Tough love for the insidious insider

What to do about sex offenders?

Alex* was an enthusiastic junior soldier, a happy-go-lucky kid who was heavily involved in his local corps. That seems so long ago.

Today you’ll find him under a footbridge in the inner-city, slowly pickling his brain as he ingests solvents from a plastic bag. He says that it helps take away the pain, the shameful feelings.

Alex says he was sexually abused by a local officer; a man admired by the congregation and someone he once trusted with his young, impressionable life. Alex’s love of Jesus, his musical abilities and dreams for the future were all shattered over a period of sustained and accelerated abuse.

It would be naïve not to accept that there may be sexual offenders in some Salvation Army congregations today. The question is how do we deal with both them and their victims in an attitude of Christian compassion and forgiveness, while protecting “the innocents” and keeping our church safe for all?

The apostle Paul was very clear in his first letter to the Corinthians (chapter five), saying “You must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral… with such a man do not even eat… expel the wicked man from among you”.

These are direct, harsh words. But perhaps they indicate Paul’s understanding of the seriousness of sins of this kind, and the degree of collateral damage that results from inadequately dealing with an insidious insider. (It’s important to note that in specifically talking about a “brother” Paul doesn’t let us off the hook in our need to love the vilest sinner).

Sexual sin has a caustic, ripple effect that reverberates across churches, families and generations. This behaviour is often sinister in nature and can take place during an extended period of time and more often than not with a number of victims.

“Oh mate, I just love churches, been around ‘em all me life. Churches and caravan parks (trailer parks) are my most successful hunting grounds. It’s just so darn easy to get people to trust ya and to leave their kids with ya”.

I recently spent several hours interviewing one of my state’s most notorious pedophiles who is currently behind bars. He said he will often spend months, or even years, “grooming” his victims in a church setting, creating false trust; just waiting for the most appropriate moment of vulnerability.
Sex offenders have serious physical, psychological and spiritual problems that need to be dealt with on many levels before they can be allowed to join or rejoin our congregations. The spiritual and psychological welfare of victims also needs careful consideration.

In the past there have been unfortunate situations where kids such as Alex * were not believed, especially when the perpetrator held a position of authority. These victims were ostracised and often descended into depression or, at the very least, extreme bitterness and confusion.

Psychologists report that if victims of sexual abuse are not adequately counselled the problem can be “buried alive” where it will fester and can eventually become toxic. Marriage counsellors note that many Christian marriages have been shattered by unresolved sexual abuse issues, stemming from many years ago. Some memories have been so deeply buried that they are not even present in the conscious mind but manifest themselves in aberrant behaviour.

Though we believe that Jesus can cleanse us from all unrighteousness, the main reason for caution in dealing with past sexual offenders is the high rate of re-offence. In some areas of Australia it is as high as 70 %, but it is generally at a rate of around 40 %. These figures indicate a deep-seated problem that, for many offenders, becomes an established pattern of dangerous behaviours and addictions.
I have been a part of a church that dealt with a sex offender in the way Paul prescribed. I have also been associated with others where the whole thing was “swept under the carpet”.

In the first situation the person was immediately stood aside. Both he and the victims were prayerfully dealt with and thoroughly counselled. It was painful and embarrassing at the time, but years later everything is well and truly resolved. The offender was genuinely contrite and sought forgiveness. Everyone concerned has gotten on with their lives and worship.

In the latter scenario victims were not counselled or even interviewed. Perpetrators remained part of the congregation without remorse or confession, to the point of adopting the mantle of “victim” (which has been allowed to happen far too often). Long inaction by the church resulted in pews littered with resentful, angry and frustrated people, some of whom eventually fell away from the fellowship.

Unfortunately, the offenders concerned went on to commit additional, more serious episodes of sexual offence both inside and outside the church. More people were hurt and criminal charges were eventually laid and the perpetrators eventually convicted. Perhaps if the situation had been dealt with properly in the first place, the offenders may have confronted their problem and dealt with it.

Thankfully both society and The Salvation Army are aware of the mistakes of the past. Victims are now actively encouraged to come forward and the accused is asked to stand aside while complaints are thoroughly investigated.

In recent years the Army has widely publicised its desire to actively assist people who have been past victims of sexual abuse. These days we also take care to run police checks on employees and volunteers working with young people. No system is foolproof but this goes a significant way to helping prevent sexual abuse, by putting the emphasis well and truly on the protection of the innocents.

Dealing with a sex offender in our congregation is probably the most complicated and politically dangerous area for our officers and locals; it is something that needs to be approached carefully and prayerfully.

But too many lives have been broken in the past, and too many spiritual experiences compromised, as a result of the disgraceful actions of a few.

* Not his real name.

2 Comments to Tough love for the insidious insider

1. Hi Bruce,

   Thanks for posting such a ‘difficult’ topic. It’s very important to acknowledge this.

   I do think the ‘Army, and the church universal has a long way to go in this regard.

   I remember one corps I was CO of (not that long ago), where there was a similar situation to that you described. The victim came forward as an adult, laid charges etc. The local officer involved was ‘controversially’ stood aside (I say controversially because he was a personal friend of the DC and the DC vehmently opposed the action of standing him aside). During the trial, the DC vonlunteered as a character witness for the accused, and testified how he did not believe such a wonderful man of God could do such a thing. The judge said in his summation, that it was the testimony of the DC that led to a verdict of Not Guilty. I counted close to 50 people who had independently claimed to be victims of this person, but who refused to press charges as they didn’t want to relive it (I have no idea how many others haven’t come forward). Bear in mind, that statistics show that approximately at most, only about 5-10% (depending on the surveys) of court cases against peodaphiles ever result in a conviction in Australia. I believe the stats are similar in other countries.

   The difficulty with this whole area is the realisation that most (if not all) perpetrators, were victims themselves of childhood sexual abuse. That’s not to say that all victims of abuse become perpetrators, but most perpetrators were victims. Counselling of the perpetrator can only be effective when that situation is dealt with.

   One theory regarding perpetrators is that they are subconsciously trying to ‘recapture’ the innocence that was stolen from them. Particularly when one notices that the majority of perpetrators focus on a particular age - usually around the age they were when they were sexualised. On certain basic levels, psychologically speaking, a desire to have ’sex’ with someone is an expressed desire to ‘have something which that person has’. So, dreams or desires to have sex with a strong person is to desire their strength. Desires to have sex with an ‘innocent’ is to desire their innocense as they perceive they never had any as it was ’stollen from them’.

   It is a minefield. And I don’t fully know what the answer is. Having dealt with for a number of years (and still come in contact with) both child victims and perpetrators, I have deep compassion for both, and want to lovingly embrace both, as in many cases, they are both the same. How do we deal with it? They can’t both stay in the same congregation, that’s for sure. Perhaps we need rehab centres for such people? The corps I referred to had a systemic problem with this. I looked out over the congregation one morning after being there a while, and having conducted pastoral visits with them all, and realised that on one side of the congregation sat all the perpetrators of sexual abuse (some had been accused, some had been convicted, some were neither charged nor convicted, but had perpetrated), and on the other side sat victims of sexual abuse. The horifying thing to me was that both sides recognised each other. It almost stoped me dead in mid sentence during my sermon. I fumbled a bit to regain my place.

   But what to do?

   Yours in Christ,
   Graeme.
Graeme Randall on June 11th, 2009

2. Thanks Graeme.

   You had a seriously colourful career as an officer didn’t you? Certainly not boring, but not exactly recruiting poster material either.

   I am appalled at the actions of that DC you mentioned and he’ll be called to account on that as will be many in my stories - these people do not think of the consequences of their foolish actions. The small number of us that stood up for the truth in our case were ostracised to such an extent that we had to hide out in another denomination for a while for even daring to call people into question. Some have left church altogether, others seeth in the pews.

   I acknowledge your analysis on the psychological profile of sex offenders (particularly pedophiles) and your compassion for offenders as well as survivors but it is still not an excuse for such abhorent behaviour. With the amount of child pornography sludging through the gutters of the internet I have serious concerns for the future in this regard.

   The idea of rehab is interesting and it will probably come to that eventually but I can’t wait to hear the NIMBY’s on that one (especially when it’s getting harder and harder to open new rehab centes or even drop-in centres).

   Thanks for your stimulating contribution.
Bruce Redman on June 12th, 2009

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