A Sign of Opposition and a Sword

This is Part 1 of a series on Sexual Harassment and the Church.

I’ve always known that pastors could be misogynists and predators. I am a daughter of a former bishop of the ELCA and a former church office manager. The latter, my mother, finally left her position at the congregation where my family were members, when she could no longer take the sexist comments and commands of our pastor (racism played a huge part in her decision as well.) This happened in the late 80’s. I was in high school and painfully aware of what my mother was experiencing. We then joined another church where the senior pastor was a woman.

My dad, already serving on synod staff became bishop in 1990. It was during that time that the ELCA was creating policy in regards to clergy sexual misconduct, specifically, but not exclusively, on what to do when a pastor was accused of sexually abusing a child. To put the timeline of events into perspective, the Boston Globe’s Spotlight division broke the story on the Catholic Church’s cover-up of priests who had sexually abused young boys on January 6, 2002. I remember overhearing stories of my dad having to confront pastors who had done seriously inappropriate things to females ranging in age from child to adult. I believe that some of those pastors had been classmates of his; some of them might have even been friends. My dad’s response -in each case- was to treat accusations of misconduct as credible, confront the accused, remove those found guilty from their pastoral office, and care for congregations involved openly and honestly.

Being their daughter gave me an insider’s perspective on the realities of how clergy (specifically male clergy) could abuse their power for personal sexual gain. My parents modeled a belief that sexism, misogyny, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and sexual assault was something the church didn’t tolerate and that God opposed, but I still knew then and I still know now that clergy can be misogynists and predators.

While the dam has burst on sexual harassment and assault in the workplace spilling forth the waters of accusations from a wide range of professional women, one industry in particular, religion, seems to remain unscathed and largely unmentioned. Strangely, it’s an industry with a high profile past of sexual misconduct and cover-ups in the workplace. When the Boston Globe ran their article attention was given to the horrific way that the Catholic Church was purposefully covering up abuse and therefore allowing it to continue.

Altar boys being molested by priests who were simply moved to new parishes to molest new altar boys was turned into a skewed belief, by some, that these priests were gay, but my knowledge of clergy sexual misconduct gave me the ammunition I needed to argue back. Pedophilia, hebephilia, and ephebophilia have nothing to do with sexuality – it’s about power. After all, Protestant pastors weren’t abusing girls in their congregations because they were heterosexual. But the Globe, in outing the misconduct and cover-up, focused on stories of men who had been sexually abused when they were boys. Scandals involving clergy who have committed sexual misconduct towards girls and women have yet to be seen as equally newsworthy.

My own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), passed a resolution on making the church a safe place, free from sexual abuse and harassment at its churchwide assembly in 1989. The “Assembly called upon each synod to create policies and procedures to empower victims to report incidents of sexual abuse, provide healing for victims, and safeguard the rights of those accused.” In 1992, the ELCA’s Church Council took actions “To affirm the proposed four-year implementation of an ELCA strategy for responding to sexual abuse in this church (as contained in the document, ‘An ELCA Strategy for Responding to Sexual Abuse in the Church’)

Most church denominations have policies and procedures on clergy misconduct, and while many of those who have the authority to implement them do so well and to the best of their ability, stories of abuse, harassment, silencing, and cover-ups still happen. I was ordained in 2001 and have my own personal story of being the victim of clergy misconduct. My ex husband and I met and were married during seminary; the marriage ended 16 years later when he was arrested and sent me to the hospital. When he was welcomed back to his congregation, months before our bishop took the time to meet with me face to face, I remember telling my therapist, “No, I’m not at all surprised; I’m disappointed.” My only recourse in dealing with the way I was treated by leadership in the congregation and the Bishop’s Office came by telling my story publicly, but doing so came at a price. I was re-victimized, threatened, ostracized, blacklisted, and lied to by the very people I had believed would – as Christians – offer me the support I deserved as a victim.

If I couldn’t get the justice I wanted I became determined to expose the injustice I had suffered. A vast majority of hearers validated my outrage, offered me prayers, and expressed their sorrow at how I was treated. Harvey Weinstein was still a powerful man in Hollywood and few people were familiar with the “MeToo” hashtag at that point, but the more I shared my story the more others reached out to me to share their own stories of abuse and the hurtful ways they had been treated by church authorities in the ELCA and other denominations.

“Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’” Luke 2:34-35 

Simeon’s words to Mary seem apropos to me, especially now, as sexual harassment continues to grab headlines. Each time I hear a story of another man’s fall from the public’s grace I feel deep stabs of pain for the women who have suffered. I’ve listened for the church – any church or denomination -  to make some kind of public statement decrying the sexism and misogyny that has allowed such abuse, but those I have heard are not much more than a whisper. The loudest “Christian” voices on the subject sound the least like Jesus and as much as I want to blame conservative evangelicals for being the only ones who are trying to rationalize excuses for men who do these things, I can’t. I have heard too much evidence to the contrary and I know, for a fact, that my own personal experience of abuse, forced silence, victim-blaming, non-accountability, and retaliation is still the norm in both the secular world and in the religious world.

It’s almost Christmas as I write this; people all over the world are rushing around trying to prepare for this holiday commemorating the birth of a baby who, as Simeon put it, is meant “to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.” As a woman who still believes in Jesus, I want to reclaim the Sign that generations of men have tried to tell us reads that God intended women to be objects for their use and pleasure, because that’s simply not what the Sign says. To paraphrase the words of the Sign’s own mother, “with one swoop of an arm, God scatters those that believe they are too important to have to play by the rules. God grabs seats of authority out from under the powerful and dumps them on their butts; God takes those, who have been used and tossed in the dirt, by their hand, helps them to stand upright, gives them justice, and restores their dignity. (Luke 1:51-52).

I want to reclaim that Jesus; the one who the system has forced us to oppose – the one who proclaimed clearly, in all caps, with bold font, and in larger than life print, that God places great and equal value on each of us regardless of class, color, nationality, sexuality, or gender. In the posts that follow this, I will be sharing stories of clergywomen who have shared their stories of sexual harassment, abuse, and assault with me. What their stories reveal is just how far religious authorities/institutions have come when they encounter clergy misogynists/predators and how very far behind the church still is in responding to and caring for female victims.

This story can also be found on Medium.