I’m struck by the frequency that some Christians label any sexual activity between a married pastor and an adult congregant who is not their spouse, an affair. It is no accident that people easily go there. The fact that it is so easy to go there has deep roots in the gendered nature of religious leadership and relates to the ways that congregations elevate, venerate, and implicitly trust their leaders in ways that are not healthy. It also has roots in American culture’s fascination with the powerful and successful, and not the powerless, and our draw toward the easy and not the complicated. It is also connected with our avoidance of pain by many, using our “religion” to simplify life and bypass complex dynamics and trauma.
When a pastoral leader is sexual with someone in their congregation, we must immediately look at this as adult clergy sexual abuse. The fact that we often call it an affair circumvents many of the deeper issues that have allowed the abuse to occur and, probably most damaging, it invalidates and blames the victim for what happened and allows an abusive person to continue in ministry. It is urgent that we unpack this.
When a pastoral leader is sexual with someone in their congregation, we must immediately look at this as adult clergy sexual abuse.
Why is it not an affair? An affair suggests that there was consent by the congregant. And consent suggests complete freedom to choose or an agreement to participate in sexual activity. Consent can only happen when two people have equal power. The person who occupies a pastoral role has more power than others in that system, including junior clergy who report to them. Most of the power given to a leader is through an ordination process that acknowledges they have been called to encourage, support, and guide others spiritually. And in most settings whether we say it out loud or not, we act as if our leaders are morally and spiritually “superior” to the average churchgoer. Because of this, we make assumptions that those who teach and preach will not - or even “cannot” - hurt people. The blind spot created by the moral and spiritual elevation of the leader and the prioritization of their agenda and ideas while simultaneously diminishing the goals, concerns, and power of laity comes from “clericalism”, and it has been around for millennia. Clericalism is an issue because a pastor is as human and fallible as anyone else. Clericalism allows congregations to abdicate their power and responsibility and often blindly trust their leader even when there are warning signs or evidence they are hurting people.
When we call adult clergy sexual abuse an affair, it allows us to avoid the deep pain and complexity by incorrectly naming what happened as a simple moral failure that needs to be forgiven. But such a superficial and inadequate framing does not acknowledge reality—that a person with power leveraged the trust given to them in their professional role and position to gain sexual access to someone in their care. It also keeps us from seeing that this type of betrayal was abuse that causes enormous harm.
Let’s face it—it is just easier to look for a simple explanation and blame people for being tempted and giving in to sin than to grapple with the ways we elevate and blindly trust leaders and fail to set up appropriate safeguards to protect people. In other words, we don’t want to face the fact that we are all complicit in creating an environment or a way of doing “church” where abuse can occur easily and in which a leader can move on with no consequences and where a victim is quickly tossed aside. And it is also easier to try to forgive a leader and move forward than to acknowledge the profound wounding that occurred and to embrace the fact that instead of protecting the powerless, a Christian leader exploited and took advantage of a person who trusted them, and that it happened on our watch. The latter is deeply troubling, causes intense grief and reflection, and it requires a robust and thorough response. And none of that is easy or pain free, so we rarely go there.
Doctors, social workers, psychologists, counselors, and nurses all have codes of ethics that prohibit sexual contact with patients/clients because of the inherent power differentials in those relationships. Engaging in sexual relationships in most cases would result in a major disciplinary process and in many cases losing the ability to practice in their profession ever again. Sexual behavior with a client would always be labeled as misconduct and abuse. I’ve never heard someone say “I heard my physician had an affair with one of their patients, and we just need to forgive them”. And I’ve never heard a patient blamed for their social worker’s sexual misconduct. But I have heard women in congregations being blamed for their minister’s misconduct by labeling her a temptress, and I’ve heard the words “we just need to forgive our minister; it was just a moral slip. . . just look at all the good they’ve done”.
In secular helping professions, the professional is always the one responsible to ensure that patients are competently cared for and treated with respect and that appropriate interpersonal boundaries are in place to ensure safety in their interactions. Why are ministers not held to this same standard?
In secular helping professions, the professional is always the one responsible to ensure that patients are competently cared for and treated with respect and that appropriate interpersonal boundaries are in place to ensure safety in their interactions. Why are ministers not held to this same standard? How can it be that secular professions do so much better than churches do protecting people who rely on and trust the professional by having explicit ethical standards and processes to hold abusive professionals accountable? Why is it that the one profession that is given the most trust, holds people’s spiritual lives in their hands, and is tasked with caring for the least of these holds its leaders to such low moral and ethical standards? Why is such egregious behavior overlooked, minimized, and tolerated by so many of us? Why are we not all alarmed at these glaring contradictions and bizarre double standards that let our clergy off the hook so easily?
Too many of us, I’m afraid, want a religion that doesn’t require much of us. The complexity of the humanity of our leaders is too much for us. If we start understanding that our leaders can sexually abuse people, it would likely upend our “theology” that our leaders are amazing and our churches are safe places. How would we do church then, and what might it require of us?
The answer might be simple, but it isn’t easy. 1) I think that it is time we all take responsibility for embracing the least of these among us by holding our leaders to the highest ethical and moral standards and removing them from ministry when they misuse their power and position to harm people and 2) We start believing and supporting survivors by providing what they need to heal.
The only way forward is to call it abuse and stop using the word affair.
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Dr. David Pooler is Professor and Director of the Adult Clergy Sexual Abuse; Advocacy and Research Collaborative at Baylor University in the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work. As a national expert on Adult Clergy Sexual Abuse, he brings insights about this phenomenon through research and his clinical practice with survivors. Dr. Pooler has a B.A. in psychology and religion from Lee University and earned the MSW and Ph.D in Social Work at the University of Louisville. He is married to Cheryl, who is also a faculty member in the School of Social Work at Baylor, and they have two adult daughters.