EXTRA: For too long, Christian leaders have ignored or covered up abuse
My newest column at RNS
When I was in high school, and still underage, my health teacher tried to seduce me. Right there in class, in the normal chaos between bells, he rubbed my legs and whispered an invitation in my ear.
I thought it was hilarious and gross. A typical teenager who felt more grown-up than I was, I never reported it to the school or to authorities. In the culture I grew up in, I was made well aware of what we then called “dirty old men.” I shrugged it off.
Some years later, when I better understood the gravity of such abusive behavior, I wrote about the experience in an essay published by my local newspaper. I didn’t name the teacher or my large suburban public school, but a diligent school board member read my essay, did a little digging to find out which school it was and called me to ask the name of the teacher.
… Such diligence has proved to be too rare in my experience within church institutions. Instead, Christian leaders have ignored or covered up abuse.
Read the rest of my essay here (there’s no paywall).
Karen, I have been pondering the literary evidence of clergy sexual abuse. The literature goes back over a century. The evidence is found in classic novels like The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck), where Casey, the former revival preacher, admits to abusing the women he baptized, or Christy (Catharine Marshall), with the tragic story of Miss Alice. In the autobiographical Cheaper by the Dozen (1948), the Gilbreths write that their father, efficiency expert Frank Gilbreth (1868-1924), refused to attend church because he viewed, with some evidence given, clergymen as lecherous hypocrites. In the memoir 'The Horse and Buggy Doctor' (1938) Kansas-based Dr. Hertzler shows a similar skepticism towards the character of the clergy, noting he treated a revival preacher for a disease 'decent people do not get'.
Among the books on my parents' shelf was a 1921 British magazine compendium, 'Girls Own Annual'. One of the serials was 'Leave it to Doris' by American author Ethel Hueston, who had been a clergyman's daughter and who wrote lighthearted romance stories about clergymen's daughters. The serial edited the story for a British audience, but years later, I found the American edition online. An entire chapter, about a revival preacher who came to stay with the local minister's family and then tried to force his attentions on one of the girls, had been cut out of the British magazine edition. The chapter was troubling, because although the minister protected his daughter by throwing the revival preacher out of his house, the minister chose not to warn his denomination about the revival preacher's behaviour, believing the man had repented.
This literature, fiction and non-fiction, all portray the later years of the 19th to the early part of the 20th century. The record was there. My mother, a baby boomer, had multiple peers tell her of experiencing such abuse within the church. She remembered Catherine Marshall's 'Christy' and came to the conclusion, some two decades before #ChurchToo started trending, that sexual abuse by church leaders was a widespread problem. She had no power, she could only listen to the older generation and warn the younger generation. But when I began to see the #ChurchToo stories, it did not come as a surprise. It was a relief to see that which had been done in the darkness for so many decades was at last being brought into the light.
My mother was sexually abused as a child by a family friend and then as an adult by a pastor. She was able to protect me from abuse as a child and to teach me to watch out for clergy abuse as an adult. When I was a teenager, I watched our church tear itself apart because the leaders would not hold the pastor who abused my mother and other women accountable. Years later, when I found that an elder in our church (who was a friend!) abused another friend of mine, my husband and I were able to help the abused friend go to church leadership and demand accountability. And that time, the church did the right thing. We were able to break the cycle of abuse for once. Unfortunately, the pastor who did the right thing was then later found to be in a sexually immoral and likely abusive relationship himself. Deep sigh. Sex and power are a dangerous combination, even in little churches. And it's made worse by patriarchy and the limitation of women in churches. When women are seen as equal to men, it's harder for us to be victims. What a depressing subject. But, I'm so glad Jesus loves us through all this mess.