My first husband was a minister and hadn’t completely finished seminary when he quit for his own reasons. I was devastated and relieved at the same time. Being the wife of a minister, and also a wild-eyed feminist and progressive was challenging. In spite of the relief, after he left the ministry and especially after we divorced, I cried every time I attended any church service in any church.
I grew up in the Disciples of Christ/First Christian Church, known then and now for racial reconciliation, social equality, equity, and anti-racism. I also learned about other religions there. It formed me, and I’m deeply grateful. However, I haven’t belonged to a church for many years.
I always assumed it was the sadness of my ex-husband leaving the ministry that led to my decision to be “unchurched.” Also, as a teen in my liberal church, I learned about other faiths and religions. I grew to believe all paths lead to the mountain top. My growing spirituality and movement away from organized religion kept me from acknowledging what was possibly the most impactful reason I seldom attend church, which is the abuse I’ve experienced from ministers from various denominations.
Two of my recent posts have been about those abusive experiences, which started me thinking about the others. Experiences I’d forgotten, or relegated to a compartment of my brain labeled unimportant. It’s obvious to me now, as I take the memories out and examine them, that they are very important. One, in particular, could have easily progressed to tragic.
. . .
We were at church camp. He was a married minister with children and a counselor at the camp. I was a young teen. He wasn’t even my counselor, so I don’t remember how I came to be alone with him at night in a wooded area next to my cabin.
He started by talking about love. He said, “Love is love. The love I feel for God, for my wife, and for my children is the same love. There’s no difference. It’s the same as the love I feel for you.”
Then he kissed me.
It was the 1970s, and the phenomena of abuse in churches wasn’t well known. It was also a time of new thought and exploration, both spiritually and secularly. The “Summer of Love” was only a few short years before. I listened with curiosity as he talked of all-encompassing love, but even before the kiss, I knew there was something odd about loving your children in the same way you love your wife.
I wish I could tell you that I vigorously protested after he kissed me and that I immediately told the camp director or one of my group’s counselors. I didn’t. I was in a state of shock, and the kiss was disturbing but oddly platonic. No tongue or open lips. Still, a married minister was kissing me on the mouth.
The kiss, combined with the odd statement about loving his wife, his children, and me the same way, felt terribly wrong. I was scared.
I didn’t scream, or run away. I simply told him this didn’t feel right and walked back to my cabin. We never spoke again. It could have been so much worse.
. . .
I devoted an article to the Campus Minister at my University. I went to him for counseling, and after one of the sessions, he reached out and groped my breast. As with the minister at church camp, I was shocked and too surprised to say anything. Of course, I never went to see him again. I couldn’t bring myself to report him either.
. . .
After my son was born, I was a single mother with a Master’s degree in Counseling. I needed part-time work and applied to be the Religious Education Director at a Unity Church. I hadn’t married my son’s father and found out after I got the job that the minister’s wife had told the Board she didn’t want to hire me because I had showed what was, in her opinion, questionable judgment. I would have expected that from other denominations, but Unity is supposed to be open to and accepting of all.
She wasn’t the problem, however. Everyone accepted me and my son. Except for her husband the minister.
While he never made inappropriate moves or remarks, he did have a bad temper and a driving need to control. He questioned everything I did, then seemed frustrated when the answers were satisfactory. Because I was a single mother who was breastfeeding, and the secretary brought her teen daughter to work, I started bringing my son. Her daughter would keep an eye on him in the nursery, and I was able to nurse him instead of having to pump. It worked perfectly for the four of us.
Not for the minister, although we didn’t disturb him in any way. The first day he came to the office and saw my son with me, he stormed past my desk and that of the secretary, slammed his door, and started throwing things around in his office. The secretary and I looked at one another. She said, “He does that. He’ll get over it.” I knew I wouldn’t. I quit soon after.
. . .
The worst experience was with Terry H., the married minister who lied to me when we met, telling me he was a single, former professional athlete. He claimed to be an advisor and life coach to the Dallas Cowboys. He was never employed by the NFL team. He did know some of the players. They were members of his church.
I discovered he had established his own church, was married, and his wife was his co-pastor. Two years after I stopped seeing him, he was convicted of raping three women and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
. . .
As a therapist, I’m aware that trauma affects our memories.
Survivors also tend to downplay the impact of abuse. That’s what I did for a long time. Until now.
Fortunately, we as a society are now much more aware of the possibility that people with the most power in churches, the ministers, can be abusive mentally, sexually, and even physically. After #MeToo, we also know to report abusive behavior, and that we are more likely to receive support than I would have then as a teen or college student.
As recently as the early 2000s, reporting abuse has been difficult for women. Two of the women raped by the minister I dated said they trusted him when he took them to strange places “because he was my Bishop.” The trust issue in the church is what makes the abusive behavior the most egregious.
When in doubt as to whether you are being abused by someone in your church, share your misgivings with a trusted person outside of the church. Other members may be covering up for the minister, or may not want to believe there’s an issue, as happened in the case with Terry H.
If you are abused or assaulted, report it to everyone inside the church, outside the church, and to the authorities. You are more likely to be believed and supported now than ever before.
You deserve to have a spiritual life unsullied by the unsavory actions of those you are taught to trust.
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This post was previously published on Fearless She Wrote.
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