Church Sex Scandals Are Rooted in Theology

At this point, there are so many sex scandals among conservative religious organizations, we’re no longer surprised by any of them. The latest revelation—that for decades, the evangelical Bob Jones University blamed victims of sexual assault and discouraged the prosecution of predators—should be shocking, but probably isn’t.

Yet, the recent report on BJU’s misconduct is different. Unusually for such a document, it makes a theological case against sexual abuse—but in so doing, it points to the deep roots of rape culture that may not be so easily uprooted.

The fact pattern is by now familiar—though a little different in the BJU case, which covers counseling for all reported sexual abuse, not just abuse perpetrated by members of the Bob Jones community. Of the 166 respondents to the BJU survey who reported sexual abuse, about half of the abuse took place before they came to the university; this particular report is more about counseling victims than prosecuting perpetrators. This is not another cover-up.

The university’s responses, though, were depressingly familiar. Only 7.6 percent of victims were encouraged by BJU staff to report their abuse to the police. Forty-seven percent were actively told not to do so and 55 percent said the university’s attitude toward abuse reports was “blaming and disparaging.” Women were invited to confess what they had done to entice the abuser—the wearing of revealing clothing, for example. And if their bodies “responded favorably,” then they, too, had sinned.

Indeed, even if their bodies hadn’t “responded favorably” to being raped or abused, abuse survivors were still regarded as “damaged goods,” according to the report, because virginity is prized above all, and any illicit sex—consensual or not—is sinful. That may be hard for non-religious people to wrap their heads around, but remember, if sex is bad and virginity is good, that’s true no matter the circumstances, no matter the presence or absence of consent.

Interestingly, the Bob Jones University report is, itself, a kind of religious document. Produced by an organization called GRACE, whose mission is “to empower the Christian community through education and training to recognize and respond to the sin of sexual abuse,” it is full of biblical citations and theological argument. For example, the report argues against victim-blaming by citing Matthew 5:28 (“Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart”) and stating that “If a dress code encourages men to see women for their bodies—whether they dress modestly or not—then women become objects, and often, mere objects of lust.”

That is some good theological reasoning, and wouldn’t be out of place in any number of progressive religious contexts. What’s interesting is that Bob Jones University isn’t one of those.

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