Clergy Sexual Misconduct. John Thoburn Thoburn

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      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.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ