5 crucial Changes to address sexual sin in the church
by Geoff Surratt
Yesterday I read the recently released 400 page report detailing how accusations of sexual assault by pastors have been mishandled by the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Conference over the past 20 years. The victims’ stories are gut wrenching and the pain they endured as they were ignored, pushed aside, and attacked is hard to comprehend. The problem, however, goes well beyond the SBC. Almost every network, denomination, and local church has been rocked by the sexual sin during the past 20 years.
It seems that every week there is another story of a pastor caught in sexual sin. I read this morning of a pastor in Indiana who confessed on Sunday to an “adulterous affair” that happened 20 years ago. After receiving a standing ovation, the woman whom he’d slept with for nine years stepped forward and told the congregation, “It was 27 years ago, not 20. ... I was just 16 when you took my virginity on your office floor. Do you remember that? I know you do.” Another victim of sexual assault, another pastor revealed as a predator, another congregation reeling in the face of sexual sin.
We have to change the narrative around pastors and sexual sin in the church. Sexual immorality isn’t new to the church; much of the Old Testament law is focused on boundaries around sex, and the Apostle Paul addresses sex among Christians in almost all of his letters. What has changed, however, is that what might have once been hidden is now open for the world to see. Sexual sin by church leaders can no longer be swept under the rug and ignored. Victims are speaking up, demanding that their stories be told and their attackers confronted. And that is a positive thing. Now we have to respond, we have to change the story.
There will be a lot written in the coming weeks on how to uncover and confront pastors who commit sexual sin, but I want to look at how we address the problem of sexual sin among pastors before the fact. Below are five changes I believe we need to make in the local church to address a crisis before it happens.
1. Change the rules
It is time to move on from the “Billy Graham Rule”, which says a pastor will never travel, meet, or eat alone with someone of the opposite sex other than their spouse. While the rule has merits, and I followed it for most of my ministry, it is neither biblical nor healthy in the long run. Jesus did not follow the Billy Graham rule, as illustrated best in the story of the Samaritan woman. It is hard to support a rule Jesus didn’t adhere to in his own ministry.
The rule can actually stunt the development of healthy relationships among coworkers in the Kingdom. Men may never learn to interact in a healthy way with women they are not married to. It is like riding with training wheels, you never truly learn to ride a bike if you never take off the training wheels. Men need to learn how to have one on one conversations with women in a healthy, mutually respectful environment. If I cannot meet with a woman over coffee without turning it into a sexual situation, I have a problem the Billy Graham rule only masks. And if every time someone sees we with a woman I am not married to they assume we’re having an affair, appearances isn’t the problem, trust is the problem.
I propose we replace the Billy Graham Rule with the Sibling Rule;
I will treat people of the opposite sex like brothers and sisters. I will never talk to, text, or touch a woman who is not my spouse in a way I wouldn’t talk to, text, or touch my sister.
I would meet one-on-one with my sister, but I would never comment on her figure, send her nasty texts, or touch her inappropriately. If we treated all of our Christian brothers and sisters like a healthy family, the problem of sexual sin in the church would fade away.
2. Change the leadership table
Male leaders thinking they alone can address the problem of male leaders committing sexual sin, without the input of female leaders, is crazy. You do not have to change your theology to invite women to the leadership table. Even if your theology doesn’t allow for women to preach, to be called pastors, or to serve as elders, you can have women at the leadership table. Men cannot have the perspective of women, especially when it pertains to how men and women interact in the church. Without the insight of women leaders we will continue to do the same things over and over, hoping for different results. That is the very definition of insanity.
3. Change the definitions
Growing up in the church there were really only two words for sexual sin: fornication and adultery. Now we’ve expanded the definition to include inappropriate texting, inappropriate talk, and inappropriate touching, which aren’t as bad as consensual sex which isn’t as bad as non-consensual sex which is a softer way of saying rape. We have emotional affairs which aren’t good, but better than sexual affairs which are worse than one time flings. We’ve bought into a hierarchy of sexual sin illustrated by this alleged quote from a well known pastor accused of forcibly groping a woman in her condo, “Thank God I didn’t consummate the relationship,” Thank God indeed.
We need to return to clarity that intimacy with someone you are not married to via text, conversation, touch, or “consummation” is sin. We need to drop “inappropriate” from our vocabulary and agree that anything that violates the boundaries of biblical marriage is destructive to the other party and disqualifying in the life of a pastor.
4. Change the instruction of leaders
We need very open and candid conversations with church leaders around healthy and unhealthy sexual practices within the church. It is not enough to sign conduct agreements or read policy manuals; it is important that men sit with men and women sit with women to discuss the realities of sexual dynamics, the importance of transparency, the availability of counseling, and the clarity of boundaries. Leaders at every level need to understand the dynamics of spiritual, physical, and financial power within a church, and how those dynamics play out in relationships with the opposite sex.
5. Change the accountability
Who would someone in your church go to if they had an accusation of sexual sin against a leader? How would they know who to contact or how to contact them? What would happen with that accusation? Most church attenders, or even staff members, have no idea how to deal with accusations of sexual sin in the church. Few churches have a clear process in place, or a way to communicate that process. Fear, shame and intimidation are often the norm, protecting the pastors and silencing the victims.
What if we communicated very clearly with everyone in the church a simple path to report and investigate sexual sin? What if, before any scandal arose, we committed to an independent investigation of all accusations? Imagine standing on the stage at the end of a service and saying, “We want to be 100% transparent and above reproach around the sexual morality of our leaders. Here are the standards we have all agreed to abide by. If you have questions or concerns around the conduct of a leader please send an email to this address. Here is the process that will be followed to discover the truth, and here is how the outcome of that process will be shared.” I realize this could open a can of worms, but I suspect that can has been open for a long time. I’m simply suggesting a clear path to addressing the problem.
I know these changes can’t stop all sexual sin in the church; as long as churches are led by fallen humans there will be sexual sin. My hope is these shifts will create a path of transparency and accountability that will protect more people from becoming victims, and keep more pastors from heading down the path of destruction.
