Church Abuse Statistics

"Any church leader who feeds themselves rather than feeding the sheep is a counterfeit shepherd.
Anyone in a position of power within the body of Christ
who abuses a lamb or hides the abuse
done to the one the Good Shepherd knows and calls by name
has profaned the name of our God."
Diane Langberg, PhD

ADULT CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE SURVEY

Over 7,000 claims of sexual abuse by church staff, congregation members, volunteers, or the clergy were made to just three insurance companies over a 20-year period (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2007). Recently, a study of over 300 alleged child sexual abuse cases in protestant Christian congregations found the overwhelming majority took place on church grounds, or at the offender’s home, most frequently carried out by Caucasian, male clergy or youth pastors (Denney, Kerley, & Gross, 2018).

More than 3% of women who had attended a congregation in the past month reported that they had been the object of CSM at some time in their adult lives; 92% of these sexual advances had been made in secret, not in open dating relationships; and 67% of the offenders were married to someone else at the time of the advance.

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In the average American congregation of 400 persons, with women representing, on average, 60% of the congregation, there are, on average of 7 women who have experienced clergy sexual misconduct.

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Of the entire sample, 8% report having known about CSM occurring in a congregation they have attended. Therefore, in the average American congregation of 400 congregants, there are, on average, 32 persons who have experienced CSM in their community of faith.

51% of pastors say that Internet pornography is a possible temptation for them Approximately
20% of the monthly calls to Focus on the Family’s Pastoral Ministries Division are because of sexual misconduct and pornography
More than 30% of pastors are functionally addicted to Internet pornography
More than 15% of pastors engage in sexual behavior that they consider inappropriate
10-14% of pastors have sexual contact with someone other than their spouse while employed as a minister

A survey of 6,000 United Methodists found: Half of all laywomen and one-third of laymen witness or are victims of some degree of sexual harassment or misconduct in their congregations, from inappropriate comments by the pastor or laity in leadership to physical assault and stalking.

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Clergy sexual misconduct with adults
is a huge problem,
prevalent across all denominations,
all religions,
all faith groups,
all across the country.

Rev. Pamela Cooper-White, former director of the Center for Women and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, and currently Ben G. and Nancye Clapp Gautier Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care, and Counseling at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, estimates that of the vast majority of victims of sexual exploitation by clergy, more than 95 percent, are women.

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One in 8 Protestant senior pastors say a church staff member has sexually harassed a member of the congregation at some point in the church’s history. One in 6 pastors say a staff member has been harassed in a church setting.

More pastors say they are addressing sexual and domestic violence from the pulpit. Still, half say they lack training in how to address sexual and domestic violence.

According to the late A. W. Richard Sipe, the sexual exploitation of women by priests is not uncommon. Other researchers have argued that misconduct by clerics toward women is even more prevalent than their sexual abuse of children. According to research cited in When Pastors Prey, a publication of the World Council of Churches, 90 to 95 percent of victims of clergy sexual exploitation are women. This book also cites a 1984 survey of clergy in various Protestant denominations that found that 39 percent admitted to having sexual contact with a congregant and 12.7 percent had had sexual intercourse with a congregant.

According to this article, there are 2.7 church shootings a year. There are an estimated 378,000 congregations in the United States, which means the likelihood of any congregation being involved in a shooting in any year is approximately one in 126,000 or 0.0000079 percent.

You are more likely to be abused
by someone in the church,
than your congregation
being involved in a shooting.

Joshua Peace says in this article, "Diagnosing the scope of the problem [sexual abuse in church] isn’t easy, because there’s no hard data. The most commonly referenced study shows how difficult it is to find accurate statistics. In that 2007 report, the three largest insurers of churches and Christian nonprofits said they received about 260 claims of sexual abuse against a minor each year. Those figures, though, exclude groups covered by other insurers, victims older than 18, people whose cases weren’t disclosed to insurance companies and the many who, like Denhollander, never came forward. In other words, the research doesn’t include what is certainly the vast majority of sexual abuse."

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There are studies that demonstrate that the faith community is even more vulnerable to abuse than secular environments. The Abel and Harlow study revealed that 93% of sex offenders describe themselves as “religious” and that this category of offender may be the most dangerous. Other studies have found that sexual abusers within faith communities have more victims and younger victims.

50% of pastors
admit to using pornography

and

37% report inappropriate sexual behavior
with someone in the church

40% of married pastors have
had an extramarital affair (clergy abuse)
while serving as a pastor

Abel Harlow Child Molestation Prevention Study:
This study found that pedophilia molesters average 12 child victims and 71 acts of molestation. An earlier study by Dr. Abel found that out of 561 sexual offenders there were over 291,000 incidents totaling over 195,000 total victims. These are enough victims to fill 2 ½ Superdomes! This same study found that only 3% of these sexual offenders have a chance of getting caught.

In her book, Dr. Anna Salter revealed that her own interviews of sexual offenders found them admitting to having perpetrated between 10 and 1250 victims. She also writes that every offender she interviewed had been previously reported by children, and the reports were ignored.

Study: Child Sexual Abuse in Protestant Christian Congregations Utilizing data from 326 cases of alleged child sexual abuse that occurred at or through activities provided by Protestant Christian congregations between 1982 & 2014.

The overwhelming majority of identified offenders were male. Specifically, male offenders were represented by 98.8%
Specifically, offender ages at the time of the alleged sexual abuse ranged from 18 to 88 years of age.
The overwhelming majority (80.1%) of offenders were employed in an official capacity within their respective churches with a substantial minority (19.9%) being volunteers. Pastor 34.9% - Youth Minister 31.4% - Youth Volunteer 8.3% - Associate Pastor 5.4% - Music Minister 4.8% - Volunteer 3.2% - Sunday School Teacher 2.9% - Deacon 2.2% - Church Member 2.2% - Church Camp Worker 0.6%. The most frequent male offender role was a Pastor at 34.9%
Five specific location-types of at the church, the offender’s home, off-site, off-site church-sponsored activity, and the victim’s home emerged.

An overwhelming majority of the pastors surveyed (75%) underestimate the level of violence experienced within their congregations.

Additionally, two out of three (66%) pastors speak once a year or less about the issue — and when they do speak out, the poll shows they may be providing support that does more harm than good.

And though 81% of pastors said they would take appropriate action to reduce sexual and domestic violence if they had the training and resources to do so, the "Broken Silence" report generated from this research highlights--at best--a significant blind spot within our churches in recognizing, responding to, and preventing gender-based sexual violence.

In 2015 the first national survey of adult survivors of clergy perpetrated sexual abuse was conducted (March-May 2015). 280 survivors participated in the study. We are so grateful to the courageous survivors who agreed to participate. This project was directed by David Pooler, Ph.D., LCSW. Below you will find a summary of some of the salient findings.

A 1984 Fuller Seminary survey of 1,200 ministers showed
1 in 5 theologically conservative pastors admitted to some sexual contact with a church member outside of marriage.
More than two-fifths of “moderate” pastors and half of “liberal” ones acknowledged the same.
A 1993 survey showed 6 percent of Southern Baptist pastors acknowledging
sexual contact outside of marriage with someone in the congregation.

Websites devoted to reporting about clergy sexual abuse of both children and adults.

The Wartburg Watch

Watchkeep

Stop Baptist Predators

No Eden Elsewhere

Bishop Accountability - Abuse Tracker

Baptist Accountability Database Site
A crowd-sourced database for Baptist predators and their enablers.

Other Important Articles

Crouching at Every Door
Sexual Abuse is a problem in both Catholic and Protestant churches --
Here are three environments in which Protestants are particularly vulnerable
by by Marvin Olasky, Sophia Lee, Emily Belz -- World Magazine

Child Sex Abusers in Prominent Christian Churches: An Offender Typoligy