Protestants Congregations Struggle to Cope With Their Own Traumatic Scandals

c. 2006 Religion & Ethics Newsweekly NEW YORK _ While the sex abuse scandal involving Roman Catholic priests has rocked the church and created years of headlines, Protestant congregations have been devastated by their own scandals _ ministers having affairs with women in their own congregations. No one knows for sure how many such cases […]

c. 2006 Religion & Ethics Newsweekly

NEW YORK _ While the sex abuse scandal involving Roman Catholic priests has rocked the church and created years of headlines, Protestant congregations have been devastated by their own scandals _ ministers having affairs with women in their own congregations.

No one knows for sure how many such cases there are but when they happen _ and it can happen in large, prestigious congregations such as Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church or Atlanta’s nondenomination Cathedral of the Holy Spirit and New York’s Fifth Avenue Presbyterian as well as smaller churches under the media radar _ the consequences can be shattering.


“I couldn’t believe it,” said Karen Johnson, a parishioner at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian, where the senior minister became romantically entangled with a church member. “Then when it began to look like it was true, then I went through betrayal, betrayal. He betrayed me. He betrayed our church.”

The Rev. Randy Webber, the acting chief of staff at Fifth Avenue, says it’s very hard for people to accept that clergy may not be perfect and that they make mistakes.

The incident at Fifth Avenue had all the drama of a Broadway play. Their popular, nationally renowned pastor, was forced to resign after admitting to the relationship and the woman’s husband sued the pastor _ and the church _ for $5 million.

“I’ve described it as feeling a little bit like ending up in a car accident, where all of a sudden you find yourself off the road and in the ditch and wondering a little bit about how you got there,” Webber told the PBS program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, describing how congregations are stunned by such scandals.

The Minnesota Council of Churches has worked for two decades with victims of sexual exploitation.

“This isn’t about one denomination,” said Nancy Biele, of the council’s Committee to End Sexual Misconduct in the Religious Community. “And it isn’t about one gender. It’s about all pastors being responsible for their own behavior.”

Dr. Gary Schoener, a clinical psychologist, said that while the sexual abuse of children understandably is getting much of the attention, “the bottom line is that far more clergy have sexual contact with adult women or late adolescent girls than (they) do with kids of either gender.”


While sometimes those involved say it was just a matter of two people falling in love, professional counselors usually see the women as victims.

“People trust clergy like they trust nobody else,” said Schoener. “The opportunity is there. Secondly, clergy get carried away with their own power and their own influence.”

According to Biele, some clergy who get involved are “undergoing some psychological issues of their own _ relationship issues _ and kind of fall into someone who switches roles and cares for them, which includes sexually.

“And some are predators.”

The result is that congregations are left in disarray.

“Usually, the congregation is badly split,” said Schoener. “There are people that stick with the pastor. Even if he admits it, they somehow minimize it. There are others who want him out quickly.

Lutheran Bishop Peter Rogness of Saint Paul, Minn., speaking at a recent conference of “afterpastors” _ ministers who are called in to do temporary pastoral work in congregations in the wake of a scandal _ says public disclosure is a must in dealing with such crises.

While some may want a “quieter, easier, gentler way” to handle these situations, Rogness bluntly told the conference “there isn’t.”


“There may well be other victims out there,” he said. “That’s frequently the case. You name it and you invite them to come forward.”

The issue, he said, “is clearly about the safety and the integrity of the pastoral office and the congregation as a safe place where vulnerable people are not only invited but expected to come to pastors.”

Sometimes, victims are afraid to come forward.

“If the church is your whole life, if your family goes there and suddenly you’re accusing someone of this, you can expect to have great difficulty in staying in that church,” Schoener said.

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

Nearly 10 years after its scandal, Westminster Presbyterian Church is thriving.

The Rev. Dan Little had come out of retirement to help the congregation through the crisis shortly after the scandal broke.

“They had lost two pastors and they wanted somebody to fill the pulpit, essentially for a few Sundays,” Little says.

“I found a congregation that was trying to figure out, you know, where it was and what all this might mean,” he added. “In a situation like this, you inevitably _ people get uptight and sort of frozen and anxious.”


While the scandal caused some division, it also had strong lay leaders and big givers who were willing to give even more to help the church through the crisis.

“A moment of suffering or of brokenness can kill you or it can be a redemptive moment,” Little said. “It was the latter in this case. The fundamental spine of this congregation is one of loyalty … wanting good things to happen.

“And, not flinching from looking at what had happened.,” he says.

Little left the congregation after two years _ when he felt it was whole again.

“Congregations,” said Biele, of the Council of Churches, “can become entrenched in patterns that are detrimental to the health of a congregation. One of those patterns can be that the pastor is all _ knows all, sees all and is never to be questioned.

“So a pastor with extreme authority can do any number of things without being questioned,” she says.

Schoener and Biele both stressed the necessity of wisely choosing pastors.

“You … check their background carefully to make sure they don’t have a history of this,” Schoener said. “If they’re spending an excessive amount of time with any parishioner, you need to sit down with them and say, `What’s going on here?”’


“The very bottom line,” Biele added, “is you don’t have sex with members of your congregation, period. You don’t _ you don’t flirt, you don’t date. I think most denominations have now put that into policy _ that it’s simply not a good idea.”

KRE/JL END JONES

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!