My Story of Sexual Harassment in a Christian Setting – Part I

Sexual harassment is a big issue within religious settings -I know, I have been personally harassed by more than one perverted “Christian” man, in my life, even in my own home, one night as I was leading a bible study.

I’ll never forget the night this one incident took place because my husband was out of town and I had to call him to tell him what happened. I was attending a pretty conservative church at the time, but the leadership, sadly, was relatively spineless. Unfortunately, I have found that there are many spineless men in Christian leadership and because of the poor leadership in this church, I had the total misfortune of being sexually harassed in my own home, by a perverted man, that the pastor and elders knew was a headcase. I’m trying to be polite…

But wait…you may be wondering why I’m writing about this now – well, it’s because of this article at Christianity Today called Sexual Misconduct at Church . Here’s the first paragraph of the article:

A new study of self-described “active Christian women” shows more than a quarter personally experienced sexually inappropriate behavior, and one fourth of those that experienced it said it happened in a church or ministry setting. The survey, based on answers given last fall by 779 American women to NationalChristianPoll.com, was designed to capture the range and extent to which women encounter unwelcome, gender-based behaviors by their male counterparts, either in the workplace or within a church or ministry setting. Commonly reported inappropriate behaviors include sexual advances, touching or sexual contact, suggestive jokes, glances with sexual overtones, and demeaning comments.

Back to my story…

So there I was, in my own home, and having a bible study on a Sunday evening, when out of no where this man started blurting out in front of everyone, that he would like to have sex with me. Gee, isn’t that special!

Well, he also made some other comments after that, which I don’t feel comfortable sharing, however, the thing that blew me away then, and even now, after all of these years (it’s been about 7 years) is that the men in the room said not a word. The room was silent as all get out.

So I shot one of the elders a look that said, “If you don’t get him out of here now, you’re going to have to stop me from smacking this man.” – Needless to say, one of the men stood up and took the man aside and gently reprimanded him.

Oh, and let me tell you that this man that made the comment was in his 70’s and pretty much fits the profile of your typical dirty man.

Well, a few days after that I had it out with the pastor and elders and told them that if it ever happened again that would be it, I’d have to take action. Because these men of God knew the type of head case this man was, and yet they did nothing to stop him from harassing people.

In fact, what is really outrageous about this situation in retrospect is that they let this guy get away with so many inappropriate things because “they didn’t want to hurt his feelings”, which is basically what it came down to. The other thing was that this man “couldn’t understand how off his behavior was”.

Well, rest assured men in church, a woman can tell who the slime are in churches. And they are there…in all of my years attending church, I have seen many. And it should not be that way, and yet it is.

So, have you ever been sexually harassed in a ministry setting? If so, leave me a comment or email me your story. I have one more story I will share later.