Author: Bruce Pagano II (Page 2 of 50)

This is part two in a three-part series on spiritual grooming, harm, and abuse. You can read parts one HERE and three HERE

Divisive Heretics

In the growing wave of people deconstructing their faith, I’ve heard many pastors speak against It. They’ll typically frame it as a trend that’s a general danger to your personal “faith” and the Church at large. They warn their congregants that asking questions and pointing to problematic issues is being “too critical” of the Church. Part of their warning might involve telling congregants not to ask questions or not to point out negative issues. Sometimes it can involve promoting a culture verbalized as “focus on the good, not the bad.” Many of these critiques and questions involve how Christians have historically handled and responded to serious cultural issues. Issues such as racial injustice, the LGBTQIA+ community, and abuse can easily get you labeled as distracting, divisive, and/or heretical.

Ironically, those same pastors have no problem criticizing and critiquing those very same people who are “deconstructing.” They accuse those “deconstructing” of being indoctrinated by the “godless left” to become progressive Marxist communists. When challenging Christian leaders about these issues, it is not unusual for many leaders to dismiss the calls for acknowledgment, accountability, and repentance. Often, they also ignore and reject those echoing God’s continual call for justice (Isaiah 58, Luke 4:18, Matthew 18:6, and Romans 13:10) as heretical disruptors. All the while, church congregants continue to embolden and support these pastors and leaders with nods and hand-lifted “amens.” This is part of why Christians will co-opt words like grooming to use against people whom they don’t like.

Spiritual Grooming

My intention is not to justify deconstruction or critiquing the Church; no one needs permission to do those things. I aim to address pastoral practices, such as teaching and culture building, that promote only “seeing the good.” By dismissing genuine concerns, they are ultimately employing elements that resemble grooming and enable abuse. As a reminder, I’ll continue to refer to this as spiritual grooming. And to be clear, it’s not that I don’t want to “see the good.” Believe it or not, I’ve always been hopeful about the church; it’s why I’ve stayed connected to it and worked on staff for so long.

Unfortunately, in my practice as a professional clinical counselor, I hear so many people dismiss their traumatic abuse. They’ll say things like, “…but I’m not a victim,” “I’m not supposed to live in a victim mentality,” “In my suffering, I’ll receive a blessing,” or “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle” because they’ve been taught to dismiss it. I’ve also heard clients dismiss a clearly abusive situation by suggesting that they couldn’t trust their feelings. Or, they excuse their pastor’s behavior because they were told they misread the situation and know he couldn’t do “that” because he’s a “good man of God.”

Often, they received a teaching that told them they were not victims and that their feelings weren’t facts. They were often encouraged to embrace suffering, like Jesus, or to submit to those in spiritual authority because it was “biblical.” In some cases, the teaching reminded them that God desires their holiness more than their happiness.

Authority & Submission

         This brings us back to the concept of grooming and how spirituality introduces implicit trust between the victim and the pastor. There can be serious consequences when a spiritual leader, who is communicating unbalanced messages about authority and submission, occupies a position of authority in their congregant’s life. The consequences are compounded when the leader becomes the sole arbiter for defining and affirming hurt or abuse for victims. If we consider the definition, as previously stated [HERE or HERE], these circumstances create fertile ground for abuse within our churches. And this isn’t hyperbole. Remember, for every instance of sexual abuse reported, about two more go unreported. And that’s sexual abuse, a type of abuse that we clearly know how to define.

Imagine other types of abuse or harm that may not be as clearly recognizable. Add to that all of the misteaching around authority, submission, divisiveness, and “disrupting the work of God,” and it’s no wonder why abuse perpetuates. How many of those instances go unreported? Spiritual leaders who have made it a practice, even unintentionally, to dismiss this conversation perpetuate spiritual harm and abuse. Please hear that I’m not saying that pastors who say and teach these ideas are trying to create abusive relationships. While there are pastors and Christian leaders who do this intentionally, they’re not who I’m talking to or about.

I’m talking about pastors who, in teaching their congregation to dismiss anything negative as unnecessary criticism, subtly teaches them not to question those who have “authority” over them. In doing so, they are also teaching them to reject personal accountability and accept a lack of accountability from those in leadership. Not only does this teaching fly in the face of basic Christian teachings about rebuke (Luke 17:3), confession (James 5:16), accountability (Romans 14:12), and repentance (Acts 20:21), it provides fertile ground for abuse and creates a scenario where a victim may question or dismiss their abuse. This is spiritual grooming.

Confusion & Distraction

Spiritual abuse and harm involve complex elements that can make it difficult to define and recognize. Because of that, it is not uncommon for victims to leave the church and sometimes their entire faith system feeling as though they were the “problem.” Add to that the confusion created around the continued misunderstanding and misuse of the term grooming, and it’s easy to see how abuse continues. The accusation that Queer community and drag entertainers are grooming children not only harms those in that community but is also a distraction from the actual grooming that is occurring in our own church spaces. So, what do we do? In the last article of this series, we’ll look at some answers from different positional/role perspectives.

This is part three in a three-part series on spiritual grooming, harm, and abuse. You can read parts one HERE and three HERE.

Over that last year, there have been numerous accounts of Christian leaders and pastors being involved in morally reprehensible abuses. Stories like Jerry Falwell Jr’s sex scandal and abusive university policies and practices, Mark Discoll’s continued bullying and unrepentant behavior, John MacArthur’s hiring and continued support of multiple pedophiles, and even Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston’s accusations of failing to report abuse and subsequent misconduct are all examples of what can happen when unchecked and unrestrained power become central to a religious institution.

On the surface, these events seem like worse-case scenarios, mainly confined to high-profile leaders with massive churches and platforms. To a large degree, pastors in that setting are more prone to these scandals. However, in May 2022, Guidepost Solutions issued a detailed report stating that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) had compiled a list of 700 pastors who had been reported for varying degrees of sexual abuse over a 20-year period.

That report clarifies that this is not a “megachurch” or celebrity pastor issue. And while there seems to be an ever-growing trail of victims, my biggest question is: How is this happening? How are Christian leaders ignoring this? How have we not condemned and moved to correct this devastating issue? While many factors exist that enable this kind of abuse and make victims reluctant to report it, the spiritual element complicates the issue. While complicated, a specific rising trend within the American Evangelical Industrial Complex feeds that complexity.

“Groomers”

“Grooming” has recently become an increasingly common part of the modern American Christian lexicon. Unfortunately, its use is incorrect, unhealthy, and exaggerated, only compounding this problematic addition. The most common use of the term that I observe is as a means of expressing disgust with the Queer community, particularly with Transgender issues and toward the entertainment medium known as “drag.” Of the many issues I have with Christians hijacking this word, my primary frustrations have to do with their clear misunderstanding of the term, how its misuse diminishes the seriousness of it, and how it has been unjustly and irrationally applied to an entire group of people.

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) identifies grooming as “a tool, used by abusers, of manipulative behaviors used to gain access to a potential victim, coerce them to agree to the abuse and reduce the risk of being caught. While these tactics are used most often against younger kids, teens, and vulnerable adults are also at risk.” This typically takes the form of “building a relationship, trust, and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them.”

Based on this definition, grooming is not occurring in the Transgender community. Neither does it happen during drag show performances or events like library drag story time. I’m not saying that there aren’t individual abusers who are Transgender or drag performers. But, identifying a whole community or all performers as “groomers” reveals a profound misunderstanding of this tool of abuse, the Transgender community, and drag as entertainment. It also reveals your implicit rejection of an entire people group as divine image bearers and a willful refusal to understand the issue in a nuanced way.

Real Grooming

Alternatively, we do see, in the previously mentioned examples, literal and rampant grooming and sexual abuse within the Church. We see Christian leaders and pastors, typically straight white men, building trusting relationships and then perpetrating horrible abuse. While 700 pastors over 20 years may not seem like a lot, this is one report about one denomination and doesn’t consider the over 400,000 clergies in America. It also does not account for the statistically significant 63% of abuse cases that go unreported.

That means, considering those 700 cases, more than 1,200 other cases potentially went unreported to the SBC. Those numbers don’t even account for other denominations that have reported and unreported cases (think of the Catholic church, Presbyterian Church, Mennonite Church, LDS, or the 30,000 other denominations that exist). This also ignores that other pastors may have been aware of the abuse and did nothing. That knowledge and failure to act automatically make them complicit in the abuse. It also doesn’t account for additional victims who may never come forward. And this only considers sexual abuse and rape.

Calling All Pastors

To be clear, I’m not only, or even primarily, addressing sexual abuse in the church. I want to speak more broadly to other, sometimes less obvious, spiritual abuse and harm that causes religious trauma. This includes the seemingly harmless, and often presented as good, teachings about authority and submission. Often, these teachings bear many of the same elements and results as grooming. For this series of posts, I’ll refer to these teachings and the culture they produce as spiritual grooming. To clarify what I mean when I reference spiritual grooming, this is my working definition: Spiritual Grooming is a manipulative process used by spiritual leaders or those in positions of spiritual authority to exploit their influence over an individual. This process involves building trust, emotional connection, and dependence on spiritual guidance in a way that makes the individual vulnerable to abuse, control, or harm. Spiritual grooming can occur knowingly or unknowingly and often blurs the lines between spiritual care and exploitation. It creates a power dynamic where the individual may feel obligated to submit to harmful behaviors under the guise of spiritual obedience or faithfulness, making it difficult for them to recognize or resist abuse. Additionally, we’ll define spiritual abuse and harm as “when someone uses spiritual or religious beliefs to hurt, scare or control another person.”  

Because abuse within the Church is serious and widespread, we need to understand the problem in a nuanced way. We also need to find ways to take urgent action. The Guidepost Solutions report makes clear that Christian leaders can no longer dismiss the prevalence of abuse within the Church. Pastors must understand how the implicit trust connected to their position creates fertile ground for abuse and harm. In realizing this, they must reconsider how and what they teach regarding authority and submission. In the following blog posts, we’ll explore the issue deeper and consider some ways forward.

This is part three in a three-part series on spiritual grooming, harm, and abuse. You can read parts two HERE and three HERE.