When a Pastor Turns Seducer
NEWSWEEK/SEPTEMBER 11, 1989
From Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” to John Updike’s “ A Month of Sundays,”
the philandering pastor has been a familiar figure in American fiction. But the stories of real-life
lechers in clerical collars are seldom entertaining-in fact, they rarely get told. The shame of the
victims, the embarrassment of the congregation and the pride of church hierarchs all conspire to
make sexual abuse by clergy second only to incest as a taboo subject. But now churches across
the ecumenical spectrum are recognizing that clerical sex offenders represent a serious social
and ethical issue. “it has been a hidden problem for generations,” says Bishop Robert Keller of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Not completely hidden. Victims complained, but churchmen refused to listen. “What women
have been telling us for a number of years has been true, but we tended to not want to believe
them,” says Untied Methodist Bishop Calvin McConnell. Irate churchwomen are finally getting
attention. Both the Presbyterian Church 9U.S.A.) and the United Church of Christ are developing
national policies on sexual-harassment issues. And in Minnesota, churches have established a
statewide interfaith committee to deal with sexual exploitation by clergy. As it happens,
Minnesota is one of just four states, which have made it a felony for counselors to engage in
sexual activity with a client. Pastoral adultery is not the principal issue. Serious as it may be,
there is nothing new about ministers who think ordination is a license to cheat on their wives. The
rev. Henry Ward Beecher, the great preacher of the late 19th century, was ruined after his illicit
affair was exposed; more recently Jimmy Swaggart’s dalliances with a prostitute became a
disgrance0and a national joke. Denominational officials are more concerned with local pastors
who seduce congregants who rely on them for spiritual guidance and, int times of trouble,
pastoral counsel. Such activity strikes at the heart of the pastoral calling because for most
Americans, the place to turn first with personal problems remains the clergy.
There are no national statistics on sexual misconduct by clergy. But one three-year survey
of religious and secular counselors conducted by the Wisconsin Coalition on Sexual Misconduct
found that 11 percent of the perpetrators were clerics; 89 percent of the victims were women.
Despite the paucity of reliable numbers, researchers do have a general portrait of the minister
who is most likely to stray. In some ways, he is not all that different from other predatory
Lotharios. He’s usually middle aged and disillusioned with his calling. He is neglecting his own
marriage. He’s a lone ranger, isolated from his clerical colleagues. And he’s met a woman who
needs him. What makes the clerical seduction different from those of secular counselors is the
God factor; unlike other therapists, the minister’s power and authority are perceived as ultimately
derived from the Lord.
“I’ve noticed again and again that ministers go into the profession with a longing to be loved,
to be idealized, to be godlike,” says psychiatrist Glenn Gabbard, director of the Menninger
Hospital in Topeka, Kans., a major referral center for trouble clergy. When middle age sets in,
Gabbard finds, a minister frequently is disappointed with the congregation’s response to him. He
wants to be idealized but his congregation dwells on his human frailties. Then a young woman
comes to him for pastoral counseling. He is attracted to her and, says Gabbard, “the client
gratifies the minister’s original wish to be loved like God is.”
The God factor clouds the perceptions of he minister’s victim. “In the victim’s perspective,
that person is God, “ says Robert Pledl, a Milwaukee lawyer who represents several clients who
claim they were sexually abused by their priests. Psychiatrist Gabbard agrees: “The more the
minister sees his own person as central to delivering the message of God, the more he is likely to
become sexually involved with members of his congregation.” IN churches with a strong
Pentecostal or revivalist tradition, Gabbard believes, the power that is often ascribed to the
minister during rousing rituals is closely linked to sexual passion: “In these situations, women may
well imagine that a sexual union with this figure is going to have a tremendous benefit.”
The toughest cases are the hard-core sex addicts, preying in the pulpit. Dennis Hawk, 45,
was a minister in the conservative Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, for 15 years. He was
successful and hardworking, with a wife, two children and an apparently traditional family life.
Surreptitiously, however, Hawk managed to conduct affairs with 16 women during his tenure.
Some of them were heads of powerful boards and committees within his congregation; others
were simply women who were as emotionally needy as he was. Typically, Hawk made no move
unless he felt certain that his advances would not be rebuffed. “I was the perpetrator,” he admits.
“It was authority rape on my part.” But, he adds, “sometimes there can be two perpetrators and
two victims.”
Shame eventually led Hawk to seek help through group therapy. First, he gave up alcohol,
thinking that would also solve his sexual addiction. When it didn’t he joined a therapy group,
driving 180 miles round trip every week to attend sessions in Milwaukee. Ironically, his gradual
improvement led to his exposure and expulsion from the clergy. “I stood up to two women I
hadn’t slept with for two years, but who were still wielding control in the church because they had
the ogods on the pastor,” he says. One of the women, Hawk now believes, “organized the church
against me and then played the victim.”
Until recently, most victims of clerical seduction tended to blame themselves at first, and
many are still fearful of unmasking their seducers. “Jane” (a married woman who does not want
her real name used) was 35 and in the hospital for hysterectomy when her minister made his first
sexual overtures during a bedside pastoral call. A month later the advances led to sexual
relations, and when Jane admitted feeling guilty, she says, the pastor told her that “guilt is only for
children.” Eventually he admitted-even boasted-that he had slept with 30 other women. One
tried to commit suicide, several others got divorced. Finally, five of the women brought charges
against the pastor. A committee was created to investigate. The pastor was quietly removed,
and the records of the inquiry were destroyed and Jane, among others, was branded a
“troublemaker” by the new minister. The old minister moved on to a larger, wealthier parish.
As such stories indicate, male clergy differ from other professional therapists in yet another
important respect: they live and work in an Updikean world in which most of their colleagues are
female church volunteers. Moreover, clergy are the only white-collar professionals who still make
house calls. In fact, says James Sparks, a Presbyterian minister and University of Wisconsin
professor, “clergy have almost total access to the homes and lives of their parishioners. Many
ministers and priests are loath to set any limits on where and how they will meet people.”
To help the clergy recognize potential problems, Sparks has developed a video, “Sexual
Ethics in Ministry, “ which re-created compromising situations. But the best form of prevention,
Gabbard insists, “is for ministers to spend much more time than they do in improving their
marriage.” Indeed, pastors are expected to be model husbands as well, but statistics indicate
that this often is not the case. For example, a 1986 survey of 2,400 United Methodists-the
second largest Protestant denomination-found that clergy had twice as many divorces as laymen.
Researchers point out that many clergymen are underpaid overstressed workaholics, putting in
60 to 80 hours a week. “They are always on display, always on call,” says Patrick Carnes, a
pioneer researcher in sexual addiction. “This makes them very susceptible to a double life.”
For repeat offenders, there are a number of treatment centers like St. Barnabas in rural
Wisconsin, which caters to clergy of all faiths and all forms of sexual problems including
pederasty. About a third of the patients are Roman Catholic priests. The clergy are taught that
they are no, in fact, godlike. “You may be set apart”, clinical director Donald Hands tells his
patients, “but you are not higher or better.”
A still unresolved issue is what to do with recovering clergy who want to return to the
ministry. Marie Fortune, an ordained minister and author of “Is Nothing Sacred?”, a case study of
clerical sexual misconduct argues that a pastor who is guilty of sexual abuse betrays not only his
calling but also “his pastoral relationship with everyone in the congregation whose children he
have baptized or married.” Most church officials agree that, at the very least, the offender’s next
congregation must be fully informed of his misdeeds=a principle that many churches have
inexplicably refused to heed. But what frequently cannot be undone is the spiritual and
psychological harm to the women who have been sexually abused by men who preach in the
Lord’s name. For some-especially the very young-a sacred trust has been violated. And in their
minds, all too often, God himself is to blame.
Kenneth L. Woodward with
Patricia King in Chicago