Let us prey (on women)

The Washington Post ran a story the other day that was quite scary, if you care about the institutional church. The only problem I had with the story is that it wasn’t scary enough and, in particular, it wasn’t hard enough on one of the fastest growing forms of Protestantism in the nation (and the world, for that matter).

Yes, you read that right. I honestly think that reporter Jacqueline L. Salmon and her editors needed to be much harder on many evangelicals and the nondenominational megachurches that they seem to be building everywhere these days.

What’s this all about? Here’s the top of the report, which center on the fact that one in every 33 women who regularly attend worship services report that they have been, well, hit on by clergy:

”The study, by Baylor University researchers, found that the problem is so pervasive that it almost certainly involves a wide range of denominations, religious traditions and leaders.

‘It certainly is prevalent, and clearly the problem is more than simply a few charismatic leaders preying on vulnerable followers,’ said Diana Garland, dean of Baylor’s School of Social Work, who co-authored the study.

It found that more than two-thirds of the offenders were married to someone else at the time of the advance.”

As the story says, this is not a left or right thing. Sin is sin and temptation is temptation and, in the wake of the waves of headlines about the Catholic clergy sex-abuse scandals (plural, over multiple decades), some people are starting to get their anti-abuse act together in other folds. And there’s the key to the story.

About half-way into the story we find out:

”At least 36 denominations have policies that identify sexual relations between adult congregants and clergy as misconduct, subject to discipline.