Church leaders hope local pastors take reports of child abuse seriously and refer victims to community agencies. "We're not asking pastors to become experts."
Ron Flowers, the Seventh-day Adventist Church family ministries co-director, said he recently sat in church behind a woman whom he knew was suffering domestic violence.
To his dismay the pastor talked about a need for forgiveness and that if a person was going through a hard time, it was for their benefit.
“I don’t preach about forgiveness that way anymore,” Flowers said of the good message in the wrong context.
Adventist Church officials hope a task force on abuse prevention convened at the church’s world headquarters June 11 and 12 will raise awareness of the issue and help local pastors realize, despite the denial of some people, that domestic abuse likely exists within their church.
Task force members urged local pastors to take reports of child abuse seriously, report them to local authorities, and refer victims of domestic violence to community resources.
“We’re not asking pastors to become experts,” Flowers said. “We just want them to report and refer.”
One Adventist researcher said 29 percent of Adventists report experiencing sexual violence from an intimate partner within their lifetime, while 10 percent report experiencing one instance of severe physical violence.
That’s a higher rate than the surrounding population, said René Drumm, professor of social work at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tennessee. She and a team of researchers collected surveys from Adventists in the northwest United States and published the results last year in Social Work & Christianity.
“But I think it’s kind of dangerous to say that those numbers are absolutely higher than the rest of the population,” Drumm said. “We offered participants a very safe environment to answer these surveys.”
Participants filled out questionnaires in a church with men and women separated and surveys were turned into a secure box. This is different than most national surveys, which are conducted by phone, Drumm said.
Many researchers conducting phone surveys say they feel the instances were under reported, she said. Drumm reported her research team felt they had more accurate findings.
“It’s a striking finding but it’s not unique to Adventists,” Flowers said of Drumm’s research.
“It’s not an easy thing to talk about, but pastors can become courageous and preach this from the pulpit from time to time.”
Flowers said he hoped similar studies would survey Adventists in other parts of the world.
“It’s important we treat each other well,” Adventist Church President Jan Paulsen told the task force, emphasizing mental abuse can be just as bad as physical abuse.
Some problems with abuse, church officials said, stem from mixed messages within fundamentalist groups—a strong belief in marriage and family might keep some people from leaving a harmful relationship.
Flowers said a woman recently told her pastor she didn’t want to break up her family; she just wanted the abuse to stop.
“Sometimes it’s denial or a lack of sophisticated understanding of the nature of abuse,” Flowers said. “Some people think they need to just pray more for the abuse to stop instead of seeking counseling or other appropriate measures.”
Carlos Camacho, a pastor at the Inland Spanish Adventist Church in Southeastern California, said he is learning the severity of taking on an abuser. After other pastors turned a blind eye toward allegations of incest, he reported it to the police upon first learning about it.
“They didn’t believe her,” Camacho said of other members in the family of the underage girl involved. “That happens all the time. People don’t want to believe that it happened.”
Local church administration moved Camacho and his family into a hotel for several days after he and the victim started receiving threats.
“Abuse is messy,” he said. “It hurts everyone involved, even those trying to help.”
The Adventist Church first held a similar abuse prevention task force in 1995 before releasing a statement against family violence in 1996 and a statement against child sexual abuse in 1997.
In 2002 the Adventist Church began promoting an annual Abuse Prevention Emphasis Day held the third Saturday of August.
“That’s a positive step we’ve taken here at headquarters and it has filtered down to many churches,” said Heather-Dawn Small, Adventist Church women’s ministries director.
A check of several churches showed that many local church and administration offices use materials originally provided by the church’s world headquarters through local offices.
Cecilia Anane Otchere, Women’s Ministries director for the church in Mid-West Ghana, said most of the some 400 churches in the region participate in the abuse prevention day.
Doug Sharp, pastor of the Port Orchard Adventist Church in Port Orchard, Washington, said he thought a pamphlet about domestic abuse was available at the church’s literature rack. He said the church financially supports a local woman’s shelter and several members volunteer.
Sharp said two years before he began pastoring the church he learned he learned of a murder of a woman that followed years of abuse.
“I think that made the congregation aware of what potential violence could be out there,” Sharp said.
He said he was not aware of any incidents of domestic violence since he’s served at the church for 16 years.
“If I was told of anything or if I sensed that it was going on in a family I would approach them and offer my services,” Sharp said.
Church leaders at the task force said they realized the meeting’s success hinges on worldwide offices communicating to local churches.
“I think raising awareness, at least, is crucial,” said Drumm, the researcher. In follow-up studies with victims, she said church members feel comforted when the church talks about preventing abuse in homes.
“They breathe a huge sigh of relief,” Drumm said. “Somebody understands, somebody’s doing something, it helps healing.”