Compassion versus confrontation

Go, and sin no more" (John 8:11), said Jesus to the woman accused of sin. He also admonished His followers to forgive "seventy times seven" (Matt. 18:22).

Can one say these to a sex offender in a church congregation? How can one be compassionate, forgiving, and kind to someone who sexually molests a child? If the molester is a first-time offender, should that make any difference? Some church members may want to forgive the offender; others, including the victim, may not, and the issue could well divide the church.

How do pastors handle such a situation? How do they deal with the perpetrator of abuse and still exhibit a loving, compassionate, and helpful attitude toward that person? Here are some helpful steps.

Step l

Report the case to proper authorities. The law in most states requires that a professional who becomes aware of a sexual abuse incident report it to proper authorities. Even if the molestation occurs in a social situation, the professional is required to report it. In case of incest or a familial molestation, one should report it to the child protection agency. If the abuse occurs outside the home, reporting it to police as a criminal act will generally bring faster action.

Unfortunately, pastors sometimes feel they can handle an abuse situation without reporting, especially if the molester shows signs of remorse and asks forgiveness and the victim and/or family ask that it not be reported. The temptation not to report may be compelling, but when pastors succumb to this, they and their denomination may become liable for litigation. This is mistake number one. Mistake number two is believing that perpetrators will abide by their promise. Pastors cannot afford to succumb to either of these temptations. They should be aware of their state requirements and act legally, even as they work with spiritual compassion with those involved in the tragedy.

Step 2

Believe the child. Could a member of our congregation be a child molester? We want to believe that molesters are dirty, unkempt, surly, and uneducated, lurking in the shadows of the ghetto not decent people who live on our street. Facts tell us otherwise. Only 5 percent of molestation is committed by complete strangers. Seventy-five to ninety percent of sexual molestation occurs in religious homes.¹

Research indicates another disturbing factor: the more religious, conservative, and fundamental a denomination, the more likely that molestation will occur in that denomination.² Frightening, isn't it?

Believing the child places the pas tor in the unenviable position of accepting the perpetrator's alleged guilt. While it is not the pastor's task to judge the innocence or guilt of the accused, assuming innocence of the child makes it easier for the pastor than telling the child that he or she is lying or at least fantasizing. Do we want to give the child the message that we believe the child is lying? Children rarely lie about being sexually abused.³ If a child lies, it is usually to state that sexual abuse did not happen. In fact, it is commonplace for the child to retract and deny the allegation once the magnitude of disclosure descends upon her or him.

Whether the child has been abused over a long period or for the first time, the offender makes the child feel like a partner in the act. When this hap pens, the child feels responsible for the molestation and that she or he is bad.⁴ A molested child already feels guilty, scared, lonely, and strange. Not believing the child adds to the trauma.

Often perpetrators of sex abuse try to convince the child that it is her or his fault. Therefore, the perpetrator goes to great lengths to impress upon the child that the act must ever remain a secret between them. The perpetrator wants to ensure this secrecy so as not to lose every thing: family, job, security, status, and access to children. Actually, very few children self-disclose. Others may witness the molestation and report, or the child may accidentally disclose. Either way it is traumatic for the child, and when the child is not taken seriously, she or he feels betrayed by an other adult in addition to the offender.

Traditionally we have thought that children experience trauma because of four things: age of child, length of abuse, violence, and penetration. How ever, recent research has shown that violence does not increase the trauma; rather it may help the victims to recognize themselves as victims and the offender as the criminal. Research also shows that when a child is not believed and supported, she or he suffers more trauma than otherwise.

Remember, the child almost always knows and loves the offender.⁵ It is difficult for us as adults to understand that a child continues to love someone who has committed such a disgusting act. But we must not only believe the child, but avoid implying verbally or nonverbally that the topic makes us uncomfortable. Children will regard any display of emotion on our part as criticism of their behavior in the abuse.

Step 3

Speak to the offender directly. However, caution is in order. Counselors, social workers, or psychologists, unless specializing in sexual abuse is sues, have very little knowledge about the dynamics that whirl about the of fender and the victim. Today counseling is a specialized field much like medicine. If a person has a broken leg, he or she would not choose a dermatologist to set the leg. Unfortunately, many people believe that because a therapist or a pastor deals with some difficult issues in life, they are able to deal with sex abuse issues as well.

Pastors and other counseling professionals are too busy to become experts in fields they hope never to encounter. While therapists generally do have a smattering of knowledge on many issues, they too have to choose a specialty. Each area of emotional, mental, or spiritual problems requires a specific depth of knowledge. Thus, no "generic" therapist or pastor is aware of the magnitude of research and literature that specialized areas involve.

So how should pastors confront the sexual offender?

Be unwavering, direct, firm, and specific. Offenders, whether a fixated or a regressed pedophile, expect and want specific and direct confrontation regarding their molesting.⁶ However, this may not be generally apparent, because they will claim that the offense was the first one, that it will never happen again, that God is working in their life, that they have yielded to Him, etc. They will provide many different excuses or reasons for their reformation. They will say they have been unjustly accused. Tears may flow. If the case hasn't been reported to authorities, many pastors weaken at this point. Mistake number three.

Be aware that the sexual offender is shrewd, skilled in getting others to minimize, rationalize, or doubt the veracity of the allegation. While the minister may feel good about the denial (or maybe the confession), the perpetrator loses respect for the clergy because the pastor has not believed the child and has not chosen to confront the offender.⁷

Also be aware that molesters generally will go on with their good deeds in the church, challenging the pastor to "ask anyone" about their reputation. Pastors have no easy way to assess the deviancy patterns of a sexual offender. The perpetrator is counting on that "excellent" record within the church and community to plant seeds of doubt in your mind.

Step 4

After reporting and confronting the offender, let the perpetrators know you will support them as they go through the legal process. Support doesn't mean approval. Support means that you will be letting the legal process take due course, but that you will be there to pray with them and their families. Remember, Christ loved sinners, but did not approve of their actions.

Any endeavor to use pastoral influence to circumvent the legal process does not help the offender. ⁸ The of fender needs support, but that support should be stated as "I am sorry this has happened, but it will be in your best interest to go through the court process and get counseling as soon as possible." Such a support is confrontation with compassion.

It may seem compassionate to shield the perpetrator because of family hardships. However, the victim, whether or not from the same family, should take priority in receiving com passionate care. Offenders are not cured, but they can be treated to recognize their deviant thinking errors and intercept the stimuli prior to acting out their desires. ⁹ The offender must get specialized therapy that generally takes from two to five years, based on the restitution model. ¹⁰ In my professional opinion the restitution rehabilitation model has the greatest chance of success, with the least relapse of any treatment available. It is a slow, tedious process that cannot be circumvented by confession and/or religion. Offenders often use a "new birth" experience to circumvent the trial process. ¹¹

Therapy attempts to rehabilitate the mind, because it is the offender's thinking errors that have led to molestation. While we should never discount the power of the Holy Spirit, God generally does not "wave a magic wand" when we get into trouble. God does not generally intervene, but rather helps us learn from our mistakes, if we would learn. Just as we would urge a person with a brain tumor to have surgery and not rely on a miracle for healing, we must urge sex offenders to go for counseling and treatment for deviant behavior.

Treating offenders is a step-by-step process. It begins with an assessment and a detailed history of the offender's sexual deviancy. This is done through a series of assessment techniques, including, but not limited to the Minnesota- Multi-phasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the Rotter Incomplete Sentence Blank, the Sone Sexual History Background Form, the Penile Plethysmograph, and the polygraph test. ¹² These tests will indicate which stimuli arouses the molester, as well as identify personality characteristics, social and emotional deficits, learning disorders, cultivated aberrant sexual fantasies, deviant masturbatory behaviors, thinking errors, and the overall denial patterns the perpetrators use to justify their behavior. ¹³

Step 5

Step 5 is not easy. It has to do with how to relate to a sex offender after the legal process is over. A court may acquit a person charged with sex of fence or dismiss the case. This does not mean that the offender is innocent or that the molestation has not occurred. What it does mean is that our legal process is limited, that the evidence is inadmissible in court, or that the witness is too young to testify according to court standards.

Children are concrete thinkers. If a defense attorney asks a 6-year-old girl if the molester touched her and no touching occurred, the child will answer, "No." A child cannot analyze what an attorney is asking. The 6- year-old answered the question as it was asked. She may have been shown pornographic photos or forced to watch as the offender masturbated. If the defense attorney does not ask if she watched the offender masturbate, she will not volunteer the information, because she cannot reason from cause to effect, or from concrete to abstract. Or if an attorney repeats a question, the child will often reverse the answer because the child thinks the first answer was wrong. This causes the jury to think the child is lying, whereas the child is answering like a child. Knowing this, many molesters prefer young children, because it is difficult to get convicted by the child's testimony, and because many therapists make major mistakes in the initial sexual abuse interview.

Sexual molestation doesn't require physical contact for deviant behavior to occur. Recent research indicates that a child can suffer extreme trauma from what adults call "just fondling her breasts." ¹⁴

After the legal process is completed, regardless of the verdict the pastor's task is to convince the congregation as a whole to accept the perpetrator back into fellowship in caring love, while recognizing that the perpetrator can never again be allowed to be alone with children.

For the perpetrators' part, if they really want healing, they will not fight the court process. They will ask the congregation to help them stay away from children. Even if they are acquit ted, the church, for no other reason than possible future litigation, should not place them in leadership or in positions in which they would interact with children.

Remember that offenders will always be "recovering." ¹⁵ They should not be placed where children are present. Many offenders, acquitted or found guilty, will as soon as possible begin "grooming" an intended victim. They will use the same tactics that led to the first incident: helpfulness, cheerfulness, joking, "horsing around," and friendliness, designed to numb people's sensitivities, thus providing the perpetrators an opportunity for interaction with children/teens. ¹⁶ When ever this happens, confront the offenders. Make it difficult for them to interact with children. Confrontation with com passion should be the goal in step 5.

Such confrontation is needed to help molesters be aware of their problem and their thought patterns. The church should offer these offenders love, support, and a willingness to listen to them and their families. At the same time, the victims and their families must not be neglected in the church's love and support systems.