In recent months, the news media have reported a number of cases of clergy indiscretion, stories that have raised the question: Just how common is such indiscretion?
Before addressing this topic of temptation in ministry, LEADERSHIP commissioned a poll to determine the scope of the problem. The research department of Christianity Today, Inc., mailed nearly one thousand surveys to pastors, and 30 percent responded.
According to the results of this survey, sexual temptation among pastors is a problem-70 percent of the respondents expressed the belief that pastors are particularly vulnerable.
In the words of one respondent: “This is, by far, the greatest problem I deal with.”
The Struggle
The survey probed the frequency of behavior that pastors themselves feel is inappropriate.
Since you’ve been in local church ministry, have you ever done anything with someone (not your spouse) that you feel was sexually inappropriate? The responses: 23 percent yes; 77 percent no. The “inappropriate” behavior was left undefined-possibly ranging from unguarded words to flirtation to adultery. Subsequent questions were more specific.
Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone other than your spouse since you’ve been in local church ministry? Yes: 12 percent. No: 88 percent. And of that 88 percent, many indicated their purity had not come easily.
“I don’t believe any of us, especially emotionally charged preachers, are chaste by design nearly as much as by the grace of God,” wrote one respondent. “Numbers of times, only God has prevented me from acting out my designs in this area.”
Have you ever had other forms of sexual contact with someone other than your spouse, i.e. passionate kissing, fondling/mutual masturbation, since you’ve been in local church ministry? Yes: 18 percent. No: 82 percent.
To lend some perspective to these figures, CTi researchers also surveyed almost one thousand subscribers of Christianity Today magazine who are not pastors. Incidences of immorality were nearly double: 45 percent indicated having done something they considered sexually inappropriate, 23 percent said they had had extramarital intercourse, and 28 percent said they had engaged in other forms of extramarital sexual contact.
Those pastors who acknowledged having had intercourse or other forms of sexual contact were asked about who the other person was. The responses:
A counselee (17 percent);
A ministerial staff member (5 percent);
Other church staff member (8 percent);
A church member in a teaching/leadership role (9 percent);
Someone else in the congregation (30 percent);
Someone outside the congregation (31 percent).
These pastors were also asked about the major factors that led them to this relationship. The most frequent answer: “Physical and emotional attraction” (78 percent). “Marital dissatisfaction” was a distant second (41 percent).
Among professional counselors and those who work with pastors, these figures were cause for both concern and relief.
Gary Collins, a professor of counseling at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, was concerned that those entering the ministry “know the biblical, theological world, but they don’t know the real world in which we live. We’re living in a Corinthian age, but we’re preparing students for the Victorian age.”
His words mirror a statement by a pastor answering the survey who acknowledged having had extramarital sexual contact and who wrote, “When I was a younger pastor, I did not take the temptation seriously. Only after I fell into it once did I become aware.”
On the other hand, David Mace, a counselor who, with his wife, Vera, has written several books on marriage, including What’s Happening to Clergy Marriages, said that if the survey findings held any surprise for him, it was “that the proportions are so small, that for every pastor who has slipped on this icy surface, there are so many who have kept their balance.”
When asked about the personal consequences of their sexual contact, 6 percent said it had resulted in divorce, 16 percent said it led to other marriage difficulties, and another 6 percent said it caused loss of job. However, 31 percent claimed it had had no consequences. Only 4 percent said their churches found out about what they had done.
But Gary Collins wondered about some of the internal and intangible consequences of inappropriate sexual behavior: “What are these people doing with the guilt and the fear that they’ll be found out?” Such fear, he said, tends to push pastors toward one of two extremes. “It either makes them tentative, holding back even from healthy involvement with other people, or it leads them to preach strongly against sexual sin so the congregation won’t suspect what they’ve done.”
The Unresolved Questions
The survey also revealed some unresolved issues for ministers, especially in the areas of fantasizing and masturbation.
When asked how often they find themselves fantasizing about sex with someone other than their spouses, 6 percent said daily, 20 percent said weekly, another 35 percent said monthly or a few times a year, while 34 percent said almost never.
If you fantasize about someone other than your spouse, do you find that these fantasies are: Harmless (39 percent) or Harmful (41 percent). Of the 20 percent who did not give an either/or answer, a common response was that harm depends on the circumstances. Fully 85 percent, however, said they consciously try to avoid situations that may lead to sexual temptation or fantasizing.
These figures evoked the greatest surprise from those asked to analyze the survey results.
“I wouldn’t have expected so many to say that sexual fantasies about someone other than one’s spouse are harmless,” said Gary Collins. “Whereas an accountability relationship with a friend can help keep behavior under control, we need to be even more careful what we let our minds dwell on, because there can be no outside accountability there. Only the person knows what he’s thinking.”
He added, “I have to be careful I’m not dwelling on things that till the soil of my mind and make me open when a temptation is planted.”
Larry Crabb, a psychologist and professor at Grace Theological Seminary, said, “I don’t think those who consider sexual fantasies harmless really understand the deeper, compulsive nature of sexual sin.”
The question of masturbation was also one that seemed to divide respondents. Whereas 30 percent considered it to be wrong, 35 percent said it’s not wrong. And the remaining 35 percent said “it depends,” for example, on such things as whether the masturbation involves fantasizing about someone other than one’s spouse, whether it is done at the expense of a full and healthy sexual relationship with one’s spouse, whether one’s spouse is able or willing to be an active sexual partner, and whether or not it leads to an addiction.
Where to Turn
When asked whether they have close friends or family members with whom they are able to discuss sexual temptations, 57 percent said yes, 43 percent no.
“We have no one to turn to,” wrote one pastor. “We are afraid to go to a counselor for fear that word of our problems will somehow leak out.”
Wrote another: “I wouldn’t dare tell a fellow minister my problems in this area. My denomination would forgive murder, but not impurity of thought!”
Pastors were divided on whether to disclose temptations to their spouses. If married, do you talk to your spouse about the sexual temptations you feel? Fifty-one percent said yes; 49 percent said rarely or never.
Larry Crabb was concerned that pastors aren’t allowed to admit their vulnerability: “It’s rare for a pastor to feel comfortable as anything other than a model Christian. Most churches require their pastors to live in denial.”
One pastor, when asked what resources pastors have for resisting temptation, wrote simply, “Few to none.” The survey responses indicated that pastors feel a fuller, more open discussion of the subject is needed.
Describing the attitude in their homes as they were raised, 76 percent said “sex was never talked about.” Yet as one pastor said, “We need to be talking about sex. The school does and people on the street do and TV does, but Christians don’t. Address the issue! Just don’t tell me to act like I don’t feel these things.”
In response to the request for help on the troublesome topic of sexual temptation, the articles in this issue of LEADERSHIP are an attempt to address some of the tough questions.
The topics, at times, are painful. As one pastor wrote, “This survey covers the greatest agonies of my life.” If nothing else, this survey affirms once again the reality of temptation and the need to renew commitments to personal purity.
– The Editors
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