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Sexual Abuse and the Christian Congregation: The Role of Gender in Pastoral Care for Victims

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Abstract

This study investigated the role of gender in the care for victims of sexual abuse within three Swedish Christian denominations. Questionnaires anchored by vignettes illustrating different abuse situations were answered by 421 clerics. The main findings were that female respondents apprehended the described situations as more likely to occur than male respondents did, and that levels of preparedness to offer pastoral care and belief in the likelihood of the situations to occur were higher when a female was the victim or a male was the perpetrator. Denominational differences were found concerning level of personal discomfort when hearing about the abuse.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Swedish Research Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 500, 405 30, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Lisa Rudolfsson, Inga Tidefors & Leif A. Strömwall

Authors
  1. Lisa Rudolfsson
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  2. Inga Tidefors
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  3. Leif A. Strömwall
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisa Rudolfsson.

Appendices

Appendix A

Example of a vignette presented in the questionnaire. (Numbers mark where the different vignettes diverged).

After a service conducted in Church a 23-year-old man1 tells you that for several years his2 father3 was sexually abusing him2. The abuse started when the man1 was 4 years old and ended when he4 was 15.

The abuse began with ordinary “fatherly hugs”5 that were gradually sexualized, and from the time the man1 was 6 years old he4 also performed oral sex on his2 father3.

The father3 got the man1 to “go along” with the abuse by implying that the sexual contact would make him2 [the father3] less unhappy. Being a child, the man1 was afraid to tell anyone out of fear for what would happen to his2 father3 if the abuse were known.

Today the man1 is pained over what happened, and he4 is struggling with existential questions related to the abuse. He4 therefore asks for individual pastoral care sessions.

1. /woman, 2. /her, 3. /mother, 4. /she, 5. /“motherly hugs”

Appendix B

Table 1 Descriptive statistics for the five dependent variables for each vignette by denomination and gender
Full size table

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Rudolfsson, L., Tidefors, I. & Strömwall, L.A. Sexual Abuse and the Christian Congregation: The Role of Gender in Pastoral Care for Victims. Pastoral Psychol 61, 375–388 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-011-0392-1

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