I recently counseled a pastor of many years’ experience. Six months before he came to see me, the husband of a 38-year-old woman from his congregation had died suddenly of a heart attack. The young widow needed grief counseling, so the pastor agreed to see her weekly. The widow (let’s call her Carol) found great comfort in the counseling.
One day she brought Don, the pastor, a small gift-an expensive, gold-trimmed pen that had belonged to her husband. “I just want to show my appreciation for all the help you’ve given me,” she told Don. She felt it would have been her husband’s wish. Pastor Don was a little surprised, but not wanting to offend Carol (and it was a beautiful pen!), he accepted the gift graciously.
Two weeks later she brought her husband’s stereo Walkman and wondered whether Don might not enjoy listening to music when he went jogging. Don protested mildly but again accepted the gift, admitting to himself that the Walkman had been on his list of desirable, but too expensive, amenities.
A week later Carol insisted that Don have her husband’s new golf clubs. “It’s what he would have wanted me to do,” she countered when he at first demurred.
Then she asked whether they could meet twice a week, because she was “getting so much out of the time together.” Without realizing what he was doing, Don acquiesced. Week after week, a few more gifts accompanied Carol, who was becoming increasingly dependent on the time spent with Don.
Early one morning, Don woke with a sudden realization: This relationship with Carol is getting unhealthy, and I’ve been encouraging it! Carol had begun to transfer all her affection and needs from her deceased husband to him. He panicked. How will I ever get out of this mess?
At first he thought he would simply gather together all the gifts and return them to Carol, insisting she see someone else for counseling. But how would she take it? She was fragile. Perhaps she’d even threaten suicide. Don recalled how a colleague once rejected a parishioner who had become attached to him, and she had responded with false accusations that they had been having an affair. Would Carol do this to me? he wondered. In desperation, he sought help from me.
Moral but Not Ethical
An experience like Don’s can creep up on us and catch us unaware. It illustrates that we can be moral while being unethical. I’m sure Paul alluded to this when he said, ” ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up” (1 Cor. 10:23, RSV). Most Christian leaders are highly moral. But they’re not always ethically sensitive.
It’s a strange paradox in Christian ministry: we can be supersensitive to sin and immoral behaviors, but we are often oblivious to the need for ethical boundaries. This partially accounts for the fall of upright, spiritual, and well-intentioned pastors. Christian leaders can be so preoccupied with discerning whether something is sinful that they ignore the trickier question: Is this action a stepping stone to sin, even though it may not be sinful in and of itself?
This is why morality itself isn’t always enough. These days, the integrity of the church is being questioned-and judged-at all levels. Could it be the underlying problem is not so much our lack of morality as it is our insensitivity to, and lack of, broad ethical guidelines to govern the practice of ministry?
Most professions have a code of ethics, a clearly spelled out code that warns how certain behaviors, innocent in and of themselves, may lead to problems and abuses. These codes have been developed over many years, more out of bad experiences than out of any belief about morality or sensitivity to sin. In fact, with many of these codes you would be hard pressed to come up with an absolute moral principle to explain why a behavior is proscribed. Only through analysis of many experiences have people learned that certain behaviors can well lead to a possible sinful or immoral outcome.
For instance, when Don first accepted that pen from Carol, he asked himself, Should I take this gift? He decided to take the gift (and the many that followed) using a simple morality test: Is it a sin to take this gift?
Surely not, he told himself. Don knew the difference between sin and nonsin. There’s nothing wrong with a pen. She’s giving it freely, believing it’s what her husband would want her to do. She probably needs to give the gift as a way of feeling her husband’s belongings are doing some good.
The rationalizations were so effective that Don felt no guilt about the gifts. In fact, he began to look forward to each session, wondering what surprise was in store. He never asked the questions: Is it ethical for me to take this gift? Might my acceptance put me under obligation to Carol? Could she be transferring her needs and affections to me, and would my acceptance of these gifts encourage her dependence?
The Value of a Code of Ethics
How does a code of ethics affect our morality? When most of us think about morality, we think mainly in terms of distinguishing between sin and nonsin. We look for a fairly clean-cut division between the two, a narrow and well-defined line. Some of these boundaries we accept on the authority of Scripture, while others we derive from experience. For example, I don’t need Scripture to tell me that disobeying a traffic signal can be harmful. I know this from experience.
The danger is that the more closely we define moral boundaries, identifying what sin is and is not, the greater the tendency to disengage ethical reasoning. Why agonize over what we already know? The problem, however, is that people don’t stop to discern how a behavior might have a longer-term detrimental outcome. That’s when the wisdom of experience embodied in ethical principles comes in handy.
The most vulnerable leaders, in fact, are those who consider themselves safe because they “know what sin is.” Perhaps belief in our ability to discern sinfulness gives us a false sense of security. It may well make us insensitive to the need for ethical principles.
In seminars and lectures on this topic, I often find myself having to defend this need against allegations of “Pharisaic lawmaking.” I commonly hear, “But I have the Spirit to convict me when I sin, so I don’t need written rules to guide my behavior.”
There, I say to myself, is a person vulnerable to an integrity problem.
To put it all simply: Much we do in ministry is not immoral, but certain behaviors are unethical simply because in the majority of cases they lead to harmful or sinful outcomes.
I think of morality as the edge of a precipice. On the one side is safe ground (nonsin); on the other, disastrous sin. It’s only one step from safety to falling off the cliff. A code of ethics is like a fence erected well back from the precipice edge. It warns all those who come close that this is dangerous territory: CAUTION! PASS HERE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Given the propensity of the human mind to engage in denial and rationalization, it’s no wonder that many fall off the cliff. Sin blinds us as we approach it, so we are wise to first consider ethical dangers. Perhaps this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote: “All these things happened to them as examples-as object lessons to us-to warn us against doing the same things; they were written down so that we could read about them and learn from them in these last days as the world nears its end” (1 Cor. 10:11, LB).
As I reflect on the many Christian leaders I have known who have fallen, I am struck by the fact that in almost every instance, failure could have been prevented had the person been sensitive to basic ethical principles. Of course there are exceptions-outright stealing or blatant seduction-but these instances are rare. The majority of Christian leaders who fall do so without intentionally choosing this course of action at the outset. They don’t so much disobey their ethics as ignore them.
What are some of the ethical principles we ignore only at our peril?
Foundational Principles
Let’s look again at Don. What rules did he violate? First, he was probably unaware that in all other counseling professions, receiving gifts, other than payment for services rendered, is taboo. Accepting gifts opens the counselor to feelings of obligation. Counselors can be exploited-even manipulated-by those who give a present one day and demand a favor the next. In like manner, counselors may subtly manipulate others into giving things to them. Since pastors are typically not paid by clients for counseling (other than through a salary), the receiving of gifts puts integrity at risk.
Second, Don seemed unaware of how accepting the gifts, especially since they had belonged to the deceased husband, was encouraging Carol to transfer to him her unmet needs. As she became more and more emotionally attached to him, a “dual relationship” was developing. Dual relationships, in which a counselor becomes involved in more than a professional way with a client (typically in close friendship, a business arrangement, or romantic involvement), are severely frowned upon by other helping professions. It’s considered bad practice.
Third, the matter of gifts in general presents a problem. Receiving gifts from parishioners, even substantial ones like cars or stocks, is a common occurrence, especially in wealthier churches. Often it is done without others’ knowing about it.
One pastor recently told me of his concern about accepting a paid vacation to Europe for him and his wife. It came from a parishioner who “just wanted to show his love and appreciation for all I’d done.” The benefactor further justified the gift by claiming, “God told me to share my prosperity with you.”
Six months after returning from this trip, the pastor got wind of some shady dealings by the parishioner. People were demanding the man’s removal from the board of deacons.
What was the pastor to do? How could he turn and attack the man who had been so generous?
By receiving the substantial gift, this pastor had almost forfeited his right (or perhaps his duty) to be true to his calling and to act without partiality. Not that pastors should never be given gifts. I do, however, plead for an ethical sensitivity to the potential consequences.
Fourth, there’s the matter of secrets. Often, gifts or other benefits are given in secret. Don and the pastor who received the vacation didn’t exactly announce their good fortune. Givers urge confidentiality to avoid offending others, so churches are full of secrets-information kept away from others for fear of causing offense.
But secrets are seldom healthy. They destroy community, breed suspicion, and undermine trust. They function to divide loyalties and inhibit love.
Most ethical dilemmas can be avoided if we’re willing to be open and accountable. Extramarital affairs don’t happen when a husband is open with his wife, and pastors don’t compromise themselves when they declare all to a responsible body to whom they hold themselves accountable. As a general rule, I assert that if any behavior requires that a “secret” be maintained, it’s probably ethically questionable.
Principles of Pastoral Ethics
I readily acknowledge that some of the unique roles of the pastor don’t easily lend themselves to ethical codes. Therefore, I’ll try to emphasize basic principles rather than specific behaviors. Full codes of ethics of the American Psychological Association, the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, and the Christian Association for Psychological Studies are found in the appendix of Clergy Malpractice by H. Newton Malony, Thomas L. Needham, and Samuel Southard (Westminster, 1986). Let me focus here, however, on four important ethical principles that shed light on how to act in questionable situations.
-The Principle of Accountability. We can trace the crisis of integrity today not so much to blatant dishonesty as to a tendency toward autonomy and independence. There is a natural tendency in all of us to want to avoid being subjected to control by others. If I were a pastor, I’d want to be accountable to a governing or peer group. Accountability to another, even when you are the top leader of an organization or church, is the only way to safeguard against poor judgment, unconscious motivations, and self-deception. And that accountability must be regular, personal, face-to-face, honest, and transparent.
How this is set up will vary. Concerning gifts and favors, for example, it means reporting them to a responsible committee that in turn is obligated to report to the body at large. Being accountable means benefiting from the perspective of a larger group. By agreeing on a general policy, the group can provide guidance on whether the gift or favor is inappropriate. Accountability prevents abuse of privileges and provides a balancing mechanism.
In the realm of sexuality, I advocate an open accountability with one’s spouse or peer group. This is particularly important when counseling the opposite sex, where there is a great risk of transference and countertransference. Professional counselors hold themselves accountable to another when they sense a risk. By discussing their feelings or their impressions of a client, they force themselves to confront deeper thoughts or intentions. It’s amazing how quickly you defuse an attraction or lustful desire for someone else when you force yourself to talk about it to someone to whom you feel accountable.
-The Principle of Confidentiality. Pastors have a primary obligation to respect the confidentiality of information obtained in the course of their work. They reveal information to others only with the consent of the person or when there is a clear danger to the person or others.
I have sometimes cringed when in a sermon a pastor has revealed the contents of a counseling session as an illustration. Permission must be obtained from the parties involved before personal stories are fair game for public discourse. The contents of counseling sessions ought not to be discussed with even a spouse or other staff members without a compelling reason.
Part of maintaining confidentiality is safeguarding records. I suggest that notes and files from counseling be kept in a locked file accessible to only the primary counselor. Such records should eventually be destroyed, not just thrown in the trash. Loose lips and careless practices prove not only destructive to the body, but they also put us at risk of legal action.
-The Principle of Responsibility. All of us need to maintain the highest standards of personal and professional conduct and accept the consequences of our acts. This means refusing to perform any actions outside our training and experience, and readily seeking the cooperation of other professionals when confronted with a problem we cannot resolve. It also means giving the welfare of a parishioner or counselee our highest concern and avoiding a conflict of interest. To avoid those conflicts, sometimes it’s necessary to inform others of the nature and direction of our loyalties.
Recent court actions (for example, the Nally case in California, in which the parents of a young man who committed suicide sued the pastor) show that the standard of care provided by pastors is open to challenge. Pastors bring spiritual aid, but increasingly, they need to understand the genetic factors in some mental illnesses or how medication can provide relief to depressive or schizophrenic symptoms. The competent (and ethical) minister will ensure that parishioners have access to all legitimate forms of treatment.
-The Principle of Integrity. Those persons set apart by the church for specific service (and I don’t mean just ordained clergy) are expected to be without fault (1 Tim. 3:1-13). This probably leads to an unrealistic set of expectations. It is just as well that the work of ministry is covered by much forgiveness!
Churches may tolerate a lot of failure and weakness in pastors, but there has to be a fundamental personal integrity (wholeness, honesty, uprightness) for effective church leadership. To have integrity means to have the honesty to confront the reasons for failure and to take responsibility for that failure. When people question a pastor’s integrity, as opposed to his or her sinlessness, there’s trouble.
The principle of integrity covers many areas. Foremost, perhaps, is the realization that a spiritual leader has tremendous power with people. This power derives from the role and not so much from the person, although a charismatic personality enhances power.
The problem comes with the abuse of that power. Power can be used to influence people into giving you things or into obeying your every command. Cult leader Jim Jones taught us this lesson. This power can be used to seduce an unwitting parishioner who believes you can do no wrong and therefore the affair must be without sin.
Honesty figures into integrity, too. Take, for example, the widespread habit of passing off as one’s own other people’s ideas in sermons. Obviously, we cannot always remember the source of information to give adequate credit, and little of what we create is truly original. But blatant repeating of what others have said-and presenting it as our own-is just plain, old-fashioned plagiarism.
Then there is the area of competitiveness. To be successful as a pastor, it seems, one has to be competitive, and this raises many ethical questions.
A pastor recently told me about his frustration with a nearby minister who had begun a visitation program of his church members, having obtained a list from a disgruntled former member. Before invading the ministerial territory of a colleague, he at least could have shown the courtesy of informing the colleague of his intentions and the reasons for doing so. Ethical sensitivities are not designed to restrict ministry but to avoid hurt and self-destruction. Telling our intentions ahead of time is always a sound rule.
A Personal Responsibility
A healthy concern for morality is not enough to maintain a ministry of integrity. Each pastor has the responsibility to develop a personal code of ethics tailored to his or her unique set of role circumstances.
Simply wrestling with such a personal code begins to sensitize one to the issues. Over time, there begins to develop an “ethical sense”-a natural ability to tell if an action is likely to become a problem.
All told, we need great wisdom and a clear code of ethics so as not to become obstacles to the gospel but rather to uphold a ministry of honesty, integrity, and reconciliation.
Archibald D. Hart is dean of the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.
Copyright © 1988 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
