we have no live praise and worship team, small groups, VBS, etc. It is just simply go in sit down and learn as a family. If it were not for this small synagogue I would likely be an atheist by now myself.
I was in a evangelical church run by new frontiers international and came across child abuse and found pictures which i sent to social services. I was treated by the elders as if i had done something wrong and i even pretended it wasn’t me that told.
The sermons got very personal and abusive and i was watched all the time. I decided to go to the police and am leaving the matter with them. I hope the children involved will be protected.
There was also escorting going on which made me feel sick to thing that kind of thing would go on in a church. I was approached by married men on several occasions and went to the elders about this and they acted as if it was just my perception.
I could walk out of this dreadful new frontiers church and never go back and stick up for myself as i’m an adult but children can’t do that can they. If they are born into it they are stuck until someone stops the abuse for them and they are too scared to speak out as the abuse gets worse.