One in every 33 women who attend worship services regularly has been the target of sexual advances by a religious leader, a survey released Wednesday says.
The study, by Baylor University researchers, found that the problem is so pervasive that it almost certainly involves a wide range of denominations, religious traditions and leaders.
“It certainly is prevalent, and clearly the problem is more than simply a few charismatic leaders preying on vulnerable followers,” said Diana Garland, dean of Baylor’s School of Social Work, who co-authored the study.
It found that more than two-thirds of the offenders were married to someone else at the time of the advance.
Um, comparison numbers, please? Stipulating that the ratio should, in church life, be 0 in 33, but how does 1 in 33 compare to gen’l population?
Or is this another ginned up statistic to build up the rationale to force all clergy to attend annual workshops on how to properly understand sexuality, relationships, and “theology”? Since we’ve gone from mandatory sexual ethics training (sure, sure) to updated sexual ethics training (what was new? the GLBT content, you say?) to every three years (Oh, dear Lord, what fresh heck is this . . .), and now this story. Pardon me for scenting a whiff of deceased rodent in the wainscoting.
Stipulating that this is unacceptable, every notice how you never get stats on reporters?
Rather than attacking the messengers (researchers at Baylor University—hardly a haven for liberal reactionaries), why not wait and read the study itself, scheduled to appear in [i]Journal of the Scientific Study of Religion[/i]?
(In the past decade, the particular Southern Baptist congregation in which I grew up has had three senior ministers leave after having affairs—one of them the pastor.)
Ember, i’m not questioning the study itself, but what does “1 in 33” mean? That’s my question, given that there’s already so much portrayal of clergy as predatory. As i said, i’m fine with requiring sexual ethics training and maybe a bit of recertification, but as it turns into one more mandatory workshop, i’m wondering if we just need to go back and push up the bar for initial training and qualifications in the first place.
And i have no idea what your last line meant — do you mean intra-staff infidelity? To repeat, in the Body, it should be 0 of 100, let alone 33, but if we’re going to make general statements, i’d like to see the general population stats for comparison.
Ember’s comment is justified. The problem is that “the clergy” is an amorphous group — as just about anyone can hang that shingle in America.
It is further the case that such reporting in newspapers across the Nation is not divorced from a broader agenda of religion and church-bashing and for undermining any rightful sense of moral authority in the churches.
Even further, it is quite legitimate to explore relative percentages in order to ascertain the extent of the problem in the society’s professional classes versus the churches.
Finally — in a way parallel to “playing the race card” — this topic inhibits any concrete investigation and honest counter-speech and as we know perfectly well within the churches these “workshops” are not infrequently about agendas and power-plays well beyond the true topic at hand.
Of course, it should be zero percent in the Church. That does not negate the legitimacy of other observations of the kind offered.