S5:E6 - Abuse in the Church: The Role of Sex and Power - with Marie Giffith, PhD

Marie Griffith, PhD, John C. Danforth Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis. She served for 12 years (2011-2023) as the director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics and the editor of the Center’s journal, Religion & Politics. Her research focuses on American Christianity, including the changing profile of American evangelicals and ongoing conflicts over gender, sexuality, and marriage. Author of several books, including Moral Combat: How Sex Divided America and Fractured American Politics, the book discussed in this episode.

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Transcript is unedited for typos or misspellings

[00:00:00] I'm Katherine Spearing, and this is Uncertain. Hello. How are you? How are you hanging in there? I hope you're doing okay. I'm doing semi okay. It's been a lot inundation with this very real, very damaging type of abuse. One thing that you may or may not know is folks who have experienced spiritual abuse and folks who have experienced sexual abuse.

They're very similar to each other. Spiritual abuse and sexual abuse are very, very similar. The impact is very, very similar because it is so, so vulnerable. You are so vulnerable when this happens and it violates our intimacy and it violates our very souls in a way that maybe other abuse doesn't. So if you are traumatized.

By the abuse that you experienced in a church [00:01:00] or a high control environment or religious environments in your family. There's a reason for that. It makes a lot of sense. It's very, very serious trauma. So one of the things that we discussed in this episode is how the folks who. experience sexual abuse when they go to the religious institution where they experience that abuse and say, Hey, help me, this happened, this was awful, please help me.

When they get dismissed or falsely accused or sidelined or silenced, that that is sometimes worse than the sexual abuse that they experienced in that institution. This episode is with Marie Griffith. She is the author of Moral Combat, How Sex Divided America and Fractured American Politics. It's an intense book.

A lot of research went into this book. She's also a scholar [00:02:00] and a professor of religion at Washington University. And one of the things we will also discuss in this episode is how she literally taught a class on abuse in the church in a secular university. What? Crazy, crazy, crazy. Great conversation, lots of mind blowing moments about the connection between sex and sexual abuse and the rampant abuse that is happening in the evangelical church right now.

Enjoy, or don't enjoy, but take it in for sure. And as always, take care of yourself, get some rest, give yourself some time after this episode to go for a walk, take a sip of water, breathe. You're okay, wherever you are, you are okay, take a deep breath, you are safe, you are here, you are now, you are present, you're going to be okay.[00:03:00]

Here is my interview with Marie Griffith.

Katherine: Hi, Catherine. Oh, how are you? How are you? And I have your big book here. This was a lot of work. She took this.

Marie: And that was like I don't even want to tell you how many years. I mean, it was really sort of 15 years. I did other things as I was doing that,

Katherine: but yeah. Yeah, just like the amount of research that went into just like one chapter I was like, this was a very large endeavor. But how are you this morning? How are you doing? How is your writing? Is it like a writing sabbatical? Is that kind of what this season is called?

Marie: Yeah, I'm on, I'm on research leave. You know, it's just a standard leave that scholars get every few years. So but yeah, it's focused on working on this book about sexual clergy, sexual

Katherine: abuse. Oh, my gosh. Did I know that? Did you tell me about that? I don't know if I knew from

Marie: that [00:04:00] I had taught that course on the abuse crisis in modern Christianity.

And so the reason I taught the course was because I started doing research on clergy sexual abuse in both the U. S. Catholic Church And evangelical groups, particularly the Southern Baptist Convention, although not only

Katherine: the Southern. Okay. I don't know if I knew that the book itself was about clergy sexual abuse.

So I definitely want to hear so much about that. Really excited to talk to you. I'm just like, as I'm like reading this book, I'm like, okay. We just need to be friends because I like everything that you research and everything that you're, I'm like, it's all like stuff that I'm like thinking about constantly.

And then just like even reading your book. And then when Megan told me that she literally had a class on like abuse that is happening in the church, I was like. Wait, who, like, led this? Whose idea was it to have this class? Like, tell me, tell me so much more. And so that's why I was, like, very [00:05:00] interested to talk to you.

And so I would just love to hear very just to start how you got into doing what you're doing and how this became important to you.

Marie: Sure, sure. Yeah. And thank you so much. I really love your podcast and admire the work that you do too, Catherine. So thank you. Well, I am from Chattanooga, Tennessee originally.

I was raised Southern Baptist. I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. So as you may know, that was a time of just tremendous change in the culture, but also for Southern Baptists in particular, and within evangelical Protestantism more generally. The church I grew up in was a really, I thought of it as just a very kind of, you know, ordinary.

Church, it was 1st Baptist Church Chattanooga, you know, the kind of flagship Southern Baptist Church of the city. But the, the kind of tensions in the Southern Baptist Convention. Between, [00:06:00] you know, for shorthand, let's say the fundamentalist and the moderates, because that's, you know, what they called each other, at least at the time was really strong.

And my mother was the pastor's secretary over a number of years, and she cared deeply about these issues. My dad was the deacon chair for a number of years. So this was dinner table conversation. What was happening within the denomination and. My parents were both moderates. And so I kind of heard that side of it.

And it was really painful. A lot of the pastors that I had that worked at our church felt very betrayed by things that happened, convention politics and all of that. And when I left for college, I thought I left it all behind. I mean, it was really painful enough that I just turned my back on a lot of that.

But I found myself studying religion and really sort of wondering how all of that came to be. So in some ways, I mean, I think that has, explains a lot about my career, why I became a [00:07:00] scholar of American religion. I've focused on evangelicals. I focused on women. I focused on debates over women's roles, sexuality, and sex.

And now clergy sexual abuse. So it really is. There's a personal story behind that, as I think it is for so many scholars.

Katherine: Absolutely. And then have you been able to trace? So you're working on a book right now about clergy sexual abuse. And then your book that I was reading before we interviewed.

Moral combat. The subtitle is how sex divided American Christians and fractured American politics. Have you been able to trace? The link from this divide to clergy sexual abuse, is that pretty, a pretty clear link for

you?

Marie: I think so. And, you know, I, critics may argue with me, and they have every right to argue with me, but what I see from the sources, the [00:08:00] long historical sources that I've looked at over many archives that really begin in the really the late 19th century, but certainly by the 1920s and the birth control movement has been a real power struggle within American Christianity, Catholicism as well as, as, as Protestantism, I should say over leadership, over theology, and maybe more than anything else over the appropriate role of women and, and how to think about gender, how God created men and women.

and what their appropriate roles are supposed to be. I think we can see that debate starting with The birth control movement, really going back before that, but my book started with the birth control movement, moving through debates over literary censorship sex education in the public schools, homosexuality, same sex rights, abortion, reproductive rights, sort of all the way through.

And so, you know, that's, that's an [00:09:00] oversimplification to some degree, but I do think that those wars over sex. over gender, over, over women and, and women's roles in the public sphere and in the family explain an awful lot of our conflicts culture wars conflicts as they are. And, and I do think that's what's led us to the current moment and the, the real fervor over clergy sexual abuse.

Katherine: Yeah, and just all of it packaged together when you, and when you put sex sexual abuse itself, and you, and you realize that sexual abuse itself is really not about sex, it is about power, and you, and you see the power dynamic happening in these debates, and like, it's about who's going to get it. To be in charge, basically and, and then you add that in with this dynamic of sexual abuse happening and like less about just [00:10:00] urges that need to be fulfilled, but more about like who gets to be in charge and who gets to have a say and who gets to decide.

It makes so much more sense through that lens than just like. Sex addiction which is what it sometimes gets boiled down to, but it's, but that's, it's way more than that one. It's something this rampant. And so I see the connection. And it's, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty clear to me. But I would love to hear So you taught a class and what was the class called?

Can you confirm the name of

Marie: that? Sure. Yeah. The class was called the abuse crisis in modern Christianity.

Katherine: Okay. And what led you to teaching that class? And then what were, what were the, the, what was the process of getting that class to

Marie: be taught? Yeah, yeah, no, and it's maybe my favorite class I've ever taught, so I just want to say that at the outset, which sounds strange [00:11:00] because it was also the most painful class I've ever taught, the most difficult class I've ever taught.

You know, you all, this sort of Me Too, Church Too movement that's been so extraordinarily important over the last, seven or eight, 10 years, again, going longer than that, even, but really these this past decade. I have so many undergraduate students who have come to me with stories of sexual assault or sexual abuse, and I realize it's something that college students are grappling with.

All the time. But there are, at least in the institutions where I've taught, there are almost no classes, you know, that address that it's it's sort of we're expecting our student life personnel and our R. A. S. And people who aren't even trained in some cases to kind of be the ones to manage. sex on campus or the sexual lives of our students.

And so, and as I was doing the research on clergy sexual [00:12:00] abuse and just realizing how rampant some of this has long been and still is, it felt like something that I thought students would take a real interest in. So I taught the course, I put it on the books for fall of 2022. I limited it at first to 15 students and I immediately, when registration opened, it immediately filled up and I had.

double that number of students on the wait list. And so I wound up with about

30 students that, that were there off all undergrad, except for one graduate student. And that was, that was Megan.

Katherine: And then and so you didn't have any trouble like hot, like saying, Hey, I want to offer this class. Was that something that you did you have any hurdles with the institution offering the class?

Marie: Well, that's that's a very good question. You're the first person to ask me that. As it happened, I was at the time the director of the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, which is our unit. And [00:13:00] so I was able to just offer the class and it really didn't go through any kind of

Katherine: formal approach.

I could do whatever I want.

Marie: if I teach the course again, which I definitely plan on doing, it's possible that I would get some pushback. But the course really it was, it got very high course evaluations. I think the students were saying, these are conversations we all need to be having, and we're so thankful to be having it.

So I think I would be able to make the argument that this is an important course

Katherine: to keep on the books. Absolutely. And then you had, I know that Megan had mentioned I think like a former nun and like a former prosecutor that you had in. Was it more of a like a, a workshop style, lecture style, or was it more like you teaching and then you would occasionally have people come in?

Marie: Yeah. Well, the course met twice a week for an hour and 20 minutes, and I did very little lecturing. I mean, I would set out the context, you know, for a short period [00:14:00] at the beginning. But as you say, I brought in a lot of experts. I brought in lawyer, a lawyer who has prosecuted these cases and worked a lot with sexual abuse survivors.

I brought in Catholic survivors. I brought in a Catholic survivor who is now working for the Catholic church on prevention programs. You know, and has very much considers himself a devout Catholic still archivist, just a whole range of different types of people. We talked to journalists. I just wanted them to really see Things from a wide range of perspectives.

I will say that when I started the course, most of my research until then had focused on the Catholic Church. So it was maybe overly focused on Catholicism. And I wish I had had time to do more. with evangelicals, with Mormons their orthodox Jewish cases and coverups of sexual abuse. Muslim communities in [00:15:00] the U.

S. have grappled with this. So, you know, it's almost an overwhelming amount of material and WashU is a very multicultural, multi religious university. So, you know, I think covering these power dynamics, as you say, this is not just about sex, it's really about power and gender. Covering these across different religious traditions, I think is a really important,

Katherine: you know, thing to do.

Absolutely. And I still think that the Catholic church is the most well known. I was at a, I was at a class. Sunday night and I had your book with me to just like read while when there was like not stuff going on or while I was like waiting for people and and somebody was like, Oh, what's, what's that book about?

And so I like, I talked a little bit about the book and then said, I was interviewing someone who taught a class and abuse in the church. And they were like, Oh, like the Catholic church. And I was like, well, I was like actually like I focus on like the evangelical church. And the person that I was talking to you was actually someone who like attends.

Church [00:16:00] and and so it was almost like they just like had no idea that that, but that was like happening within the actual like regular everyday evangelical churches, I think a lot of evangelicals will still try to like, think, oh, that's a Catholic church problem and that happened over there in the Catholic Church, when it is.

very rampant in the evangelical church across every denomination. Like I haven't, I have not met or encountered the denomination yet. That was like, Oh no, we're good. We don't have that. That doesn't, that doesn't happen. And so I'm really, really grateful that you were teaching that class and just like thinking of the students that got to be in there and be a part of it.

And I got to have that conversation. I'm just like. Woo, would I, would I love, you know, I went to seminary and I'm like for grad school and I'm like, would I have loved to have a class like that in seminary? Yes, but they're not going to have that kind of class in seminary. Like critiquing the church that they're like creating ministers for.

[00:17:00] And, and someone asked me that the other day of like, did you ever have a class on like abuse in the church? And did anyone ever talk about like clergy abuse or spiritual abuse or anything in seminary? I was like, no. It was like it did not exist. It was like that didn't happen at all.

Marie: Well, I think, I think you're absolutely right.

I am hopeful. I feel like in a lot of the conversations that I'm having now, and I, you know, I'm doing interviews with survivors, but also with. Pastors with people working for the church, developing curricula and training programs, you know, for pastors in seminary. I mean, I actually feel some hope that there's so much energy around bringing some of that knowledge into the seminary classroom requiring.

No, in some way, either at the local church level or at seminary. Now it's difficult because as you know, church autonomy is a hugely important principle for groups like Baptists [00:18:00] and other, a lot of other evangelical groups. And so requiring a church. To have a training or requiring certain courses, even in seminary is it's it's hard.

And I think a lot of these denominations right now are debating this issue. But still, I think people realize more and more. I mean, the Southern Davis Convention has had Terrible PR over the last several years around its own cover ups of sexual abuse. It's starting to look as bad as the Catholic Church's cover up, right?

And so I think Southern Baptist leaders I've talked to, they know they've got to do something. And not just for optics, they've really got to do something, you know big to, to bring knowledge to this issue. So I am hopeful that some of that, what you didn't have in seminary You know, the next generation is going to have some version of

Katherine: it, at least.

Absolutely. Yeah. Cause I just, I mean, you can't ignore it at this point. It's, it's everywhere. It is everywhere. What was the response? [00:19:00] So you said that you got a really good response from your students in terms of just like evaluations at the end. What was some of like the personal response of students within the class?

Marie: Yeah, and I want to say, you know, I gave a lot of trigger warnings at the outset. In the course description, I said, if this is a personal issue for you, Really think hard before you take this class, but come talk to me and I can help you find resources if you want to find resources, but I warned people we're going to read graphic, you know, accounts of sexual abuse.

It's hard, even for those of us who are not survivors and I do not consider myself a survivor. It's still it's grueling. It's wrenching it. Keeps you up at night when you read the stuff. So I, I really warned students and I warned them on the first day of class and, and all of that nonetheless, you know, kind of midway through, I knew that I had three or four students who were struggling they [00:20:00] were not getting their work in, you know, I reached out to them and they admitted to me, like this was bringing stuff up for them.

So I found myself just saying, don't worry about deadlines. Like take care of yourself, you know, and I told students in class if you need to take a break when we're in class, you know, I've never said this in any other class, but I'm going to tell you now you can walk out and walk around and get a drink of water and come back when you can.

And I'm not going to penalize you for that. I, you know, your mental health. is most important here and come talk to me. So students expressed appreciation, you know, in their evaluations that I had been flexible about that as I think anyone should be. One suggestion they did have for me about changing in the future is that my very first minister probably should have been a counselor, probably should have been someone who could come in and talk about trauma and not just the trauma that abuse survivors that we're reading about have suffered, but trauma that you might feel.

You know, absorbing [00:21:00] these stories. And so I take that to heart. And I think when I teach the class again, I teach the class again that I'm going to do that first and make sure that I've got better supports set up for students. If, if the, the sort of secondary trauma or tertiary trauma of reading and absorbing all of this gets

Katherine: to be too much.

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I can imagine that that would be, that would be. A great idea. To start it out that way. What were some of the people that you brought in, was there someone that like really stood out to you that a story that they told really resonated with you?

Marie: Yeah. Well, you know, they, they all stand out for me, but I'll just tell a couple of stories that I think the students found particularly meaningful. And I should say again, to go back to the personal and the student said, it wasn't just hard for them. You know, they loved the class.

They loved getting to think about this and process this. And I think they all. felt that this would really shape them going forward. Help [00:22:00] them be better friends and, and helpers of other people who've gone through trauma. You know, I think for a lot of us who aren't survivors, we don't realize how deep the trauma goes until you read and learn.

You've got to be educated about that. And I think these guests really helped do that. So I had guests two of the guests have been. Leaders in an organization called snap the survivors network of those abused by priests, which was founded primarily as a Catholic organization for Catholic survivors of clergy abuse, and they really went back into first kind of realizing that the abuse that they had experienced, trying to tell going to church authorities and having in their cases door slammed against them over and over again.

And that the trauma of that was worse than the original sexual abuse itself. Right. I'm sure you hear this over and over again. Very

Katherine: common. Very common. [00:23:00]

Marie: And I think for students to hear their story, but also, you know, they helped create SNAP. They've been public spokespeople across the country. They have helped so many people, so many victims.

And, you know, I think educated so many of us who are not victims. about this, that the students found them really inspiring. That was, that was really great. And David Clossie, who was the longtime leader of the SNAP, I'm just lucky because he lives here in St. Louis. And so he was able to visit our class in person along with Barb Doris who was also a SNAP leader, but he's a very emotional person still.

And he cries a lot and he'll tell you that. So he'll tell stories and he is, his emotions are right there. But he has also processed it. He has sort of come out on top of it and he's just a really inspiring figure. So students really loved hearing from him. Another standout, I'll just mention just one more.

We had a local lawyer and I won't mention her [00:24:00] name because she's really had a tough time. She has worked on a lot of different clergy, sexual abuse cases in the states of Illinois and Missouri primarily, and the laws here. are really, really tough. I would say they are stacked against victims in a lot of very concrete ways.

And she talked to us about that and really educated us about the law. And it got so bad for her that after 25, 30 years or so of practicing and working in that area, she just was burned out. She realized that she She could even be a suicide risk after all that she had to leave. And so she went and is now in a completely different field of law.

And the students were really, I think, moved by her. Some of my students want to go to law school. They want to work in that area, but they also recognized, you know, what she had to say about the toll that this can take on people. Who really try to find justice for survivors, because it's a lot [00:25:00] harder in some states than others, but it's hard everywhere.

Yeah.

Katherine: You know? Yeah. It's just, yeah. It really, the justice system doesn't work in favor of of someone coming forward and saying, this happened. Especially if there's, if there's not like, Capturing physical evidence of something like that is just not easy. If it if it even is possible. Yeah, that is, that is really really incredible.

Did you have anything else to say about the class and then I would love to just talk a little bit about book.

Marie: . No, I would just say that I would encourage if anybody is interested in thinking about teaching a class like this for undergrads, for grad students, seminary students, feel free to contact me, rmg567 at gmail.

com. And also I'll just say, I'm still, you know, interviewing survivors and people and would love to hear from folks, but I would just really encourage people to consider doing it. I think. Think it's a very, I, I'm so glad that I was able to do it, [00:26:00] and I will keep teaching that class until I can't teach anymore in retirement.

Katherine: Oh, I'm so glad. I'm really, really glad that there are dozens and dozens of more students who are going to get that class so I'm really glad to hear that. So switching to talking about this book, Moral Combat that I mentioned.

Earlier, the subtitle has sex divided American Christians and fractured American politics. And then I want to hear about a little more about the current book that you're working on as well. But my main question about this book is why sex? Why is sex such a big deal? What is it about sex that is making it this thing that divides people?

Marie: Catherine, that is the question. That is absolutely the question. That's really the question that sent me on the journey to write this. And I don't know if even now I have an answer to it. And really, I came to it thinking like, you know, sex is not a big [00:27:00] topic in the New Testament. It's really not compared to caring for the poor.

Caring for the poor, caring for people, helping the world, helping those in need, visiting the prisoner, feeding the hungry. Those are the themes, right? Those are the crucial, crucial themes. They're not the only themes, but that, to me, is so obviously the core that Jesus taught, that that should be the obsession.

And it's not. It's, it's not, it's not to say churches don't care about those things, of course they do. Catholic, Protestant, they all care about those things, but the thing that has seemed to be the obsession is around disciplining people for their sexual behavior. And that just struck me and, and it was true in my Southern Baptist upbringing.

I mean, that was just like, you know, a very strong theme in life generally. So I think I've always wondered. Why is something like [00:28:00] that so important? And you know, it's partly, I mean, our sexuality goes to the core of who we are, right? In every aspect of our lives. And if we wanna discipline people into being certain kinds of people, that's sort of a really key area.

You know, that, that the rules need to be sort of upheld and abided by. But to me, I honestly feel and I know a lot of folks would disagree with me on this, but I think a lot of Christian leaders have really gone way beyond anything, you know, biblical to create systems and structures and rules. That, that weren't really of, of great interest or concern to Jesus or to to any of these early teachers.

The early church fathers, you know, once Jesus is dead and Paul's dead and the kind of church is sort of coming into being in the early centuries, those leaders carried up, cared a lot about sex and disciplining the flesh and celibacy of [00:29:00] course, and, and thought the body was evil and thought sexuality was sort of this evil demonic force.

That's kind of where a lot of this influence comes from. If, if you, if you're more interested in going back to a biblical view of Christianity, I just think a lot has been invented, has been weaponized, has been interpreted a specific way to make sex more important than it, than it really ought to be for, for Christian for Christians generally.

Would

Katherine: you say if... If it's about power, let's just theorize that it's about power. Is there a possibility that sex is just an easy thing to control? And it's more just like open and, you know, like, you can hide it but like something like, attracted to the same sex and you want to have that kind of relationship or, or like that physical act of Being with someone and having [00:30:00] intercourse and like, like those are just like physical things and it's just like an easier thing to control and because it's more like out there could that be a reason why this is the thing if it's about power?

I don't know.

Marie: No, I think that's definitely part of it. And of course, sex is tied to reproduction, too, right? So it's not just about sexual behavior. It's about, you know, women bearing children and whose children will they be bearing. So, you know, we know that in cultures all across time and place that we've been able to study, sex is also very important in societies.

It's not just Christians who have made sex important. So I want to be clear about that. And part of that is because it is still, in many cases, about power. Men want to know that the children their wives are bearing are their children. Like, that's, that's one thing that anthropologists have, have a lot of times talked about.

Kinship relations and, you know, these kinds of things. So, sex has been important in part because it is... [00:31:00] deeply tied up in in reproduction. And, and I think our reproductive politics today, a lot of the, you know, the, the refusal to see that the way to reduce the abortion rate is to make contraception more available to prevent problem pregnancies and unwanted pregnancies.

But you don't see this huge push on the part of Christians, mostly. To provide free birth control and to make sure that there's sex education in the public schools of a certain kind, those issues often, you know, are still kind of, you know, forbidden and go with anti abortion politics. So I think the reproduction part is really a key part of this, but, but yes, I think it is also about power and.

restricting women's movements, restricting you know, this huge portion of their lives and, and, and making a certain model of marriage, you know, seem like the norm, seem like the God ordained norm. There's one norm for marriage and, and that's [00:32:00] it. And you know, really, I think there's had to be a lot of.

Inventiveness to make that seem like, you know, something that God so deeply cared about right,

Katherine: right, right. So would you say that aside from it being a sex thing, that it really is a gendered thing? I know you had mentioned that earlier and like more about dare we say it's control of women and it's not just about.

celibacy and like purity. It's really about the purity of women. Oh

Marie: yeah. I, I, I think the sources bear that out very, very clearly that the, you know, the, the sort of purity obsession has always been the purity of women. It's not to say men's purity hasn't been talked about and emphasized to a degree, but men have been far less punished for sex outside of marriage and sometimes not punished at all compared to the, the sort of discipline.

of women for, for, for that. So [00:33:00] I think it's very much about gender. The book, Moral Combat, you may remember, you know, I start the book with the suffrage movement, the women's suffrage movement, because that, to me, in some ways, is, is one of the, the kind of, of the core culture war issue we we almost think now so women got the right to vote in 1920, of course, and we kind of think of that as like, Okay, well, that happened and then everything you know, everybody accepted that.

But in fact, there was so much energy against allowing women to vote, you know, it was very close that the, you know, the states had to ratify, you know, this amendment Tennessee my home state was the final one to ratify it. I'm proud to say. My grandmother was a suffragist who, who marched for that, but it wasn't easy.

And the animus against women voting or women having something like equal rights, at least in that one sphere, you know, that animus didn't go away. And so I think a lot of what [00:34:00] you see in these later movements against birth control. Against homosexuality, against sex education, against reproductive rights.

The roots are there in the anti suffrage movement. So it's very much about women, about a desire for women to stay in their place. And let me say clearly, it's not just men who have wanted that. I don't write this as a men against women yeah.

just as many women are invested in that kind of patriarchal hierarchical system because they benefit from it in some way economically, socially. And so patriarchy, or I want to say misogyny, these are systems held up, I think equally by men and women in many, many cases. And and that's a crucial part of the story that we also sometimes I think tend to forget.

Katherine: Yeah. And I think it's a, it's harder. , I would just say from just like [00:35:00] purely from a personal personal perspective to see women fighting so hard for these things. And when I see women upholding it and defending it just it feels very different and it lands very different than like a man.

Upholding it and and defending it as well. But it's also true. It's also very, very true. And, and I, and I learned that very quickly working in and very patriarchal spaces that just because there was a woman in the room didn't make it safer and didn't necessarily mean that women were actually respected in that space.

, and yeah, absolutely. And then I don't remember the name of the person, but the person that was fighting for Susan's Someone maybe fighting for contraception and like the main argument was that it was gonna allow women to be loose and, and have sex with anyone they wanted. And, and she was just like, give us a, give us a break.

Maybe we just like, just want to have freedom. Maybe that, [00:36:00] maybe that's what it, maybe it has nothing to do with promiscuity and just like, just like that being the argument, like, and that is. It's still the argument and that's why I like the church isn't, you know, pushing contraception and making contraception available as a, as a potential solution to mitigating abortion is because it's, it's that same thing, like present day, that same argument is just going to give them license.

Yet we're not talking about that for men, like men who don't have to most of the time. deal with a fear of getting pregnant. Like that's not something that men have to carry. So we're not worried about them. We're not worried about it in that, in that context. And so, oh my gosh, there's so many, so many things.

Is there anything else you want to say about that? And then I'd, I'd love to hear about your, your latest that you're working on now.

Marie: Sure. I think you're right. I mean, just. stress. I think what [00:37:00] you're saying is we're still having the same debates that we were having in the 1920s.

It's a maybe a modernized version of it. But I do think our contemporary debates over abortion and and even to some degree, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, you know, I write about Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas and also about Paula Jones and Bill Clinton, the kind of sexual harassment wars of the 1990s, some of which has been a little bit Thank forgotten.

Those were really critical to because it was about how are women treated in the workplace and what is okay and what is not okay. And it's shocking to think what we used to tolerate. You know what? I mean, my mother, who's now in her eighties, she'll tell me what she tolerated as a secretary, you know, in the 19 sixties and seventies and in the church.

Well, yes, in the church and outside the church, both the kind of soft sexism that we all accepted. Not so soft sometimes. So anyway, I would just say that I do think we learn a lot from history [00:38:00] and that reading up on these earlier debates, I think really sheds important light. On the kinds of arguments that we're still having now, both within the church and within our larger culture.

Yeah,

Katherine: and then just like the context of history about just like history just like repeats itself and then repeats itself and repeats itself and, and it's typically about one group of people or one set of people wanting to be in charge, and in America, it's about like the religious right. It seems wielding Christianity and this war for morality as the way to have power and be in charge and just even just thinking about like very recent election and political figures who, who didn't give a shit about, actual Christianity.

They just got people. You know, whipped up into a frenzy and made them fearful of, , the trans, the trans [00:39:00] agenda, the figurative trans agenda. And before that it was the gay agenda, and then the feminists, and the feminists are after your children, and and then, and then now, like, making abortion the thing and it's about, like, saving children, but it's not about saving children, it's about this, like, control thing and so that to me is, I mean, just intersects with my work, and is, is pretty scary to me that this, And there was kind of just this out of body experience a little bit just like reading the book and thinking about that and then I'll have those moments at times of like, this was the sect, and I came from a very fundamentalist world that was, was very militant in fighting abortion and getting, you know, Christian people that they claimed were Christians into politics and fighting, against like sex, sex education in school because it would just give people license to promiscuity.

They were very, very militant and it's just a very out of body experience to think like that was a sect that I used to be a part of. And I believed they were good people, and [00:40:00] some of them are very good people and, and that the outside world was bad, like those, those bad people that are pro abortion or pro, pro same sex marriage, and to think just like how militant it was.

Now, like looking back on it and just like how just active it was and genuinely good people within it. Absolutely. 100 percent at the same time, people who are just wielding this for power and, and wanting to like claim all of this power in the name of Jesus. And it's, it's scary. It's, it's real.

Marie: I would just say I, yeah, that is, that's it's so true. I, I see it as a true tragedy that Christianity has been so weaponized in this country and elsewhere, not just in the U. S. And all the time and energy and money that has gone into some issues at the [00:41:00] expense to, in my mind.

Of the poor and the suffering and other, you know, really critical issues and how blase we are about economic inequality in this country and, and the state of the poor and suffering of many kinds. To me, it's a tragedy, you know that that we allowed ourselves to get so hung up on particular issues, and have just been almost blinded.

To what I see is really the core message,

Katherine: In the Bible. How does that. Message tie in with what you're working on right now.

Marie: Yeah. Well, it's you know So now this is a hard it's a it's an even more grueling Project as you can imagine because a lot of my sources now are interviews And I really spent a few years now and i'm really in the thick of it now that i'm on leave Interviewing, you know, survivors mostly, but also family members, pastors, you know, people, as I said earlier, just like [00:42:00] my class, different visitors coming from different places, but the vast majority are survivors, survivors of childhood sexual abuse, of abuse when they were teenagers, and also adults, you know, adults, largely women I've interviewed so far, but of course there are men too, you know, who have been abused as men sexually abused.

And abuse happens everywhere. You know, abuse happens absolutely everywhere. The church is not, you know, the only place it happens. But cover ups feel different in different spaces, I think. And the, the degree of the cover up in the church, Is so disillusioning for so many people, the spiritual abuse, the spiritual damage that that has caused people in many ways.

That's sort of the big takeaway for me right now is just how profoundly damaging. Sexual abuse is for people when they are not believed, when they are not treated with love and care. [00:43:00] And, when they are prevented from seeking justice, it's crazy making. I mean, people can just go absolutely crazy.

And the degree, you know, the levels of substance abuse and all kinds of. You know, self destructive behaviors that emerge from that is just stunning. And, we've learned a lot about this since 2002. And that 2002 is an important year because that was when the Boston Globe broke the big stories, the early stories about abuse in the Catholic Church in the, in the archdiocese of Boston.

And, you know, that kind of began this trajectory of attention to the abuse crisis, at least within the Catholic Church, and then more recently in Protestant groups, too. But I think we still have no idea the scope, the scale, the damage that has been done and is still being done because of the cover ups, because of bullying by pastors who refuse to acknowledge this problem [00:44:00] and women who enabled them pastors wives or, or church staff or others who just don't want to believe this is true.

And so really, enable abusive environments to thrive. It's a hard subject. And, you know, I want to write a book people want to read. So I've got to find a way to be, you know, I want to say Here's what we do, like here's where hope is because otherwise who wants to read a book that's such a downer? But I think we all need to be better educated about the realities out there so that we can be equipped to know what to do about them.

Katherine: Mm hmm. Is there any Distinction made or is this part of the scope of the book where you're outlining just the difference between someone who experiences that sexual abuse and cover up within a spiritual context versus. Or, you know, Hollywood, is there a distinction made at all?

Marie: Yeah. And, you know, a lot of the guests who came to my class, we asked them this and I asked [00:45:00] survivors this, I think so because so let me separate out Catholics and Protestants here because one, one big difference between, I think what Catholics are taught about priests and what Protestants are taught about ministers is the sort of stature of the priest.

So traditionally Catholics were really taught that priests. It's were of a higher order, almost a human being, they, they had a sacramental status closer to God. They were the closest thing that anyone was going to get to God. And the kind of deference that that created is part of why children felt they couldn't tell if a priest abused them, because it was, this was God.

And I think the damage for them, it was as if God Had done the abuse and that's very hard to get over and I've heard this from some Protestants, too I think evangelicals at least for me don't have quite the same, you know, the the pastor is still a human being He's perhaps been called, he's [00:46:00] got a calling.

And so there's still, you know, a lot of deference given to him. But I thought when I started this project, okay, there's a difference in how pastors are viewed. But I am coming to realize that in a lot of these evangelical churches, It's pretty close to the same as the Catholics were taught that pastor.

He's on a higher level And what he says, people believe there's been a lot of abuse of women working for churches. You probably know if I had a lesson for listeners right now, I would say if any pastor comes to you And asks you to come work for his church A red flag up in your mind because he, if, if the pastor needs a new church staff, they need to open the search.

They need to go through HR. They need to have a whole process like companies have, like universities have not, you are being targeted. I think in many, many cases, if someone comes to you and says, Hey, you know, you're doing a great job in the church. Come work for me. I have heard so many [00:47:00] stories from women now.

That's where it starts. Or, or maybe she was already being grouped, you know, she's come to the pastor for counseling, she's having difficulty in her marriage or some kind of difficulty with her children. And just, there's a certain kind of pastor who will target the vulnerable in that way.

Now, let me say clearly the vast majority of pastors are not abusers, I definitely believe that. But. There, there are a lot more than I think most of us are aware of people or maybe that because once they reach that position of power, they become sort of convinced of their own authority in a way and they become abusive.

I don't know the psychology of it. I don't know how all that works. But I think that's really critically important for people to, to recognize.

Katherine: Absolutely. Yeah, and I would say like maybe the distinction between like the Catholicism, the elevation of a priest is it's elevated institutionally, whereas, at least what I have seen [00:48:00] when it's a pastor in that place they've sort of put themselves there, and it's not necessarily.

Institutionally across the board, that's what the institution is pointing people towards, but they have managed to get into that position and created that for themselves.

Marie: That's a very good point. I hadn't thought of that. And I think that's a very good point, but the ones who are best at it, they persuade everyone in the congregation that they deserve to be in that place.

Right. But you're right. It's the kind of, the, the charismatic leader, you know, the Ravi Zacharias or, you know, at the local level, whatever, you know, person that is. But you're right. They managed to kind of accrue that charisma and that sense of leadership themselves.

Katherine: Yeah, and maybe the institution comes after in terms of picking it up and not addressing it and not feeding into it.

Chicken or egg. I don't know which comes first. Well, this has been really great and I'm just, I feel like there's so much more to talk about, [00:49:00] but I will wrap us up there. Is there anything else that you wanted to share as we Wrap up the interview part.

Marie: No, I would only ask if anyone listening is interested in talking to me.

I really am. I am trying to interview as many people as I can survivors, but also people who want to work for reform in the church and don't know how family members. friends of people that they worry are being abused. Counselors, anyone, if you are interested in speaking with me, my email is open. R. M. G.

567 at gmail dot com. And I would welcome correspondence with people. I am willing for anyone who wants to be anonymous, to be anonymous. I'm keeping confidentiality from people. A lot of people have very good reason to be confidential. They have children. Sometimes an abuser is, is someone's spouse or ex spouse, and they really don't want their children to know, right?

There's all kinds of reasons. And I'm sensitive to that and we want to protect anyone and not [00:50:00] re traumatize them. But yes, I welcome anyone to contact me who would be

Katherine: interested and your timeline for. When they hear this episode versus when your book is coming out. So timing, when is, when are you hoping to finish?

Marie: Well, I'm a scholar, not a journalist and scholarship is slow. So this book is going to be, you know, a few years in the making realistically. So it's not like I've got a deadline, you know, of the end of October or something, I I'm on leave all of this year, the 2023, 2024, I could. Here and

Katherine: anytime. All right, great.

And I will put that information in the show notes so people can easily access and thank you so much for your time and all of the work that you're doing.

Marie: Thank you, Catherine, for all the work you do. Yeah, I love your work and you keep at it.

Katherine: Thank you.

Thank you so much.

 Uncertain is produced, recorded, edited, and hosted by me, Katherine Spearing. Intro music is [00:51:00] from the band Green Ashes.

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