Professor David K. Pooler, Ph.D., LCSW-S on Clergy Adult Sexual Abuse

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/07/21

Professor David K. Pooler, Ph.D., LCSW-S is a Professor in the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work at Baylor University. His X account is here.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What was your original, either less knowledgeable or potentially naïve, position about the church, and what was the big lesson or takeaway from that?

Professor David Pooler: I had already seen and understood from the literature that there were poor responses from churches when adult clergy sex abuse is reported. But what I learned in my research, I didn’t find. I asked at the end of this national survey if you had a positive experience when you reported the abuse, and if you had a positive, supportive experience from the church, would you be willing to be interviewed? I got “no.” There’s not a single person who had an overall positive experience. It was pretty devastating. I learned that institutions prioritize their reputation and image and the reputation and image of their leader, all in a sense; I hate to be cynical, but it appears to be to maintain their power and influence. This includes money; they will do whatever they can to maintain that. If that means throwing a victim under the bus, blaming her, or framing a narrative where she was the temptress, they will do that. That seems to be the playbook once these kinds of things are disclosed. It’s interesting; it’s backfiring. There’s a church just recently — you may have seen this in the Dallas area — where Robert Morris, a pastor, admitted to an inappropriate relationship, which is a massive gaslighting tactic. What he did is he was sexually abusing a girl who was 12, all the way up to when she was 16, and he was aged 20 through 24.

The framing of this was to try to mitigate the damage and get people to follow, but it hit like a firestorm, so he just resigned yesterday. So that’s one of the big takeaways, is that churches are probably one of the least equipped institutions to respond to reports of sexual abuse of any institution that I’ve come across. And you’d think it would be the other way around. Churches are supposed to be safe places, healing spaces, and restorative places. That’s how many churches, in a sense, market themselves and talk about the space that they’re creating for people. But actually, what I’m learning is that churches are the safest place for abusive and narcissistic people to end up in leadership; churches are not equipping people with the skills necessary to dissent or question leaders. And part of that is, for me, what I’m learning is there’s one “-ism” that sits right in the lap of the church, and that’s clericalism. My simple definition of clericalism is the elevation and veneration of a church leader and their priorities, needs, and agenda to the exclusion of congregants. And what that means, then, is there’s this power differential, and there’s no incentive on the leadership, pastor’s side, or priest’s side ever to do anything about that because they benefit from that arrangement. But that arrangement puts congregants and parishioners in a vulnerable place if someone in that position abuses their power, which, with that setup, makes it easier to abuse power.

In that place, in that elevated space, people are taught to trust the authority figure, not question the authority figure, and that this person is for the good. They’re called, and they’re special, and there are anoints on them. And it disarms people into thinking, “These are great, amazing people here just for my good.” So, congregants have little permission to create conflict, push back, or even hold people accountable. That’s often met with stiff resistance in most religious spaces.

Jacobsen: How do individuals who come out of these experiences, in the way they’re describing it to you, experience the aftermath?

Pooler: Yes, that’s a great question. Often, when they report, they’re not believed. Like, “Our pastor would never do that.” If they go to someone else in the church, they’re often told, “No, you’re mistaken.” In other words, it’s immediately not believed. What we know in the trauma world is that an unbelieving or indifferent response to a report of that kind of abuse immediately creates more trauma. So that is a primary way. It’s not believed, dismissed, or invalidated in various ways, including people saying, “Well, you just need to keep this quiet. This isn’t something you should take any further.” It’s because, in my opinion, as I’ve watched this over time, why the institutions respond this way and why the supporters of a leader respond this way creates too much cognitive dissonance for them. Their beloved institution, the church, and their beloved pastor, all of a sudden, include the deep, factual reality that they’re abusive and they’ve sexually assaulted someone. It causes their entire view of how the world works to implode, and they don’t want that to happen. So, the easiest way to resolve that cognitive dissonance is to go ahead and keep supporting an abusive person and blame the victim. And I’ve seen all kinds of things. The other thing is that different churches have different policies in place, and that’s the thing. Each denomination has its policy. There are non-denominational churches. So, survivors face various roadblocks, barriers, and challenges when reporting. For example, some churches have no policy whatsoever. The Episcopal Church has a decent policy, but whether that policy is followed depends on the people at play with the policy in their hands.

The other thing is that sometimes churches attempt to investigate this themselves. Early in my research, I tried to set up a best practice guide for churches to investigate and learn more. I’ve learned that churches cannot investigate themselves, none whatsoever. There’s too much vested and too many major threads at play. It’s the survivor’s priority versus prioritizing themselves, which collide massively. But third-party investigators will now come in and take a look.

One of the big ones in the United States is GRACE, which stands for Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment. They do both prevention trainings for churches, and they’ll do third-party investigations in the aftermath, tease everything out, and make a report like, “Here’s what happened, here’s who did what, here’s who’s responsible for the abuse,” etc. So, I don’t know if that gets what you want there at some point. But most survivors that I’ve talked with walk around wounded because, and I’ve even in my research going back a decade, there are places where, in the aftermath of the report, people were told to leave the church. You need to leave the church; there’s too much controversy; you’re too much of a lightning rod.

In other words, the very place that causes a massive injury. For many people, being a part of their church was their mainsource of belonging, where they made meaning, and all of their social support was there. Suddenly, people are cutting that off and saying, “Out of here.” I mean, talk about exiling and scapegoating somebody. So what I’m saying is religious institutions, the very place where people should be kept safe and restored and healed and helped, they’re doing that with the offender. They say, “We’ll restore our offender, and then they run off the victim.” That’s the status quo. And because I’m going to do a survey again here, hopefully, either later this year in 2024 or early 2025, to try to get a snapshot. Is that still the case? And I fear that it’s still the case.

Jacobsen: There’s a nuance here that I could see critiques coming, probably coming your way in your past. When you’re pointing out abusive behaviour by clergy and supporting those who have come forward with an allegation against a clergy member, an institution or an individual would look at that person and claim that you’re making a claim against this denomination as a whole or the Christian church as an entity or an idea: You’re claiming all clergy. How can we make sure that that nuance is validly taken into account by saying, “We’re talking about abuser clergy, not most clergy”? We’re talking about victims of those people. And how can we build institutions that can absorb these social blights and respond effectively?

Pooler: Well, there’s a lot there, but you’re right. So what it does, and you’re right, gets into that cognitive dissonance. The moment one person brings up an allegation of abuse. It can and probably should call into question everything. Not that every pastor or leader is abusive, but it should get us all on alert to begin to ask, “What are we doing to prevent this better? How are we vetting our leaders? How are we making sure our leaders have appropriate training?” And I would say this: clergy have the most power of any helping professional, in my opinion. Some research in the U.S. goes back almost a couple of decades, but it’s the fact that people, when seeking help, actually will find a minister before any other helping professional. That’s their first stop for a mental health concern. So that demonstrates the level of power that clergy have.

So my point here is that other professionals, like licensed marriage and family therapists, social workers, psychologists, and even physicians and doctors, all have codes of ethics that prohibit sexual misconduct. And all these professions have some training in professional development around power, boundaries, and consent. Part of the reason that sexual activity is prohibited in these professional relationships is that people cannot consent when there’s that kind of power differential. So even if they were to say yes to sexual activity, how do you tease out the fact that manipulation or coercion or pressure was not involved or just the need to please the authority figure, right? Because of the power differential. And I say all that: most seminaries don’t include training on power, consent, and boundaries, right? And of course, then, if you look more broadly, just at Christianity in the U.S. or maybe even globally, there are so many varieties of ordination processes and educational requirements. Some denominations require someone to undergo a rigorous process and earn a master of divinity degree. There are other places where you can pop an organization or get an ordination certificate online, and then the church will have you. They’ll let you pastor them.

So I’m just saying it’s the Wild West to use a metaphor within churches. We don’t call it that. We don’t think of it that way. So that’s part of when an allegation of abuse comes up; it calls into question many things. But if we start peeling back the layers, we’re like, “Oh my God, it is the Wild West. There’s no universal anything anywhere.” And churches in the United States are unregulated. They’re just unregulated. All the other professions are regulated. Of course, I don’t think churches will get regulated in a federal sense anytime soon. So what that leaves us with then is what Lucy Huh and others and Hermina (Nedelescu) are working on is trying to criminalize this, create state statutes where clergy are added to the list of other helping professionals so that when they abuse, sexually abuse, someone, it’s a crime. So, at least we have a stop there; someone would have a criminal record if they engaged in this. But going back to your question, how do we? This will sound like a radical overstatement, but how we do church just isn’t working. And part of that is clericalism, this idolatry of leaders, leaders, leaders, leaders, leaders, leaders. We’re not equipping and centring and including various perspectives. We’re not valuing a sense of diversity and a multitude of perspectives and opinions broadly.

So much of the way we do church is about conformity, creating in-groups and out-groups, and developing critical thinking and skills to cultivate healthy environments. Again, this may sound like an overstatement, but from my perspective, just looking at the religious institutions for over a decade. The conclusion I’m drawing is that it’s not a healthy space for the most part. It’s toxic. It’s not safe for women. It’s safe for abusers to operate. We offer too much trust, goodwill, and benefit from the doubt.

Another thing that makes religious spaces unsafe is that people are socialized to override their intuitions and concerns and not voice them. Churches are not a safe place to share concerns, intuitions, and pushback because it makes leading people far more complex and messy. But I would say, if there’s a solution, we got to lean into the messy, complex nuances of human relationships and talk about boundaries and power and consent, and honestly talk about sex. That’s a whole other thing where, especially in the evangelical world, there’s much talk about purity culture. That may extend beyond the evangelical world and some other places, but this whole purity culture and its overemphasis on sex. But what it does then is say all sex is bad, and no one talks about healthy sexuality. So, in those kinds of environments, if an abusive pastor is trying to be sexual with someone, someone doesn’t even have a framework. They say, “Well, I need to trust my pastor.” And if they’re saying this is okay, it must be true.

Jacobsen: How are individuals who come forward stereotyped by the community, so by their fellow laity, whether they’re claimed to have the Jezebel spirit or something obscure like this? How do they get pushback?

Pooler: I don’t want to oversimplify it, but I want some version of the temptress. You’re right. I’ve heard the Jezebel spirit. Something rebellious, they’re there to destroy. They’re either the temptress, or they’re there to destroy and harm the church. Those are the two pathways. I’ve seen people who report mapped onto one of those. That’s how the commonpeople resolve their cognitive dissonance instead of going to the fact that, “Oh my God, this did happen. Someone did abuse.” It’s much easier to say, “Yeah, they’re just trying to harm the church. They’re trying to destroy the church.” It’s a way of not seeing what happened at all, right? If someone’s a temptress, then they’re the problem. If someone’s trying to destroy the church, they’re the problem. In other words, it is the scapegoating mechanism. So, myriad other ones could probably have come up, but those are probably the two most common.

Jacobsen: So the accusation of mental illness, the pastor or the priest did nothing wrong.

Pooler: I would say it this way. I hear that it’s often not that they did nothing wrong. Maybe they did sin, but it’s a minimized version. We saw this with the Robert Morris story, which was an inappropriate relationship. “But it would help if you forgave,” and that’s another thing. They’re often labelled as spiritually defective. It’s more of a spiritual problem. “You’re not right spiritually with God.” That’s the problem. “If you want to get right with God, you must forgive this person.” It goes back to this: putting the burden on the one injured to resolve all of the conflict by simply forgiving and moving on, not making a big deal of this.

Jacobsen: How do abusers respond?

Pooler: What I’ve seen is most abusers at the moment, the moment that an abuser gets a sense that something might go public. I see this all the time. They try to get out in front and create and steer the narrative. So, abusers themselves use the same tactics. It’s like, “They’re rebellious. They want to take me down. They’re making false accusations against me. I did nothing wrong.” Or if they admit they did something wrong, they will call it consensual, which is still a major… it’s misinformation and inaccurate because of the power differential. So that’s a primary way. When a church platforms a minister after an accusation of abuse has been made, that is another form of institutional betrayal, like giving the microphone to an abuser after a report of abuse has come out.

They shape and frame the narrative for everyone in the community. That way, they will continue to get everyone’s support. So, if the abuser blames the victim, then the masses will follow the lead of that narrative. “Yeah, it was her fault. She tempted the pastor. She’s making false accusations and trying to take the pastor down.” I’ve seen it over and over and over and over that very same thing.

Jacobsen: So #MeToo or #TimesUp aren’t missing the point, but there is a truth behind the response of ‘not all men.’ However, the larger point of those movements is being missed there. Similarly, or by analogy, we can have #ChurchToo. I have not seen this. However, I could see this as a response regarding hashtags, ‘not all clergy.’ It’s valid. We’ve covered that a little bit in the earlier part of the interview. Yet, how can we make sure that these are acknowledged? So those who will bring those concerns forward aren’t just dismissed but also respond in a way that’s respectfully redirecting attention to the fact that it’s, in a way, missing the larger point of #ChurchToo and similar movements.

Pooler: Yes, I’m trying to follow your logic. And I guess I haven’t. It’s not that I disagree with you. I’m unsure how to create a balance where you’re not getting pushback. Well, it’s not all clergy, right? Because you’re right, that can potentially invalidate the concerns being brought up. Here’s where my mind’s going: people bringing up these concerns are just not making stuff up. When we look at the sexual assault false report rate, it’s low. And at the end of the day, the best we can tell, maybe five out of a hundred people make something up around sexual assault. So, when people bring this up, they’re likely to get pushback, right? It’s a hard process. So I’ll say it this way. No one’s making this stuff up. No one’s trying to injure, damage, or remove the church. Again, I think this is what’s hard.

People work incrementally, but it’s almost like there’s a need for a major reform. We’ve got to look at how we’ve built our structures metaphorically, created these institutions, and whether they are safe. I think part of it is beginning to include trauma-sensitive approaches and lenses and not pathologizing. Many churches over-spiritualize mental health issues. Like if someone’s dealing with depression, in some spaces, it’s a spirit of depression. It’s demonic. I’m saying that we’re not creating safe spaces for people when we have stuff like that. Anyway, I don’t feel I’m answering your question very well.

Jacobsen: What has been your biggest takeaway from the research? What are you hoping to research in the next few years?

Pooler: I think the biggest takeaway. I’ll say churches are not nearly as safe as we think. Pastors, for the most part, are not trained in some of the most important elements of interpersonal relationships that will make relationships safe. So, I think that’s one of the biggest takeaways. And I also would say the third one is that injuries to survivors are far more profound than we want to admit. Like this isn’t just something you go and forgive. People have PTSD. They need years of treatment. On the flip side, I think we can make churches safer, better, and healthier, but it will require the concerted effort of congregants, grassroots, ground up, demanding reform and change of their leaders and institutions. They are far more involved and engaged than they have been in the past.

Jacobsen: Thank you so much for your time.

Pooler: All right. You got it. Let me know if you need anything else. Okay, thanks.

Further Internal Resources (Chronological, yyyy/mm/dd):

Historical Articles

Crimes of the Eastern Orthodox Church 1: Adam Metropoulos (2024/01/11)

Crimes of the Eastern Orthodox Church 2: Domestic Violence (2024/01/12)

Crimes of the Eastern Orthodox Church 3: Finances (2024/01/16)

Crimes of the Eastern Orthodox Church 4: Sex Abuse (2024/01/17)

Interviews

Dr. Hermina Nedelescu on Clergy-Perpetrated Sexual Abuse (2024/06/02)

Katherine Archer on California Senate Bill 894 (2024/06/11)

Dorothy Small on Abuse of Adults in the Roman Catholic Church (2024/06/16)

Melanie Sakoda on Orthodox Clergy-Related Misconduct (2024/06/23)

Press Releases:

#ChurchToo Survivors Call on CA Governor Gavin Newsom (2024/06/09)

License & Copyright

In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ©Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use or duplication of material without express permission from Scott Douglas Jacobsen strictly prohibited, excerpts and links must use full credit to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with direction to the original content.