7 Unhelpful (But Common) Responses to Allegations of Sexual Misconduct in the Church

7. “Don’t gossip. Just pray for healing.”

Cloaked in sanctified sounding language, this one is a doozy. It sounds so spiritual and so righteous, and when honestly admonished, it’s generally sound advice. The Bible is clear in its directive to strive for unity and refrain from spreading false reports. That’s all true. We ought to be careful and check our motives.

That said, too often in the context of sexual abuse, the warning to not gossip is actually just a passive aggressive way of saying, “Sweep it back under the carpet so that I don’t have to deal with it. It’s making me uncomfortable. Can’t we just pretend like it never happened?”

Paul is very clear that public sin should be publicly rebuked. The New Testament is chock-full of public debates about the conduct of errant church members. When a leader stumbles, it has devastating implications for many. They need to be rightly named, owned, and publicly grieved. We need to be as transparent in the modeling of our repentance as we are about the modeling of holiness. Turning a blind eye to sin that needs to be addressed is a form of evil. Careful not to be complicit in it.

As Dan Allender says, “The work of restoration cannot truly begin until a problem has been fully faced.” Fully faced means fully named, not whitewashed for the sake of false unity.

If you have an infection in your body, one thing the doctor will often tell you when handing you the prescription for antibiotics is to be sure to take the entire regimen and not to quit taking the medication prematurely just because you feel better. He tells you this, of course, because he knows that infections which are not fully killed will inevitably return. It’s the same with sexual sin. I think that’s why the language Jesus uses to admonish men in this capacity is so intense and almost hyberbolic. “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out.” Yes, do pray for healing, but do so with the knowledge that true healing might be really uncomfortable and ugly in its initial stages. It’s not always going to feel warm and fluffy. In fact, you should expect it to feel anything but that.

6. “The Bible says to forgive and forget.”

By now you’re probably noticing the theme- lots of strategies to compel people to let the offender off lightly, usually at the expense of the victim who, in this light, is now cast as the vindictive, mean spirited life-ruiner. If she were only more gracious and a better Christian, she would… fill in the blank.

The Bible does say to forgive. It also says to expel the immoral brother and to do your best to turn a sinner from the error of his ways. It says to pursue justice and speak out on behalf of the oppressed. You get the gist. If you’re recommending forgiveness because what you secretly want is pain relief, then you’re behaving unkindly to all parties involved. It’s not at all loving to allow sin to fester.

5. “ There’s nothing to be gained from modern day counseling.”

This one is particularly damaging, and to be blunt, it’s born of both incredible ignorance and profound spiritual puffery. In short, it’s textbook know-it-all-ism, and it’s dangerous. We tell people with cancer to pray and to seek spiritual counsel, but we also tell them to go to the oncologist and submit to the experts’ prescribed course of treatment. We acknowledge that the experts know something we don’t.

It should be the same where mental health is concerned, but too often, it’s not. As a result, the wounded are left to feel guilty for bleeding, as though there were some remnant of spiritual sin that, when addressed, would miraculously cure everything. There’s a pervasive disdain for mental health counseling and, as a result, a widespread ignorance of information that really matters. It needs to be aggressively challenged whenever possible.

4. “But look at his track record of holiness compared to her track record of brokenness.”

There are many variations of this deception, and it’s really, really damaging. The victim, already steeped in shame and betrayal, is now invited to see the people who call themselves Christians shoving her face in that shame and calling her a liar- often publicly.

Something you should know about predators: They target people with broken track records. They target people who are already broken. And they can sell salt to a slug. As I’ve said before and will likely say again, sexual sin is a primary tool Satan uses to take down powerful faith leaders. It was true for Samson, for Solomon, and for David. The assumption that today’s faith leaders are somehow exempt is folly. They are not.

3. “Don’t air out the family’s dirty laundry.”

In other words, don’t let unbelievers see our sin. Handle it internally so you don’t give them anything to use against us.

Here’s how I see it: If we think unbelievers don’t already see our sin, we are absolutely delusional. And if we don’t realize that many people have left the faith BECAUSE Christian people wouldn’t be honest about it, we’re blind as well. We have no problem airing out everyone else’s dirty laundry. From Weinstein to Spacey, we just love to loudly herald how wicked Hollywood is in comparison. But when it’s us? We develop a newfound and very convenient moral compass that justifies our decision to keep it in the family. This course of action leads to absolute disasters like the devastating scandal that still plagues the Roman Catholic Church.

If the laundry is dirty, the solution is to wash it, not shove it back in the drawers.

2. “This is a political attack. She’s out for personal gain. Why didn’t we hear about this until now?”

A lot of times, we won’t hear about a certain allegation until the mainstream media suddenly decides it’s politically convenient to reveal it. That’s an unfortunate truth. But just because we haven’t heard a woman’s story before, it doesn’t mean she hasn’t been telling it. Shame on everybody for only choosing to care enough to amplify it when there are political implications attached.

I’m still waiting for someone to direct me to this lengthy list of women who’ve catapulted themselves to fame and fortune by falsely accusing men of sexual crimes. I’ll give you a hint; it doesn’t exist. You know what happens to women who speak out against faith leaders? They get shunned. They lose their social standing. Their names and personal lives are dissected and viciously scrutinized in the court of public opinion. Every poor choice they ever made is used to justify discounting them. It almost always costs women to speak up. That’s why so often, they don’t. And they suffer in silence and often develop resentment that puts them at odds with their faith. They deserve better than this. They deserve your honesty. If you’re more aggressive about trying to discredit them than you are at trying to seek out the truth, that should tell you something. Stop.

I recently had an online debate with a major faith leader about Doug Wilson’s reprehensible conduct in his role as a pastor in Idaho. This leader told me, “You know, at first I had some grave concerns about his conduct, but I spoke with him, and he satisfied my questions.”

I paused for a minute before responding, “You spoke with Mr. Wilson, but did you speak with either of the victims who were harmed by his callous response? Have you read any of their statements about this?”

He hadn’t. I shouldn’t have to explain why this is problematic. It’s really common, though. Why?

1.“What ever happened to “innocent until proven guilty? He’s been falsely accused!”

Can this one die already? Honestly, come, let us reason together.

“Innocent until proven guilty” is a good and necessary standard in a court of law. Church is not a court of law. When assessing sexual misconduct involving church leaders, we are not deciding whether or not to put these leaders in prison; we are deciding whether or not to put them in the pulpit, where the standard of conduct is much, much higher. The Biblical standard for pastors is to be men whose conduct is generally “above reproach.”

I’m not at all suggesting that people should immediately believe all reports of sexual misconduct no matter what. I AM saying, however, that by declaring outright that the reports are false, you are simultaneously declaring that the women who made those reports are lying. I AM saying that further knowledge should be aggressively pursued and every rock turned over until you arrive at some sort of concrete conclusion with confidence based on actual evidence. If you’re sitting around waiting for the evidence to come to you, you’re going to be sitting for a long time, which is convenient- it will never come to you, and you’ll never be forced to form a moral judgment on the situation. Again, though, heed the warning from the Catholic church. It’s not someone else’s job to decide what is true about an allegation. It is everyone’s job to do everything within their power to ensure that their faith leaders are held accountable and that justice is both pursued and attained in these situations. I would strongly recommend that every church leadership team pursue specialized training in the subject of sexual abuse: Its symptoms and patterns, how to recognize it, and how best to respond. We are well beyond the point where we can afford to claim ignorance in these matters. It’s no longer a viable excuse.

“ If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” James 1:5