Sexual misconduct and abuse:
The spirit of temple prostitution in the modern-day church.
Author: Gerda Venter
MA (Soc.Sc) Social Work (Clinical), UJ, SA. (SAQA Accredited)
Dmin, TICU, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.
(International accreditation, not-SAQA accredited)
© 21 February 2021, Copyright: All rights reserved
TRIGGER WARNING: This article is about sexual abuse in the church. Readers discretion is advised.
In the Bible we often read about the practice of temple prostitution. As a modern church we tend to lift our eyebrows and think – thankfully, that does not exist anymore. Really? We are just fooling ourselves. Lulling ourselves into a spiritual sleep and into a denial of reality. Just like Israel of old at times fell into temple prostitution and started to worship the pagan gods of fertility, with atrocious sexual rituals in the temple and in the context of spirituality and worship, sadly we must acknowledge that this pattern still exists to this day within the church. Inside the body of believers. Over the years we have seen many of our faith giants in all denominations fall into gross sexual sin. The question remains, why? It is remarkable that we as a body of believers do not have answers, we are just shocked and ashamed when this happens and often just turn a blind eye. Many lose their faith, stating that if big leaders fail in this manner, how can there be a God? Rejecting all truth in the wake of the failures of men and women reflects on how we measure God. We measure Him, judge Him based on the successes or failures of those professing to believe in Him. How sad is that? We sit in judgement of the Creator based on the fallen image of God in man.
On the other hand, we are all too quick to blame the devil. We give him the credit for managing to lure us away into sin with his deceit. We are mostly cowards in this regard, denying our own free will in choosing our behaviour and actions. We play the blame game – it is the devil’s fault. He likes getting the credit and feels honoured by the power we assign to him. The truth is the devil cannot make us do anything. We choose to react on his suggestions and the temptations he dishes up for us wrapped in nice, often religious, giftwrap. That is the only power he has. He can tempt us. The word of God says that He that is in us, is stronger than he that is in the world (1 John4:4). Do we even believe that? If we do, no temptation will be of any consequence to us – because we will know that the God in us is bigger than the god who brought the temptation and therefore, we can overcome. However, we entertain the thought, we create back doors that sound like “those who have no sin throw the first stone”, but we conveniently ignore the part of the same story that Jesus said, “go and sin no more” (John 8). We entertain the momentary pleasures of the temptation – and then we are hooked - and we do not care because we do not have a ‘reverent and obedient fear of the Lord’ anymore (Is11:2). We focus on the fact that God is a God of love and forgiveness (which He unequivocally is) but it is only half a truth. He is also ‘n holy and just God in Who’s presence we cannot come unless our sin is dealt with. We understand grace to mean that we have a license to sin, whereas grace is a call to holiness. Law and grace are not opposites. Law and lawlessness are opposites. Grace and ‘disgrace’ are opposites. Law and Grace are two horses pulling the same carriage.
Let us put denial aside and have an honest look at what temple prostitution looks like - also in our modern-day paradigm. When Israel practised temple prostitution, they did not have to frequent the pagan temples down the road. No, the shocking truth is that they incorporated it into their own religious practices within their own temple. There was an unholy mixture of spirituality and sexuality devoid of God-given, God-intended holiness. On the holy mountain of God, they defiled the place of His presence. They exploited the innocent for their own gain. It normalized sin because it was brought into the known and into the arena of worship. You did not have to go and look for it, you just had to go to church. The priests practised it. The pastor preached it. The church promoted it. The congregation accepted it and kept quiet.
It operates on spiritual principles. It ALWAYS has a spiritual component because it IS A SPIRIT. It cannot do its job unless it starts with the spiritual. It ALWAYS starts with a spiritual discussion, a fellowship, a mentoring/discipleship/fathering/friendship/counselling relationship. It builds a trust relationship first, often tapping into the wounds of the past under the pretense of wanting to help the victim heal. Any discussion with a survivor of this kind of sexual and spiritual abuse will reveal that they have been groomed and step-by-step pulled into a web of lies that is often described as a seduction.
The victim often does not see the perpetrator coming because it is someone they know, do not expect something immoral from, love or have come to trust. There is a general expectancy of trustworthiness because it is within the church. It is someone they regard to be in a position of spiritual authority, who knows better and hears from God way better than they do. Their gut feeling (Who most often is the voice of the Holy Spirit) is being seared by doubt and second guessing and confusion because how can something that seem so right on a spiritual level be turning out so utterly wicked and deprived? It is the priest or the prophet, the pastor, the cell-or youth leader, with the result that by the time the victims realize that they are being preyed upon, they are already wrapped in the guilt and have often bought into the lie that this is all their fault, and something is hugely wrong with them. They believe (sadly very often rightly so) that no-one will believe them because they are the broken, sinful, deprived, and wicked, who falsely accuse the ‘anointed of God’. After all, this wonderful spiritual leader was only ‘trying to help’.
The atrocities amount. This is not a one-time ‘indiscretion’. It is deliberate, careful planning. Day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year it pulls the innocent and wounded into its web and devours them, causing a slow death in spirit, soul and eventually body. Until nothing is left to fight with, and the victim succumb to the seduction, keep quiet and just let it happen. A handful move out of the relationship more broken than before. Sadly, they often move on straight into the trap of another abuser, and so the pattern is repeated.
Yes, there is a predator and a victim. But there is also a village, a church, a board of directors, a congregation, a friend, a mother, a sister, a wife, that allows this to happen and continue. There are the fellow priests that never hold the priests or prophets or pastors accountable, who keep a blind eye to the glaring red lights. There are those who silently turn and leave. There are those who become angry and do nothing. There are those who tell the victim to rather stay quiet because in their minds “it will do damage to the church, or to God’s kingdom”. There are those who are told that divorce is sin – in all circumstances and situations. Never mind that God also hates spiritual and sexual abuse – that is not even considered. There are several indirect victims in these cases – the predator’s wife, children, family, the ministry team, the church elders, colleagues, members of the congregation, supporters of the ministry, fellow believers etc. The effects of sin are never to the individual alone, it is always experienced corporately. The burden to address this is very often left squarely on the shoulders of the victim alone. The victim would not have been a victim if there was a community that was willing to protect the innocent, but instead we protect the guilty. There is the conspiracy of silence. It always needs a special friend. It needs a friend to lure into its dark web. It needs friends to cover it up with a conspiracy of silence. It needs a network of friends to protect and give it permission to operate. The conspiracy of silence protects the predator and creates a place for this spirit to thrive. Are we willing to face this and speak up in a godly, biblical way?
The purpose of this spirit is to destroy and perverse the planned and intended intimacy between Jesus as our Bridegroom and us, the church, as the Bride. Abuse causes us to shy away from intimacy, associating it with exploitation and pain, stealing our innocence and ability to believe, trust and be vulnerable. We need those qualities in our relationship with our Bridegroom – what better way to destroy this than to use the spiritual to open our hearts and then exploit it for personal, perverse gain?
So how do we as the church respond and move forward from here?
Acknowledgement not denial:
- Our number one place to start is to acknowledge the existence of this spirit in the church. We need to understand that it can ONLY operate within the fellowship of believers. It cannot operate outside of the church because it needs and uses the spiritual connection to gain power, retain its hold and cover-up its evil. We need to look that fact in the eye and tell it: “I see you...” If we deny it, it will continue to run rife within the fellowship of believers. Keeping it in the dark gives it power, bringing it to light disempowers it.
Repentance:
- The root iniquity is to use spiritual influence to incite wrong. It is to gain, hold and use spiritual power to pursue, conquer, exploit, and abuse. The spiritual component is used as a smokescreen to cover up the wrongdoing.
- We need to identify the open doors for this, repent and ask God to close them.
- We need genuine repentance about allowing this to infiltrate and set up home within the church. We need to repent of normalizing sin with watered down religiously sounding good excuses.
- We need to repent about allowing it to thrive under a conspiracy of silence. We need to repent about silencing and persecuting the whistleblowers with phrases like “do not speak against the anointed of God.” The silent accomplices are as guilty as those actively pursuing this atrocity.
- We need to repent of calling what God calls good, bad, and what God calls bad, good
Leadership:
- We need brave Godly leadership who will face and root out this iniquity fearlessly.
Check the facts:
- NB! We do need to make sure of the facts, otherwise good godly men and women would be destroyed through false accusations. Unfortunately, this is a reality too. A false accusation in this regard is as good as the real thing. We need to be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves. However, false accusations are by far in the minority.
Accountability:
- We need accountability and honesty – with ourselves, with others and in the church or ministry.
Hope:
- We need to know that there is hope. Hope for healing, hope for restoration, and hope to overcome. Be wise and seek professional counsel for this issue, we very often cannot walk out of this completely on our own. We need the wise support of others.
If you are reading this and need help, you can contact: For prayer ministry:
For professional and emergency help:
