Clergy Sexual Misconduct

John Thoburn

Description

Nearly 10 percent of pastors have adulterous affairs and 15 percent are addicted to Internet pornography. Clergy Sexual Misconduct addresses how prevention, education, and treatment interventions can positively impact all levels of the clergy system. Numerous contributing experts share guidance on how individuals, families, congregants, and denominations can achieve recovery and reconciliation through a systemic approach.

Sujets

• Sexualité
• sexualité
• Sexualité
• Religion
• Clergy
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 27 avril 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780983271383
• Langue: English

Extrait

CLERGY SEXUAL
MISCONDUCT
 
 
A Systems Approach to
Prevention, Intervention, and Oversight
 
 

 
Edited by John Thoburn, PhD and Rob Baker, MA
with Maria Dal Maso, MA
 



Gentle Path Press
PO Box 3172
Carefree, Arizona 85377
www.gentlepath.com
 
Copyright 2011 John Thoburn, MDiv, PhD,
 
Published in eBook format by Gentle Path Press
Converted by http://www.eBookIt.com
 
 
ISBN-13: 978-0-9832-7138-3
 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced, stored or entered into a retrieval system, transmitted, photocopied, recorded, or otherwise reproduced in any form by any mechanical or electronic means, without the prior written permission of the author, and Gentle Path Press, except for brief quotations used in articles and reviews.
 
First edition: 2011
 
For more information regarding our publications,
contact Gentle Path Press at
1-800-708-1796 (toll-free U.S. only).
 
 
 
 


 
Contributors
 
John Thoburn, MDiv, PhD ABPP
Rob Baker, MA, LMFT, LMHC, CSAT-S
 
Carrie Abbott
Maria Dal Maso, MA
Miles Dewhirst, JD
Marcus Earle, PhD, LMFT, CSAT
Ralph Earle, MDiv, PhD, ABPP, LMFT, CSAT
Debbie Laaser, MA
Mark Laaser, MDiv, PhD
John (Bill) Lennon, EdD, NCSP, LMFT, LMHC, CSAT, CSOTP Crystal Littrell, JD
Sue Neufeld-Ellis, RN, LMHC, CCDC II, NCAC II, CHT, CSAT Ted Roberts, ThM, DMin
Sonja Rudie, MA, LMHC, CSAT, C-EMDR
Timothy Weber, MDiv, PhD
Ken Wells, MDiv, MA, LPC, CSAT, LSAC
 
Foreword by Patrick Carnes, PhD
 

 
Who would have thought when I wrote Out of the Shadows twenty-eight years ago that there would be such a dramatic response to the issue of sexual addiction? The years since have witnessed an explosion in research, teaching, the development of screening assessments, inpatient hospital programs, Twelve Step programs, certificate training programs for mental health practitioners, and national conferences—all devoted to addressing this psychosocial disease, so that the hold it has had on so many lives would be broken.
One of the last bastions to come on board has been the Church, where response to sexual addiction tends to alternate between head-in-the-sand deflection and moral outrage. Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has received widespread attention, but clergy sexual misconduct knows no denominational lines and is a well-documented problem that extends to Protestant Churches as well. Research shows that nearly 10 percent of Protestant pastors have sexual contact with someone other than a spouse while in the ministry, more than 30 percent of ministers engage in sexual behavior that they consider inappropriate, and more than 15 percent of ministers qualify as addicted to Internet pornography. Furthermore, when clergy sexual misconduct is discovered in a congregation, an average of seven women have been victimized.
Since 1983 when Out of the Shadows was first published (originally published by CompCare as The Sexual Addiction ), there have been just over two dozen research articles on clergy sexual misconduct. In contrast, there have been nearly 700 research articles on the general topic of sexual addiction. A handful of books on clergy sexual misconduct have been written in the same time period, but the subject deserves significantly more constructive attention than it has received. Existing books on Protestant sexual misconduct have tended to focus on specific areas, such as rehabilitation for the pastor, prevention needs, denominational policies, or the traumatic effects on the pastor, his family, or the congregation. Clergy Sexual Misconduct widens this perspective by exploring how each of these elements influences one another and why a systemic approach is the best way to shed light on and address this stubborn, growing problem that threatens to cripple the efficacy of the Church.
John Thoburn, MDiv, PhD, is an associate professor of clinical psychology at Seattle Pacific University. He is a licensed psychologist, board certified in couple and family psychology, and a former ordained minister. He has written extensively in the research literature on clergy sexual misconduct. Rob Baker, MA, is a Washington State licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed mental health counselor. He is a certified sex addiction therapist and supervisor through the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals. As editors of this book, they have enlisted recognized experts in the field of sexual addiction and clergy sexual misconduct—people I personally know: Mark and Debbie Laaser, Ralph and Marcus Earle, Ted Roberts, Bill Lennon, Sue Neufeld-Ellis and Sonja Rudie. In all, fifteen experts have contributed chapters to Clergy Sexual Misconduct on how a systems model can effectively target the intervention, treatment, and education needs of the clergyperson, the pastor’s family, the congregation, and denominations.
I’m a social scientist not a theologian, but I think it’s safe to say that the Church should be the one place where people might find hope for change, absolution from shame, treatment that will herald new beginnings, and strategies for prevention that take full advantage of spiritual dimensions. This book is a resource that takes us in the right direction.
 
Acknowledgements
 

 
We would like to convey our sincere appreciation to the whole team at Gentle Path Press, starting with Dr. Stefanie Carnes, President of International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals (IITAP), who took a chance on us. We’d like to sincerely thank Rebecca Post and Corrine Casanova, for their exemplary editing of the text, but more so, for their unflagging enthusiasm and support. We are grateful for Connie Carlson, our publicist, who has represented us tirelessly and for Carmen Smith, our web designer, for dragging us kicking and screaming into the 21st century social media world. We’d also like to thank Alisha Baker for her amazing graphic design work for the website logo, and Luke Thoburn for his production expertise for the website video podcast. What a joy to have children who add professional touches that elevate the project. We’d like to thank Dr. Patrick Carnes for graciously agreeing to write the Foreword for the book. He didn’t have to do it and it is quite meaningful that he did. Finally we’d like to thank our spouses, Suzanne and Roxanne, for their faith, support, encouragement and love.
 
John Thoburn
 
Rob Baker
 
Part I: Introduction to a Holistic Approach to Clergy Sexual Misconduct
 

 
Chapter 1
Church Systems, Ecology, and Clergy Sexual Misconduct
John Thoburn and Rob Baker
 
Chapter 2
Clergy Sexual Misconduct Overview: A Model for Prevention, Education, Treatment, and Oversight
Rob Baker and John Thoburn
 

 
Note to reader: Most chapters in this book use the pronoun he for the convenience of reading when referring to the sexual acting-out clergyperson, although in each case the person may be male or female. The pronoun she will be used when referring to the impacted spouse.
 
Chapter 1 notes the widespread prevalence of clergy sexual misconduct in the Protestant Church today. Some of the factors that contribute to the problem at all levels of the clergy and Church system are explored. In addition, the tone of the chapter reflects the rest of the book’s positive philosophy that recovery is possible. Chapter 2 uses a systems model that targets the education, intervention, and oversight needs of the minister, his family, the congregation, and the denominational/governing body leadership.
 

Chapter 1 - Church Systems, Ecology, and Clergy Sexual Misconduct
John Thoburn and Rob Baker
 

 
At the time of this writing, it has been twenty-three years since the landmark Leadership Journal survey of clergy sexual practices and it is the twentieth anniversary of the first comprehensive research study on clergy sexual misconduct (Muck, 1988; Thoburn, 1991). While over two dozen research articles have been written since 1991 on the subject of clergy sexual misconduct, the problem still stubbornly persists as a thorn in the side of the Church. Following the sensational stories profiling the sexual misdeeds of several prominent evangelical pastors in the 1980s and 1990s, the 1991 Thoburn study was one of many books and research studies exposing what had been swept under the rug for ages. Clergy sexual misconduct has greatly impacted clergy marriages and the local Church (Benyei, 1988; Blackmon, 1984; Johnston, 1996; Thoburn, 1991). There are around 600,000 ministers in the United States, meeting the needs of 300,000 Protestant congregations.
 
Did you know?
1. Between 10 and 14 percent of pastors have sexual contact with someone other than a spouse while in the ministry .
2. More than 30 percent of ministers engage in sexual behavior that they consider inappropriate .
3. More than 15 percent of ministers qualify as functionally addicted to Internet pornography .
4. There is an average number of seven women victims of clergy sexual misconduct per affected congregation . This number is significant and disturbing considering that the average size of most congregations is between 100 and 700 members (Chaves & Garland, 2010).
 
Just to give some perspective, parallel studies in other helping professions indicate the statistics for sexual contact between the professional and those he is helping are far lower than those for clergy. Of those surveyed, 7 1 / 10 percent of male psychiatrists acknowledged sexual contact with patients, 5 to 7 percent of psychologists acknowledged sex with their clients/patients, and 10 percent of physicians acknowledged sex with their patients (Bouhoutsos, Holroyd, Lerman, Forer, & Greenberg, 1983; Gartrell, Herman, Olartes, Feldstein, & Localio, 1986; Kardener, Fuller, & Mensh, 1973; Pope, Keith-Spiegel, & Tebachnik, 1986). Note that female therapists and physicians had sex with their patients less than 1 percent. The problem o