Professor David Pooler: What is consent and power in clergy-laity relations?
An interview with Professor David K. Pooler, Ph.D., LCSW-S, a Professor at the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work at Baylor University. His X account is here.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: We are back to the “delightful” topic of clergy-related abuse in general, but sexual abuse in particular, because it is the darkest in the public imagination. Regarding consent as a claim when an individual priest, pastor, or religious authority comes forward, what are some important ethical considerations? While that can be considered legitimate in some cases, it is probably not legitimate in most considerations. In other cases, it is a blanket lie.
Professor David K. Pooler: I will say this. I do think there may be people who have had sex with a married pastor, single pastor, priest, or whatever. They probably believe it was consensual because someone may not have said “No,” did not resist, or was not clear that they did not want that to happen. However, those kinds of situations are not about what consent truly is. Consent is when both people can say “Yes” or “No.” Both people absolutely, categorically want to be sexual with one another.
There was massive internal reluctance and the need to please an authority figure in the cases I have looked at, researched, and discussed with survivors. It is complicated because it is not just the need to please an authority figure; this person is a proxy for God. It is so complicated in that arrangement where the survivor feels that if they were to try to say no or express concern. They are going against God. Often, the person who is targeting them and initiating sexual contact is framing it in such a way that God is okay with it. That is not very easy. It is very broad to say God is okay with it, but they use much scripture and various interpretations I have heard through the years.
Then they claim their authority, saying what the Holy Spirit or God said. The other thing that complicates consent, which we must discuss, is this power differential. With a power differential, you have to ensure that undue influence, coercion, or misuse of that added power that one person has in the equation is not being used to coerce, manipulate, or push for sexual activity. I have even been asked through the years, what about a single pastor? Could they not have a relationship with someone in their congregation?
They could, but it could be more straightforward. My guidance for that situation is, “No, do not do it.” If you need to date someone and you are interested in romantic relationships, date outside your congregation. Surely, your world has a bigger pool of people than you, pastor. In the rare occasion that a single pastor, for example, wanted to be sexual with someone in their congregation, to ensure that there was actual consent, you would have to bring on board some people to watch that relationship and have conversations with the person the pastor is dating and wants to be sexual with.
Let me go back to consent. Having honest, open communication about what both people want is essential. From my perspective on this and listening to survivors, it is so secretive and hidden, and the pastor is trying to keep it unknown. So, the capacity for an open, honest conversation in this relationship is almost impossible. Consent is not possible in most cases because of the power differential. You mentioned ethics, and outside of ministry, all the other helping professions understand the complications of the ethics around this. That is why sexual relationships with people you are supporting and helping are prohibited.
It is not; here is the guidance for doing it and what it looks like. It is prohibited. You do not do it. In some professions, after the helping relationship is over, you can have sexual relations with someone. In my profession, social work, a sexual relationship is prohibited forever. Technically, if I ever wanted to have sex with a former client, I would not be able to do that according to the ethics of social work. What I am getting at is that these secular professions understand the complicated nature and the nuances of ensuring that both people are having an honest, open conversation about sex and sexuality in a relationship. It would be almost absurd to think about it happening this way but say a married pastor wants to have sex with someone in his congregation. “Hey, I realize what we are doing is inappropriate and wrong. It is a violation of marital vows, but I want to make sure that you are completely okay with us being sexual.”
Those conversations never happen. Many people who perpetrate sexual abuse with someone in their congregation think, “Hey, I want this with this person. If this person is not actively resisting or saying no, they must want it and must be okay with it also,” which is a horrible assumption to make. I have never had a conversation with a survivor yet where there was that open conversation.
And then I would also add that not only can sex be coerced and manipulated with that power differential, but there is certainly what we would consider sexual assault even when someone is resisting or saying “No.” That happens more than we want to admit in this arrangement. Part of what I wanted to speak to is this piece where the offending pastor, if their defence is, “It was consensual. They wanted it too.” I have heard this often: “They were the ones who wanted it. They were flirtatious. They were the ones who were coming after me and targeting me.”
What I would say there is that all the other helping professions equip people to manage a situation in which a client or someone they are supporting might want to be sexual with them. It is the person with more power. It is always their job to put the brakes on, the fence up, the boundaries out, and say no. That is not how this relationship works. Moreover, that gets into another topic I wanted to jump on around purity culture if it is okay if we go there, which is a subset of Christianity that focuses a lot on men being instinctually lustful and that their sexuality is something that has to be tamed and managed, it is a battle they have to focus on in battling their lust. However, they put an excessive burden on the women in that environment so as not to tempt men and to not cause men’s eyes to stray.
I say all that because, in many cases, that is what they are referring to: “I was tempted. This person caused my eyes to stray. I am struggling with lust, and this person came on to me.” So it is this helplessness: “I was at the mercy of this powerful woman who was not managing herself in ways to protect me.” Again, all this burden is on the woman. We often see the defence of an offending pastor going to that narrative, and many people in congregations buy that narrative.
“Yes, I guess it was her fault. I guess she did tempt him. I guess she was trying to undo the church.” They often view women who have been victimized by a pastor as evil. That is a complete turnaround and reversal. The DARVO—deny, accuse, reverse victim and offender—but the entire system can pull a DARVO on someone who has been victimized by a pastor sexually.
I wanted to bring that in because when we are talking about consent, there is a subset of Christianity that not only does not talk about consent at all but also puts this huge burden on the woman to maintain sexual purity for the church. The sexual purity of men in the church is the burden on the women to make sure that happens. That is a real setup for abuse to happen. Then, when abuse is reported, that victim gets blamed by the perpetrator and the supporters of the perpetrator in that whole institutional system.
Jacobsen: These are theological social stereotypes about men and women guiding this orientation.
Pooler: Unfortunately, it is.
Jacobsen: Dorothy Small brought some subtleties to my attention. She mentioned clergy who take vows of celibacy, chastity, or both in some denominations. When those individuals make those vows, how does this change the power and ethics dynamic when making claims about the victim as tempting them somehow? Or, in the opposite case, when they do not make those vows, where it is simply the power-over relationship?
Pooler: Yes, that is a great question. I have a simple answer. There is no difference. Whether the person is making a vow of celibacy or chastity or whatever, the fact remains that there is more power given and offered to a leader in any church system, especially where males are elevated, or women are potentially excluded from ministry. However, whether or not someone has made those vows does not change the dynamics of how it happens or a claim of it being consensual or “I was tempted.” Again, I have already talked about the complexity of consent. The fact is, even if there were a woman who was flirtatious and attempting to tempt someone—and I am not here to say that this could never happen or does not ever happen—at the end of the day, the professional with the power, which people are trusting in a congregation, is the one responsible for navigating that relationship and keeping everyone safe and protected. So, to allow oneself to be tempted—I will say it this way: If I, as a social worker, were to allow myself to be tempted, if you will, that is not even the right word.
I will go beyond the word “tempted.” If I were to be sexual with a client and I claimed I was tempted or that the client was the initiator or the instigator, it would still be sexual misconduct. My license would be sanctioned. In other words, it is always my job. My job as a helper is to meet someone where they are, to assess where they are, and to assess their needs and what it will take to keep them safe. Then, I make that referral if whatever they need is beyond what I can do.
Unfortunately, there is no universal training on assessing boundaries and the formal education process regarding ministry. In other words, ministry lags way behind on complex, nuanced conversations around power, sex, consent, and boundaries, whereas the secular helping professions are way ahead on that. That is not to say that sexual misconduct does not happen in other professions—it certainly does. However, systems are in place to deal with that in a regulated profession.
Of course, the ministry is not externally regulated by the minister’s denomination. Currently, in 13 states plus the District of Columbia, it is illegal to be sexual with someone in your congregation explicitly because of that power differential and the complexity around consent. So you get the sense that there is movement in the right direction and awareness is growing, but we still have a long way to go.
Jacobsen: Another item that came up—I am not a biblical scholar, obviously, so I looked it up. I noticed this in listening to a lot of very conservative, even far-right conspiratorial pastors and preachers. Most of them come from the United States, as my reviews show. I listen to them a lot because I want to hear what other people think, which is very different from my view of the world. One of the individuals who pops up is the former pastor, Mark Driscoll, of Mars Hill Church. There was a scandal based on some preaching he did. He collapsed that church and then moved from Seattle to Arizona with Trinity Church. Now, he is focused on rallying young men because they see the church as too feminized. He is preaching against the “Jezebel spirit” in the church. This is the part I had to look up. The Jezebel spirit is referenced in 1 Kings, 2 Kings, Leviticus, and Revelation. Does this accusation come up? What does it mean?
Pooler: Yes, man. That is a great question. I would not call myself an amateur theologian, but I study people in theological environments. I study and understand, or say it this way: some underlying theology becomes apparent when I look at and research this. In its broadest sense, the Jezebel spirit claims to disempower women. It amplifies and elevates the voices of men in a patriarchal structure. So, men’s voices and capacities are elevated, while women are seen as underminers, temptresses, or interested in bringing down the church. Whenever you have a theology or a leader talking about those things, what I see at the largest level is a diminishment of women and an amplification of men.
Moreover, that is part of the system that creates this abuse. When I do talk about this, I talk about gender dualism. We have had gender dualism from the inception of the church. Men have strong minds, and women are weak and emotional—all these kinds of things that are false. It is a false dualism that often feeds into traditional gender roles, but it also creates an environment in which people have to function. They then perpetuate that environment.
When I hear much talk about the Jezebel spirit and that kind of thing, it deeply concerns me because it focuses on women as problematic. A specific gender is seen as the problem and embodies the problem in a certain way. It is easy to blame a woman when that talk and conversation are more prevalent. So that is my take on that. I cannot say for certain what the Jezebel spirit entails. We sometimes throw the word around without unpacking what the original text and authors were trying to communicate when they brought that up. This one is more in the public consciousness because I did not have to look it up.
Jacobsen: It is another form—again, I am biased. I am a humanist and tend to be more naturalistic in my orientation. So those are my biases, naturally. However, another supernaturalistic excuse, in my view, that comes up is the common phrase, “The devil made me do it” or “A demon made me do it.” Does that come up? Even though they may have lusted themselves, another being with supernatural demonic powers made them do this act and be tempted to do it. Therefore, it is not their fault, or at least not wholly their fault.
Pooler: Yes. I recall a few anecdotes from my research where the offending pastor used that as an excuse and quickly shifted to God and God’s forgiveness, love, and ability to carry them through this. So, if that makes sense, what it did, though, I think it diffuses and almost gaslights the person being victimized by offloading a lot of the responsibility onto the devil and then presenting the solution as God. It takes the human elements of this—the sense of agency and power that the offending pastor uses—and says, “Do not look at that.” It is almost like The Wizard of Oz—this other being the devil. And then God’s love and forgiveness are at play.
When you pull the curtain back, you see a coercive, manipulative pastor who is narcissistic in many cases and has been targeting someone to be sexual with. However, they take all that attention off of themselves through that very thing: “The devil made me do it.” However, that is the lesser piece of it. That becomes the vehicle to pivot to God’s love and understanding: “Maybe this is not what God has for us, but God will forgive us. Let us focus on that.” It is a way to keep being sexual with someone and not stop the inappropriate behaviour. So those are some of the things I have seen.
Jacobsen: Mark Driscoll has used the case before. His reemergence is a traditional Christian story of redemption. Does that narrative allow misbehaving clergy to pop back up within the community consciousness in some instances?
Pooler: Absolutely. This is where it gets complicated because, of course, we want there to be redemption stories, stories of a life resurrected and restored, and those kinds of things. Blaming women becomes a false redemption: “She was the one who made me do it. I have now worked on my issues and why I was tempted, and I will not let this happen again, and I am coming back to ministry.” We see that a lot. My response is that we must do a much deeper dive into what restoration, redemption, and healing look like. When is someone truly restored?
Someone once asked me if someone who ever offends in this way should even be allowed to minister again. As a researcher looking at this and the damage done, I would say no because you have shown yourself untrustworthy. When you sexually abuse someone who has trusted you, you have lost the ability to have people’s trust again, at least on that large scale, to be entrusted again. The other challenge, for example, with a Mark Driscoll story, is that you have got someone who is a self-appointed leader. He is not part of any system or structure holding him accountable.
He left one system or structure he had created, which tried to hold him accountable. He exited and found another, bringing that back to life. So, there is no real accountability, and no one is looking at everything that’s going on with him to ensure he is ready to lead a church again. Unfortunately, that is a very common narrative. People will leave one denomination, go to another after offending in the Baptist church, and then become Methodist or Presbyterian or move to another state where their actions are not a crime.
That is clever. There are so many ways to keep going as a leader in Christianity. What worries me the most is that we, the congregants, the participants in religious life, allow this to occur. Somehow, so many of us are okay with it; that is one of the things that scares me. Why are we unwilling to hold our leaders accountable, ask them hard questions, and ensure that someone can return to ministry? Alternatively, saying, “Hey, we know you have done X, Y, and Z. We will not hire you to be our pastor. We are not going to allow someone to be our pastor.”
In denominations with a more top-down hierarchy, why are bishops and other high-level administrators reappointing a pastor after being offended? That is a whole other set of questions, but it is all part and parcel of a system that short-circuits important questions about how and why this occurred. Just because someone says, “I am ready to pastor again,” or “I am right with God again,” how do we ensure that? It is very, very complicated and not easy.
Jacobsen: Last question. What about the distinction between the system and bad apples and the survivor’s forgiveness of the abuser?
Pooler: Yes.
Jacobsen: As Dorothy Small told me, these clergy are sick and have committed these crimes. So, separating them from the clergy as a class and dealing with it as forgiving but not forgetting is a very mature and subtle point she made to Hermina and me.
Pooler: People ask and go back and forth, and there is even a paper written by a couple of academics at a Jesuit university that said it is not just bad apples. In other words, we have a system in which clericalism is present, which elevates our leaders and disempowers congregants. It is in that system that we are creating situations where people, as they gain more and more power, almost become Frankenstein monsters who then harm and injure us. I do think we have some systematic structural problems, and I would say that churches have always had these issues.
Any world religion with an elevated leader can have problems with clericalism. One question is whether this model works. I would say we are getting some concrete evidence that systems in which clericalism is present create and amplify the risk of harm and abuse by someone with more power. I have started to see a term in the literature.
It is called “vulnerance.” It is about the complicated factors at play when someone has power and thus has more capacity to harm because of that power. So, I would say many of our pastors have enormous vulnerance. In other words, they have way more capacity to injure than the average person; part of it is our systems creating that.
We need to take a look at that. Lastly, forgiveness this way, putting on my clinician hat: forgiveness should never be pushed by an institution, should never be pushed by a leader, and should never be demanded. I have seen forgiveness used to bypass all this hard work: “Do not hold me accountable. Do not do that. Forgive me, and let us move on.”
We need always to remember. Whether or not an individual or a congregation can forgive is this: It is hard work. It is multilayered. What I have looked at, as far as trauma and people who have been traumatized working on forgiveness, is an onion. As you heal from your trauma, you face deeper elements and can name with clarity the injury that’s happened. You feel more pain.
Once you find that intersection, another layer of forgiveness is needed. Forgiveness is an ongoing, long process that always needs to be finished. It is not something you do and then it is done. Boom. We need to have more complex conversations about forgiveness. I have even had some survivors say, “I do not know how to forgive, and I do not think I can forgive.” Moreover, I say, “Yes, that is okay. It is okay.”
It is okay not to know how to forgive when an injury this deep has occurred or even to say, “I cannot do it. I cannot forgive.”We need to find forgiveness and empower people with the injury, with the tools to figure out what that will look like, rather than an institution or a theological statement telling people they need to do it.
Jacobsen: Thank you so much for your time today.
Pooler: All right. Good deal. Take care.
Find the original article here on the Good Men Project website.