What Makes Good Ministry Good? Women in Ministry [i]

By Christopher Lind
published in THEOLOGY & SEXUALITY, 11 (3) 2005 pp.65-88

ABSTRACT

What are the special ethical issues faced by women in ministry? In this essay conventional assumptions about ethics in ministry, taken from the work of Gaylord Noyce, are compared with the experiences, attitudes and expectations of ordered and lay members of the Anglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada in two Canadian regions. The similarities and differences are then interrogated using more contemporary theories.

Conventional approaches to pastoral ethics, as evidenced by Noyce, limit concerns to issues of discrimination in wages, employment and advancement. This essay concludes that while such discrimination exists, it is not nearly as great a concern for women as the fear of sexual harassment. This fear is not only great but well founded. The research supports the claim that for a woman to be engaged in good ministry, she is required to do it differently from men.

• The Experience of Women in Ministry - link »
• The Experience of Men in Ministry - link »
  
• The Gap Between the Interviews and the Literature - link »
  
• Ethical Issues for Women in Ministry - link »
  
• References - link »
  
• Footnotes - link »
• Download a copy of this article [30k MS Word .doc] - here »
• Publisher information - link »

When Gaylord Noyce published his book on Pastoral Ethics in 1988, he had no separate section on the issues of, or faced by, women in ministry. Having said that, he was not entirely silent on the topic. “One of the most irresponsible of the church’s present-day practices," Noyce writes, "has to do with female clergy. The important question, easy enough to formulate, is, ‘Would a man have been treated in the same way?’ ” (Noyce, 1988, 43) Since that time many books and articles have been written on the subject, but most of them are, like Noyce, concerned primarily with issues of discrimination against women in employment or advancement in the church. For example, The Stained Glass Ceiling (Purvis, 1995) chronicles the difficulties faced by two women pastors in churches accustomed to male leadership. Similarly, Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling (Zikmund, 1998) takes a primarily sociological approach to the question, documenting the difficulty women face in breaking into this non-traditional occupation.

What is notable about this literature is what is missing from it by comparison to our interviews. In our qualitative research with lay and ordered women and men in Ontario and Saskatchewan, what stood out was the discussion of sexual harassment and abuse of women by men, in ministry, in preparation for ministry, and in life prior to ministry. In each case this affected how both men and women constructed their ministry roles. Looking at this data represents an alternative way of thinking about Noyce's question – are men and women treated differently in ministry?

By contrast, most men did not report this experience. Among the few men who made reference to sexual harassment in ministry, they were concerned to protect themselves from unfair accusations or rumours of harassment or romantic involvement.

This is not to say issues of discrimination were not discussed, because they were. For example, women complained about discrimination against clergy couples in the allocation of housing allowances. Where both spouses were ordained and serving different congregations, often only one housing allowance was paid even though this was understood to be part of the ministerial compensation. Other forms of discrimination in remuneration were also described, some taking place over many years.

For example, Eleanor is an Anglican priest in rural Saskatchewan. She served congregations beginning in the 1950s as a bishop's messenger, though not ordained. She was paid an honorarium that was less than the minimum stipend for a priest and there was no pension plan. Indeed, she was not paid by the Diocese but by the Women's Missionary Society, though she was under the authority of the bishop. Only after she became ordained in the late 1970s did she start being paid according to an equitable scale. Surprisingly, to a modern reader, she is not bitter about this experience.

"You know, I'm terribly old-fashioned, and it never occurred to me that I was being misused!  I used to laugh about it,” said Eleanor. “I used to think it was very cute that when I served (in one small town), after I left there the Bishop thought the parish was ready for a priest and he found the money somewhere to pay him. And he lasted four and a half weeks. I thought that was rather cute. Couldn't take the roads, and the isolated conditions, and the fact that there was no bathroom in the rectory, and I had never considered that a hardship. But then I was a rural person and that was the difference, I think."

However, the imbalance between the focus of the literature on discrimination and the frequency with which the interview subjects discussed sexual harassment compels us to focus this chapter on these related questions. What is the experience of women with regard to sexual harassment and abuse within the church? How is this experience different from the experience of men? What accounts for the gap between the interview data and the literature on women in ministry? If women need to take special precautions in order to protect themselves within a ministry setting, does this not re-define for women what makes good ministry good?

Many women in ministry consider a fear of harassment to be one of the constant realities of their working life. It is so common they have made special arrangements to deal with it. Consider Wendy, an Anglican priest in Saskatchewan, who has instituted a special warning system to alert her family to potential threats to her safety.

"If I had a strange person phoning me, especially if it's male, wanting to see me and talk to me, I don't have a full-time secretary. That means if we meet in the church, I'm alone with that person, and I don't feel comfortable doing that ever. So I phone somebody up and make sure they are in the church. They just have to sort of do something downstairs, but at least I know they're there. I also have a monitor system that I can switch on, and on occasion, if I've had nobody to call, I tell (my husband) the monitor's on, and I can buzz on the monitor. So I'm very careful about things like that. When I go to parishioners' homes, it would have to be somebody that I have an ongoing relationship with in the congregation. I have visited men on their own in the home, but for the most part I feel like I've done that with known quantities. You're still taking a chance but I'm still very aware of that. I always make sure I'm attentive to that kind of dynamic."

Judith is another Saskatchewan priest whose experience as a lay woman taught her clearly what unethical behaviour looked like.

"As a lay person experiencing clergy that were less than ethical, I was determined not to be that kind of a priest. (For example) a priest that hits on you, supposedly questioning about a family situation and then getting you in a corner and kissing and that sort of thing. I was not impressed, but at that stage of my life, which was pretty young, I didn't have as many tools. I just knew I wasn't going to accept it, but I didn't have the tools I have now."

Kim is a Saskatchewan Anglican warden who learned her daughter was being harassed by her minister.

"Some time ago we were quite concerned about a young man. He was having marriage problems and he wasn't acting right towards the young women of the churches. Eventually they sent him to a rehabilitation centre, but eventually he was let go. For one thing he made a pass at my daughter and apparently some other young women had complained of the same thing. It wasn't right. My daughter was quite upset about it. And nothing happened; it was just a bad feeling she got from it. It was supposed to be a New Year's Eve kiss but it seemed to be much more than just an innocent New Year's Eve kiss. It upset her, I remember, and then she avoided him, of course. And then I heard this problem had been going on before he even came to our parish and also in our parish too, with other women. They weren't as young as my daughter, some of them. It didn't seem to matter really. I know he was going through a bad time at the time, but I don't think that gave him much excuse for that behaviour. But that's some time ago. We've had priests since then and everything has been fine. There's been nothing like that since, and nothing like that before that I experienced."

Not everyone speaks up about experiences of sexual harassment. Charlotte is an Anglican priest in Ontario who recalled the comments she regularly received about how she was dressed. Now, if that were to happen she would speak to her bishop, but "it was a long time ago. I was still a very young priest and rocking the boat seemed scarier than just letting it go."

Some people think age may play an important role in cases of sexual harassment in the church. In their book Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling, Zikmund, Lumis and Chang observe that “many younger clergy women have not spent years in the church as laity before becoming ordained. These younger clergy women may also be more susceptible to sexual harassment " (Zikmund 1998, 122)

If sexual harassment is more about power than about sex, as many writers contend[ii], it would make sense that younger women would be more vulnerable to the unethical use of power by others than older women. They have less social power and less experience in the church. In spite of the turbulence of youth, our culture still expects young people to defer to the experience and wisdom of older people. In addition, a younger person will have less status in an institutional setting that rewards both qualifications and years of service.

Anne is another Ontario minister who thinks about these issues in terms of power. For her, one of the ways to distinguish between good and bad pastoral practice is how one deals with the power available in relationships. It’s true in the church and it’s true in other professions as well.

"I think I've said it about the respect for relationships and not abusing the power that is available in those relationships,” said Anne. “To me that has to do with good and poor pastoral practice. A very difficult situation I have been in has had to do with sexual harassment, and I've had that harassment in other professional situations by a person who has significant authority over (my) career."

Sexual harassment takes many forms. Sometimes it’s an inappropriate touch, sometimes inappropriate language. Other times it’s a manipulation of a situation that threatens the integrity of the other. For example, Helen, a United Church minister in Ontario, has had an experience that will leave her ministry forever changed.

"The most prominent issue in this Church has been a situation in which a woman has left an extremely abusive marriage and it's kind of shaped my entire ministry here. What happened was, this person left her marriage and, with my help, went to a women's shelter. This took place over many months. (She) went back and left again, and so on. In the meantime the husband had started harassing me on the telephone and eventually when he couldn't reach her, he started to try and reach me. Then he got his kids to reach me so I had all kinds of tapes of what I would call harassment. However, he's highly intelligent and so he never would threaten me or anything like that, on a tape. And he would phone and cry and accuse me of being a lousy minister and so on.

“Then he said to me, ‘if you won't talk to me then, by God, I'm going to come to Church and stand up in front of everybody and tell the people that you're an unprofessional minister.’ So, he named the day on which he was going to do that, the coming Sunday. At this point, I went down to the women's shelter where the wife was, and was advised to call the police. They called in the staff sergeant and he sent uniformed officers to the man's door. They told him ‘you will not’ because it's a violation of the criminal code, which I didn't know, to disrupt a service of worship. His response was that he will do it, because there's a point in the service where I ask if there are any more announcements. He said he was just going to stand up and tell the people I wouldn't provide any pastoral care for him or his children.

“Because he gave them that answer, two plain-clothed police officers showed up in church on Sunday morning, intercepted him at the door and asked him to leave. He was on his way into the service five minutes after we'd already started and our student minister had to point him out. Then, of course, he was upset at being removed by the police and two of the children – late teens, early twenties – came back and met with me and the police officers for two hours, and basically harangued me."

The manipulation in this story didn't stop there. The man in question was not a member of the United Church but his wife was. Once he found out that Helen was counselling his wife, he started to turn up at her church on a regular basis. Helen subsequently arranged for a male colleague at another congregation to provide pastoral care for him. The man was confirmed in the other congregation, but officially joined the United Church, whereupon he lodged an official complaint against Helen with the Presbytery for failing to uphold the sanctity of marriage. Such a complaint can only be filed by a member of the United Church, not an adherent. The complaint was determined to be unfounded by the presbytery, but Helen was sufficiently afraid for her personal safety that she slept at the house of friends on numerous occasions and was equipped with a personal alarm by the women's shelter.

Sexual harassment raises more than one ethical issue related to power. It also raises the ethical issue of how one responds to sexual harassment. Are you willing to exercise the power required to challenge this behaviour? Should you exercise it, and if so, how? Can you live with it, either way?

This next story illustrates many of the features found above and also introduces some new dimensions. It involves one minister harassing another minister, an older male harassing a younger female, the manipulation of information and the issues of age, race or ethnic identity, and sexual orientation. It is also a story about the ethical burden of challenging unethical behaviour.

Diane is a United Church minister who, as a student, was placed in a large urban congregation. In a conversation in the senior minister's office, the minister complained to Diane that she could get away with anything in ministry in this congregation because everyone thought she was just 17 years old. Although Diane looks younger than her age, she felt undermined by these comments because it was well known she had completed one career as a nurse before studying for the ministry. The senior minister went on to cast doubts about the wisdom of her placement because she was of aboriginal ancestry in a Euro-Canadian congregation. Diane experienced this as a double insult because not only was she being told she was incapable of doing ministry with a "white" congregation, the six families of native ancestry in the congregation were also being dismissed as irrelevant. Finally, the senior minister questioned the nature of her relationship with her best friend, another woman. The implication was that the two of them were in a lesbian relationship. For Diane, the best way she can describe her experience is as an emotional rape.

"After that last incident in May in his office I felt emotionally raped. There's no other word for it, there's no nice word for it, there's no lesser word for it. I felt the responsibility, the need to confront this man about what happened and I need to tell him how I feel about it, that I'm hurt by what he did. It took a week to convince myself to talk to him. I went into his office and refused to close the door, and since then I haven't anytime I'm in there. It feels safer for me, it's a measure of safety that I can take to try and protect myself any time I'm there.

“So I confronted him and he denied the whole thing. He twisted it all around and said that's not what happened. I left there and started telling myself I must have gotten it all wrong. How could I have screwed this whole thing up? How could I get it all mixed up? I got it all wrong. I left there feeling crazy, not really crazy, but you know, they call it crazy-making behaviour. I didn't say anything to anybody until this woman from the Ministry and Personnel Committee said something to me four months later. “It was like, ‘oh my God, I'm not crazy.’ I didn't blow this out of proportion, this really is happening. It was affirming that this wasn't my imagination. And that woman told me I needed to go and talk to somebody about what had happened."

Diane did go and talk with someone. Her church Conference had in place a sexual harassment policy and there was a confidential telephone number she could call. She eventually put her story down on paper and an investigation turned up many women in the congregation who also had complaints of sexual harassment against the same senior minister.

Diane is a survivor of sexual assault so knows first-hand the reality of rape. The senior minister knew this too and pressed Diane to disclose this information to her parents. We asked Diane to try and explain what she meant by the term 'emotional rape'.

"I wish I had a videotape of the whole thing because I don't know how to help you understand what that means for me or what that means for any man, woman or child (it) will ever happen to,” Diane explained. “It’s like the whole thing is planned out, and I say that because of the request that was made for me to meet (for) that specific length of time. The conversation felt manipulated, like questions coming non-stop, being fired at you. The next thing, ‘have I told my parents about me yet?’ And I'm thinking ‘what are you implying from this other question?’ I'm thinking ‘what in the hell does abuse have to do with this?' 

"But it's important for others who read this report (to understand) that just personal confrontation with the person who uses power and control and manipulation (may not be enough). When people encourage you to confront the person, that's not always in the best aspects. I do know what physical rape is like. Now I know what emotional rape is like. So that's why I say I do not use this term lightly for this whole thing. It's like the deepest part of your soul, your spirit, your emotions, your feelings, every part of you other than your physical self, has been completely ripped out of you and exposed and robbed and left hanging.

“And, I knew something had happened. I didn't know what. If something physical happens to you, a large cut in your arm, or a burn, you may not feel the pain immediately. It's like your body has gone into shock, trying to cope. But if you severely burn your arm, a short period later you're going to feel a pain. That abuse, and that mention of that physical rape, I only said because I want you to understand. Very few people know that. Unfortunately, he's one of them. But I said that because I want to help you understand that I'm not, when I use that terminology, I'm not exaggerating the use of it."

Although the experience is highlighted in one event, the harassment carried on over a significant period of time with rhythms she now describes as being like the cycle of violence. A week would go by when communication was much improved between them. Diane's doubts about her experience would increase and then the comments would start again. Unfortunately, in the beginning, by not saying anything about the behaviour, Diane thought she was upholding standards of good professional conduct. She thought she was not supposed to criticize her colleague in ministry. Only after the intervention triggered by her disclosure to the Sexual Harassment Committee was she encouraged to tell her story to others. Even so, two years after the event, her feelings about the event were so strong, we were almost unable to complete the interview.

There are many pressures that come to play in the decision about whether to "blow the whistle" in cases of sexual harassment. Will you be believed? Is it the right thing to do? Have you misunderstood? Do you have the courage? Lebacqz and Barton tell a similar story, also about a student. “The woman who sought counselling from her campus minister and was then sexually approached and almost raped by him reports that when she tried to blow the whistle on him, ‘no one wanted to listen – no one wanted to believe that he would do such things.’ The sad result was that she lost her community of friends in campus ministry ‘because everyone resented the fact that I had made such accusations.’” (Lebacqz & Barton 1991, 141)

Sadly, preparation for ministry is one of the places where women do experience sexual harassment.[iii]  In her study of ordained women in the Anglican Church of Canada, Wendy Fletcher-Marsh found five per cent of her 291 respondents had experienced sexual harassment from seminary professors, though all but one had studied at the same theological college in the 1980s (Fletcher-Marsh 2002, 115). This distribution of many cases in one institution suggests something more intentional and methodical. Wendy, the Anglican priest in Saskatchewan, describes it as predatory behaviour.

"When I was a nursing student, I went to a United Church chaplain for counseling and he became quite formative in my life. He and his wife kind of adopted me into their family. My family was falling apart and I was going through some real terror at that point in terms of memories that were coming from a very abusive childhood. And, of course, he became part of the process of that. He never referred me. And it was really funny because later on, when we were talking about what it means to be a professional, he was the one who said you should refer.

“Well, he never referred me. And he really should have. He became really attracted to me and then initiated a sexual relationship. It wasn't very intense at first, it was just sort of, you know, petting and that sort of thing. Here was this person saying he loved me and at the time it all felt so right, like this is just a person who cares about me and is trying to help me through an abusive background. Now, I look back and think about all the years he robbed me of, that I was a nursing student, and he just used me.

“And there were other younger women who were part of his life, too. Of course he always told me I was the only one and that sort of garbage and I believed him. I believed I was unique. I believed he saved my life.  I believed he rescued me from an abusive past and I never saw that what he was doing was very sick and very wrong. But, he had a lot of power over me, and I was at a very vulnerable time, and he used all of that. For the longest time, he, his family and myself were as close as you could be. It hasn't been until the last few years that I've recognized just how abusive that relationship was to me. But it really confused my boundaries. Here's a United Church minister who's one of the finest preachers I have ever heard. That's the other thing I noticed, that a lot of the clergy who do things like this, are the best. So you don't question them because they're the best. These aren't just mediocre people, these are the best people who are screwing people around."

Wendy experienced the same behaviour from a seminary professor that she experienced from a campus chaplain. The combination of power, vulnerability, intention and opportunity make for a lethal mix.

"The other really vivid instance for me was when I was a theological student and having a professor who put an enormous amount of pressure on me with a sexual agenda,” said Wendy. “(He) was really instrumental in whether I was ordained or not. (He held) a lot of power. And he used it and manipulated it and honed in on vulnerabilities, but I'd gotten to a point where I just decided I was not going to cross the bounds. So, no matter how much sexual pressure he put on me, I never responded to him. But nevertheless I experienced a great deal of grief while I was at that college for three years. He made my life hell, but, in trying to understand that, I've come to understand that his behaviour is predatory. It has nothing to do with sex; it has everything to do with a kind of hatred, probably towards women, that is just predatory. You know, they've got to prey on as many women as possible. And I've since discovered that I am certainly not alone, that there are a number of us with whom, at the same time, he was carrying on sexual relationships or putting on pressure. I mean I just find that totally obscene."

Wendy's conclusion from her reflections on this experience is that this is more than just about how individuals behave. It is also about how institutions behave. Institutions also have power and need to create better systems of accountability. If the very best people in their field are exhibiting this predatory behaviour, then it’s a question as to whether individual victims can stop them without the help of the institution as a whole.

"Sexual harassment, among clergy, I think is a poorly understood concept,” said Wendy. “And we're not talking about a little slap and tickle or one person that you get attracted to and you make a mistake. We're not talking about that. We're talking about really long-term insidious abuse, and that's real harassment. So I have a lot of fears about how the best are getting away with murder, and, until the institution does something about itself, I'm not sure whether individual victims can even stop them."

If age is an issue in cases of sexual harassment, so is relationship status. Many women say it’s hard to be a sexual person and be a person in ordered ministry. Others say it’s much easier to be married in ministry than to be single. Even lay women remark on this. For example, Deborah is a United Church lay woman in Saskatchewan.

"When I think of single female clergy particularly, I think it's more difficult than it is for single males. I think in some ways that is because of society's expectations. You know, males always seem to be more easily excused when they goof than females. It ought not to be (that way), but that's the reality, I guess."

Hannah, another United Church lay person, agrees. From personal experience she knows that some people think ministry is a sex-free zone, especially for women.

"For example, I took a lay preacher's course. And I had a lady come up to me and say ‘you don't have sex now, do you, now that you're a minister?’ She's the same age, I'm 46, she's maybe 44, and she assumed that because I took this lay preacher's course that I wouldn't have sex anymore. I don't know where they thought all these ministers had these children from!"

Eleanor is an Anglican priest with a lifetime of rural ministry. She's very clear about the difference marital status makes as a single woman, a married woman and a widow.

"I can tell you that it was a lot easier being in a parish as a married woman than as a single woman. Not that I ever had any real difficulties, but one had to be careful always to behave appropriately because there were those who would like to take advantage of you. I can remember having so much more freedom in ministry once I was a married woman. And now that I am a widow, I suddenly found myself three years ago saying ‘hey, things are different.’ The great meeting place was the parish office. People were always coming in just to visit. And immediately an unmarried male showed up. It was all the old girls going ooohhh, we think we're going to get Eleanor married, which was the last thing on my mind! But you're suddenly realizing how you have to be very careful, you know?"

The fear of exploiting vulnerable people in a pastoral relationship has created some clear pastoral guidelines that some people experience as both new and troublesome. Noyce writes that, “There is no more frequent and painful a ministry-wrecking blunder than sexual involvement growing out of cross-gender pastoral care" (Noyce 1988, 99). One of those guidelines is a prohibition against sexual relationships between minister and parishioner. Eleanor, like many older ministers, is troubled by such a hard and fast rule. In the 1950s she fell in love with her church warden. They were married for more than 30 years. This is a very common story, especially for people of that generation (mostly men) serving small rural churches. They were ordained in their early 20s and placed in a rural church. The congregation understood one of its first orders of business was to find this person a marriage partner. It was not entirely supported by idealistic or romantic motives. A minister who marries within the congregation or community is much more likely to stay in the area. Retaining pastoral leadership is always an issue in small rural congregations with a declining farm population.

But Eleanor was shocked to experience the new rules. "It was a great shock to me at one of the workshops we had, which was strictly on sexual ethics. It had to do with the abuse of your position and they show a video in which it was just a real no-no what had happened, that this young pastor in the parish had become engaged to one of her parishioners. And I thought, ‘oh my God, that's what I did.’  I didn't think I was doing anything inappropriate. I married a parishioner who was my church warden. I really didn't agree with the video, I have to admit, because it was not a question of inappropriate behaviour, or lifestyle or anything else. It was simply two young people who had fallen in love, which is what happened to us. And I thought, if anybody had known my husband they'd know that nobody would exert authority over him! But I remember being very upset about that."

Sexual harassment in the church is primarily, but not exclusively, experienced by women as a result of the actions of men. Let us now examine how men have responded to this issue.

In their book Sex in the Parish, Lebacqz and Barton describe the difference between men and women and their approach to sexuality in ministry in the following way:

“Male pastors are concerned about protecting female parishioners from unprofessional advances. Female pastors are concerned about protecting themselves. The difference is striking.” (Lebacqz & Barton 1991, 133)

Our interviews suggest a slightly different formulation of this aphorism. Female pastors are concerned about protecting themselves from unwelcome approaches. Male pastors are concerned about protecting themselves against unfair allegations.

Most men in our study had rules to govern their behaviour. Some were uncomfortable with these rules and/or unsure of where the boundaries ought to be. They were also concerned about false allegations of misconduct or misunderstandings about their actions and intentions.

Andrew is an Anglican priest in Ontario. Scandals about sexual abuse have caused him to reflect more about the basis of his relationship with members of his congregation, but he resists rules he considers extreme.

"Someone comes into the office alone and has problems or concerns. Well, I'm going to trust them that they're not going to make up stories about sexual abuse or advances or harassment or something. I guess they're going to trust me that I'm not going to do it. Now some clergy have decided they aren't going to be alone in the room with this woman. I think that's a little extreme. I can certainly understand how they would feel that way. But it kind of betrays the whole trust element that the clergy/community relationship was built on. If you can't hug a grieving widow, I mean, what are you here for? If you can't hug a son, or a man whose wife has just left him without being afraid of being accused of harassment, well, you know, what's all that about? I'm careful not to put myself in a position where I'm going to be misunderstood. When I do hold hands with someone while we're praying, that is something which is sort of sexual, but something which is kind of pastoral. And those are hard things to define."

David is a United Church minister in Saskatchewan. Only in recent years has he begun to consider the risk he runs when he counsels a woman alone. She may be presenting herself as needing pastoral care but desiring something quite different. As a result he has started to create some clear and firm rules for himself. For example, "I would not get involved, going out on dates, with anyone in the congregation, not just those involved in a counselling relationship with me, but not anyone from the congregation at all." This is exactly the kind of rule that Eleanor was so shocked to discover being promoted in the church today.

Ben is an Anglican priest in Ontario. He also has strict rules against sexual relationships with parishioners. When he was starting out, his bishop did some training with the new ordinands and warned them about some pitfalls they could expect in their ministry.

"The bishop said that simply because we were priests some people would see us as fair game. If there was a lady coming to see us about something, he told us to keep our office door partially open and make sure somebody else is in the building. When you go visiting in homes, in terms of afternoon house calls, and you're asked to sit down, sit in a chair, not on a sofa, because the chair will hold one.

"When I was a curate, about two months after ordination, it was July. I was really hot and I was out making house calls. I didn't know anybody in the parish at this point, except as I was meeting them on a visitation basis. There was one lady, who answered the door in a bikini. Fine. And I remember, ‘oh yeah, you sit in a chair.’ So I sat in a chair. She asked if she could get me some tea, which is what you do when the rector comes to call. It was too hot, I didn't want tea.  ‘Would you like coffee?’ ‘No.’ ‘Would you like a drink?’ Well, I really wanted a beer but the rector had said you don't drink alcohol when you're out doing a call. ‘No thanks.’ So she stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. ‘What would you like?’ I got up and ran out of the house. I ran out of the house! Never saw her again. I never went back. There was no way I was going back to that house."

Tony is a United Church minister in Ontario. He tries to balance the needs of a single minister who needs a social life with the requirements of a professional relationship. For him, a romantic relationship has to be evaluated "on its own terms". "I think a clergy person should have the same sort of opportunity to develop relationships that anyone else does. But it has to be in a healthy sort of setting which means it’s outside the work setting." For Tony, the shorthand rule is that "as soon as you have that sort of professional structure, then you have to exclude yourself from developing intimate relationships." Obviously this requirement is easier to fulfill in an urban setting than in a rural setting.

Peter is an Anglican priest in Ontario. He worries about how to handle youth groups and events. He has an active youth group with regular camping trips. He worries about how to deal with contradictory fears between the genders. When he takes a mixed group on a trip, he tries to have one adult female to chaperone the girls, but tries to have two adults to chaperone the boys. This is in spite of the fact he has received a complaint from one of the girls that on one occasion the adult woman was making sexual overtures to the girls. "The word that the girl used was that the woman was 'hitting on them', was sort of making passes," said Peter. "Maybe I need to think that one through a little more. There just seems to be more problems with men than with women."

Lebacqz and Barton explain this imbalance in terms of our culture. “In a culture in which women and men are not raised to be equal sexual initiators, men will think in terms of initiation of sexual activity and women will think in terms of response to initiation from outside. This pattern is what we find among our clergy. It is the first indication of the pervasive influence of sexism on the patterns of male and female sexuality in the parish.” (Lebacqz & Barton 1991, 134)

Kate is an Anglican lay woman in Saskatchewan. She reflected on the new patterns of behaviour she saw exhibited by male clergy and why she supported it. It was a matter of safety - safety for the parishioner yes, but more importantly, safety for the minister. Kate is not worried here about what Wendy described as predatory behaviour. She's worried about temptation and human frailty – what Marie Fortune describes as the normally neurotic minister who may stray from the path given the right mix of stresses and opportunities.

"We had a minister who said he would not visit a single woman in her home unless he took someone with him, whether it was his wife or just another parish person who did visiting,” explained Kate.  “He would prefer not to be alone in a home with a woman who was widowed, divorced, single, especially if she was going through a very difficult time because she needed comfort and he didn't want to be alone in a situation like that. It seems like there is safety in being in pairs. It doesn't have to be his wife, she may not want to get involved in that particular line of his ministry, but certainly someone in the parish should be with him. It's just a safety factor. The danger is of becoming sexually involved, or the fact that it may destroy his marriage relationship at home if he has a stronger relationship with parish people. I think it is very important that priests share their work with their wives or, vice versa, if it is a lady with her husband, they should take the time to share so they don't have a secret hidden life that the other spouse doesn't know about. If the wife felt that her husband was working a great deal with the organist or something like that, and she felt it was jeopardizing her relationship with her husband, that they didn't have as strong a relationship as he did with his worker, that would be a problem. We've heard of a few ministers that have run away with organists. It occasionally happens. It hasn't happened in our parish but I have heard of it happening and you can see where it is just like a boss with his secretary. They work so closely together that you need to have a very strong relationship going on at home; you need to be sharing everything."

Most male ministers are worried about being falsely accused but also about being misinterpreted. This can occur most easily in the area of touching. Louise, a United Church laywoman in Saskatchewan, puts it this way.

"I think people in ministry must be exceedingly careful in terms of physical touch and yet, obviously, some of us are more inclined to be demonstrative – the hug, that kind of thing – than others. But I think we need to be pretty careful about that because of how it can be perceived. I think we need to be very careful not to set ourselves up. I don't think that because you are in ministry you should be asexual, but that is not the place for it. After all, of all of the helping professions, probably ministers are trusted more than anyone else."

Lebacqz and Barton also deal with the question of touch, but they put it in the context of women's life experience of sexual harassment and abuse. They move beyond the dilemma of understanding and misunderstanding to the difference between good touch and bad touch. “Women pastors often spoke about the importance and the delicacy of touch in ministry. Because so many women grow up having experienced so much abusive touch, they are aware of the problem of ‘bad touch’ and are often cautious about touch…. These pastors wanted to be sure that their touching of parishioners was not offensive or abusive to others. Their concerns were not so much to protect themselves from being misunderstood as to ensure that any pastoral touch was experienced as ‘good touch’ by the recipient. They touch only where permission is given.” ( Lebacqz & Barton 1991, 157)

In a culture where men are expected to be the sexual initiators, men assume permission is granted unless they are told otherwise. If we reduce the problem of sexual harassment to a question of sexual relationship, then the problem is cultural. If the problem is cultural, we have to allow for the possibility that men and women inhabit different cultures in order to explain the enormous gap in perceptions and interpretations of behaviour. As Barbara Gutek notes, "men consistently say they are flattered by sexual overtures by women. Women consistently say they are insulted by sexual propositions from men.” (Gutek 1985, xiii)

However, if we use the lens of professional responsibility to analyze the situation, then the question becomes one of power and the problem is political. Professionals are individuals who belong to, and are regulated by, a specified group. The standards of professional obligation require the professional to overcome culture in order to protect the most vulnerable. However, like theology, our understanding of professional standards is also embedded in the culture so there is always a tension there. The political question is whether the group (in this case the church) has the will to enforce the obligations of the professional.

Humans have a seemingly limitless capacity for self-deception. This is illustrated in the story of the United Church minister that follows. Philip has been found guilty of sexual harassment in one congregation and has now been accused of the same behaviour in his current congregation. He acknowledges his actions in the first situation but resists admitting it still continues in the second. The church is slowly moving to hold him to account.

"I had been working with a person, a member of the congregation who was dealing with sexual abuse issues. During one particular session I was feeling really down and I happened to mention that. She said 'how are you doing?' and I said 'I don't know, I'm just feeling really down today.' Then she came across the room and sat on my lap, and we started to kiss, and I caressed her for about 30 seconds or something like that.

"That's the main situation. The other things around it were boundary issues and pushing my luck and that kind of stuff, but that was the main issue that brought it to light. I knew immediately that it was wrong but didn't know what to do with it, so it sat for a long time until it got reported.

"It's with me every day, every time I do something almost. I've been to Marie Fortune's workshop and, well I guess I've improved. You know, life's not easy sometimes. Anyway, for me it's the shame of it all, really. And plus it limits me now to what I can do. It's certainly affected being here because I came here and there was an agreement.  I went through what happened with some members of this congregation. Lately, some of those people who were initially involved now are very adamant that it's time for me to leave, for whatever reasons."

Philip confines his behaviour to one incident in the past. He tries to downplay the other issues involved as 'pushing his luck' – trying to assume the maximum permission as if this were a sort of sexual game he was playing. Though currently under investigation for repeated infractions, all he sees are that people who knew about the earlier discipline are now pushing for him to leave, for reasons that seem beyond his comprehension. He interprets the problem as cultural, arguing his understanding is changing. His accusers understand the problem as his refusal to take responsibility for his misuse of power.

The literature on women in ministry is a small but growing body of work. As noted earlier, most but not all of the literature deals with barriers to advancement and discrimination in finance and hiring (See also Lehman 1985; Swatos 1994 and Chang 1997).  There is also a small but growing literature on sexual harassment and abuse, but most of that literature is focused on persuading church bodies to design and implement sexual harassment policies and procedures.

The interview data highlights, in a striking fashion, how significant sexual harassment and abuse are in shaping practical ethical norms for ministers. Clearly women construct their ministry differently because of this reality (e.g. panic monitors). For a woman in ministry to construct her role in any other way (e.g. just like a man) would actually put her in harm’s way. In order for a woman to be engaged in good ministry she needs to do ministry differently from men.

In that light, why is there not an extensive discussion of this issue in the literature about norms for good pastoral practice? Are women in ministry more vulnerable to sexual harassment than women in other occupations? Is this simply the experience of women in society being revealed through the lens of ministry or is there something special about ministry? Or does ministry attract to itself a higher proportion of survivors of sexual abuse than society at large so women ministers are more sensitive to the issue than average? What other data might help answer these questions?

In a study now more than 15 years old, Barbara Gutek studied the difference between women in different occupations in terms of their experience of sexual harassment. She could find no difference among occupations, but she did find that women in positions of institutional authority, managers, were more likely to be harassed than others (Gutek 1985 , 56). Women clergy are women in positions of institutional authority. In some larger churches they may also be supervisors of other employees. Whatever their leadership style, they are certainly responsible for managing budgets and organizations comprised of hundreds of people. So, one possible explanation for this data is that women in clergy roles are more likely to be sexually harassed than women in other non-managerial roles.

This offers an explanation of why incidents of sexual harassment might be slightly higher for women clergy than for other working women. It does not answer the question of whether we are simply seeing a societal problem through the eyes of ministry. Marie Fortune reports data from the U.S. that suggests 47 – 77 per cent of women clergy have experienced sexual harassment in the church.[iv] She also reports data from the U.S. military indicating 64 per cent of women in that field report sexual abuse by men (Fortune & Poling 1994, 25). Lebacqz and Barton indicate in their research that while 10 per cent of clergy men reported instances of sexual harassment, fully 50 per cent of clergy women reported the same experience (Lebacqz & Barton 1991, 135).

In a survey of Canadian Anglican women priests, Wendy Fletcher-Marsh reports that 47 per cent of that group said they had experienced sexual harassment in the church. However, in that study, sexual harassment was not defined. An analysis of stories told by women who reported not being harassed showed many examples of incidents other people normally define as sexual harassment (Fletcher-Marsh 2002, 114). Interestingly, Fletcher-Marsh's study also showed a direct connection between education levels and reports of sexual harassment. “In the category of those priests without a university degree, 0 per cent said that they had experienced sexual harassment. In the category of women with a doctorate, 100 per cent answered in the affirmative with regard to sexual harassment. The percentages rose in increments by degree, proportionately.” (Fletcher-Marsh 2002, 115) While more research on this question is needed, it is possible that all women experience the same level of sexual harassment. However, women with more university level education may be more likely to name their experiences as sexual harassment while women with less university level education may describe these same experiences as 'normal'.

In 1984, the Canadian Government published a report from its Committee on Sexual Offences Against Children and Youth. Commonly referred to as the Badgley Report, it reported that one in two females and one in three males have been victims of unwanted sexual acts. About four in five of these incidents first happened when they were children or youths." (Badgely 1984)

Almost 10 years later a Royal Commission reported to the Canadian Government on women's experience of violence. Entitled Changing The Landscape, this report confirmed the data in the earlier Badgley Report. The Royal Commission had helped to fund a research project in Toronto that included in-depth interviews with 420 randomly selected women. Fifty-one per cent of the women over the age of 16 had been the victim of rape or attempted rape. Fifty-four per cent of the women had experienced some sort of unwanted or intrusive sexual experience before reaching the age of 16. Eighty-one per cent of the sexual assault cases at the level of rape or attempted rape were perpetrated by men who were known to the women. Twenty-seven per cent of the women had experienced a physical assault in an intimate relationship. The Report also cited a 1993 public opinion poll showing 55 per cent of women in Canada are afraid to walk the streets of their community alone at night (Freeman 1993, 11).

So, most women and some men experience unwanted sexual acts. It starts when they are children and, at least for women, continues when they are adults. What this means is that the experience of danger and the fear of unwanted sexual acts is the norm for women in Canada. According to our interview subjects, for women, the church is just like the rest of society – an unsafe place. The Royal Commission data deals more with sexual abuse than sexual harassment. How does one connect to the other? Sexual harassment creates the negative climate in which sexual abuse takes place. This is the environment for women in general and this is the environment from which women come prior to their preparation for ministry.

Our data does not suggest the church is more unsafe for women clergy than the rest of society. However, the gap between perception and reality may make this information more shocking or unwelcome. Again, this corresponds to the data on violence against women in society. Most violence against women comes not from strangers in the night, but from people well known to the victims and it takes place in intimate environments like the home.

Many of our interview subjects talked about the importance of trust in the pastoral relationship. New rules governing ethical pastoral practice are designed to honour and protect that trust. The greatest violation is described in terms of a breaking of that trust. Trust creates intimacy. The church is a place where one nurtures one's relationship with God, which is also an intimate relationship. Sexual harassment and sexual abuse in the church is like harassment and abuse in the home because it violates trust in an intimate environment.

The challenge for the church is to become a safer place than society. This is a challenge to become counter cultural. This can be an effective strategy for social change in general, especially if the space occupied by the church is understood to extend beyond the church building to include the homes of church members.

Noyce thought the ethical issues in ministry were largely the same as the ethical issues for men except that women faced certain additional obstacles in terms of discrimination in wages and employment. The evidence from our study suggests that is not the case. While women do face issues of discrimination in wages, employment and advancement, many women in ministry consider a fear of harassment one of the constant realities of their working life. This valid fear is supported by the other research on sexual harassment in churches and in society. The research to date suggests that sexual harassment is as prevalent in our churches as it is in society at large.

Ethical ministry requires that ministers take steps both to protect parishioners and to protect themselves. While both male and female ministers have a moral obligation not to harass others, since women in ministry have a much higher likelihood of being harassed than men in ministry, this means women ministers have an extra ethical obligation to construct their ministry to take this into account. Not to do so would be poor pastoral practice.

Ministers in our study shared a variety of rules and procedures they had either developed or adopted from others to deal with cross gender relationships. Some women had emergency plans worked out involving other people in the building or special means of communicating with those nearby. Some men refused to visit women alone. The asymmetry of men worried about visiting women and women worried about being visited by men confirms the observations made by Lebacqz and Barton quoted earlier (Lebacqz & Barton 1994, 134). The data from our interview subjects suggest female pastors are concerned about protecting themselves from unwelcome approaches. Male pastors are concerned about protecting themselves against unfair allegations.

Some women seem more worried about harassment from strangers than from people well known to them. The data from the Royal Commission on Violence Against Women suggests this worry is not well placed. If most violence against women is perpetrated by men known to the women, women ministers should be as careful in assessing risks with men well known to them as with strangers, if not more so.

Both men and women in ministry were concerned about whether the new guidelines about boundaries in pastoral relationships were so rigid that they prohibited ministry staff from being sexual persons. This concern was more pronounced in rural contexts where there is no alternative community on which to draw for a social life. In particular, both men and women wondered whether it is wise to set up expectations that would seem to prevent a positive, romantic relationship between a minister and a member of the congregation. In this regard, a bias toward a professional framework for ministry is a bias toward an urban environment.

Several women, both lay and in ordered ministry, thought it was easier to be married in ministry than to be single. Some women thought it was easier to be a single man in ministry than a single woman.

Many women, both ordered and lay, thought a major concern was how 'touch' is used in pastoral care. Lebacqz and Barton refer to this concern as being able to distinguish 'good touch' from 'bad touch'. Men in ministry need to understand that most women in society have experience with 'bad touch'. Neither ministers nor lay people want to prohibit touching in pastoral care. Some women in ministry recommend asking permission before touch is given. Men have a tendency to assume permission is granted unless they are told otherwise.

Women in the church want ministers to do a better job of maintaining boundaries between their personal and professional lives. Women ministers want men in ministry to do the same thing. When a New Year's Eve kiss lasts too long, no one is fooled.

While almost all the stories that emerged from our interview data involved relationships between men and women, same gender relationships can exhibit the same dynamics.

Sexual harassment takes many forms. Sometimes it’s an inappropriate touch, sometimes inappropriate language. Other times it’s a manipulation of a situation that threatens the integrity of the other. What's problematic is not that it involves either sex or gender but that it involves an imbalance of power. Differences in age only make things worse.

Sexual harassment raises more than one ethical issue related to power. It also raises the ethical issue of how one responds to sexual harassment. Will you confront it? Should you confront it? What choices are available to you in responding to it? At this level it becomes about much more than individual choice. The church provides an institutional context for these choices. Good policies and procedures expand the choices available and enhance the moral agency of those who are vulnerable. Both the interview data and the literature indicate that sexual harassment occurs not only to ministers and members of congregations but it also happens to women studying for ministry.

Members of congregations are particularly frustrated when they learn that a minister exhibiting harassing behaviour has done so in other ministerial contexts.

The misuse of power in a pastoral relationship is not merely accidental. It can also bear the hallmarks of a predator, with intention, planning and calculation. It can be engaged in by all manner of ministers, including those who are otherwise regarded as the best in their field. In the case of predators, their behaviour cannot be stopped without the help of the institution as a whole. The professional obligation to support a colleague's ministry does not extend to colluding in, covering up, or ignoring sexual harassment or abuse.

The single most important gift a minister brings to her or his ministry is trust. Trust is conferred upon a minister at the time of ordination or commissioning. It is lent to a minister by the congregation at the time of pastoral appointment. It is earned by a minister over time through good pastoral practice. Our interview subjects put a high value on trust and saw it put at risk by sexual harassment and abuse and by churches that fail to act promptly upon allegations and by churches that fail to take appropriate precautions.

Churches are being challenged to create environments that offer more physical, emotional and spiritual safety than our society in general. They are also being challenged to change society to create these same safe environments everywhere.

We live in a sexist world that is unsafe for most women and some men. As I indicated earlier in this essay, women construct their ministry differently because of this reality. For a woman in ministry to construct her role in any other way (e.g. just like a man) would actually put her in harm’s way. In order for a woman to be engaged in good ministry she needs to do ministry differently from men.

Badgley, Robin F., Sexual Offences Against Children, Vol. 1: Report of the Committee on Sexual Offences Against Children and Youth, Ottawa: Canadian Government Publishing Centre, August, 1984.

Chang, Patricia M.Y., “Female clergy in the contemporary Protestant church: A current assessment,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 36(4): 565-593, December 1997

Fletcher-Marsh, Wendy. Like Water on a Rock, Guelph, ON: Artemis Enterprises, 2002

Fortune, Marie M. and James N. Poling, Sexual Abuse By Clergy: A Crisis for the Church, JPCP Monograph No. 6, Decatur, GA: Journal of Pastoral Care Publications, 1994

Gutek, Barbara A., Sex and the Workplace, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985

Lebacqz, Karen, Ron Barton, Sex in the Parish, Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1991

Lehman, Edward C. Jr., Women Clergy: Breaking Through Gender Barriers, New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1985

Marshall, Pat Freeman and Marthe Asselin Vaillancourt, Changing the Landscape: Ending Violence ~ Achieving Equality, Executive Summary, Ottawa: Ministry of Supply & Services Canada, 1993

Noyce, Gaylord, Pastoral Ethics: Professional Responsibilities of the Clergy, Nashville: Abingdon, 1988

Purvis, Sally B., The Stained Glass Ceiling: Churches and their Women Pastors, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995.

Swatos, William H. Jr. ed., Gender and Religion, New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1994

Zikmund, Barbara Brown, Adair T. Lumis, Patricia Mei Yin Chang , Clergy Women: An Uphill Calling, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.