Berkley Center

WeWillSpeakOut.US currently has 16 organizational members, and nearly 40,000 individuals have signed the Pledge Against Violence. Yet getting faith leaders to take meaningful action against it is not easy; there are many challenges to systemic change that we are working to overcome, with the hope that WeWillSpeakOut.US can contribute to a cultural shift in how faith communities prevent and respond to SGBV. 

Challenge: Lack of Data

As a technical organization, IMA thrives on quality baseline data and ongoing monitoring and evaluation to inform our work to advance health around the world. When it comes to faith communities and sexual and gender-based violence in the United States, however, we have little data to work with and many unanswered questions, such as what faith-based interventions exist, how coordinated they are, and how well (or not) faith leaders are prepared to implement them. 

Anecdotally, we know many champions for prevention and response within faith communities, yet we also know many survivors whose stories show there is plenty of room for faith communities to do more and to do better. Without compelling data, though, building the case for appropriate action among denominational governing bodies, seminaries, churches/mosques/synagogues, individuals, and donors is difficult. 

To help overcome this challenge, IMA World Health (on behalf of WeWillSpeakOut.US) and Sojourners partnered to conduct a LifeWay Research survey on 1,000 US Protestant pastors’ experiences with and responses to sexual and domestic violence. Our hope was to answer a few key questions and create a baseline on which to generate informed solutions. The result was the June 2014 Broken Silence report, which highlighted several underlying challenges that IMA and our partners are continuing to examine through the WeWillSpeakOut.US coalition. 

Challenge: Lack of Education/Awareness

Broken Silence confirmed what we expected: Most pastors believe their congregants are victims of sexual and gender-based violence significantly less than the US population as a whole. Of the pastors who said they do speak about the topic, 72 percent do so because they believe it is a problem in their local communities, while only 25 percent of pastors speak out because they believe it is a problem in their congregations. 

Given the consistent finding that one in three women (and one in four men) in the United States will experience violence by an intimate partner at some point in their lives—and given that about 70 percent of Americans say they attend a worship service at least monthly/yearly—we believe pastors’ estimates are well below reality: 17 percent estimate that 11 to 20 percent of their congregations have been victims of sexual or domestic violence, 21 percent estimate it at 6 to 10 percent, and fully 37 percent of pastors estimate that less than 5 percent of their congregation have been victims.

Challenge: Violence is a Special Interest, Not a Core Message

This underestimation may explain why, among pastors surveyed, two out of three (65 percent) only speak once a year or less about the issue. And one in 10 are silent, never speaking to their congregations about this topic. This tells us that sexual and gender-based violence is not a core message of faith communities in general; instead, it is often treated—if at all—as a special interest in competition with everything else that fills the liturgical calendar. 

Opportunities

Until faith communities can acknowledge sexual and gender-based violence as a vital issue among their congregations and the communities they serve, it will remain in the shadows. And until faith leaders understand the scope of the problem and receive appropriate training on how to prevent and respond to SGBV, they will shy away from addressing it or—worse—mishandle it and risk revictimizing those who are already suffering. 

The good news is there are many champions, trainers, experts, and advocates out there, chipping away at the problem as best they can; and Broken Silence taught us that 81 percent of pastors said they would take appropriate action to reduce sexual and domestic violence if they had the training and resources to do so. 

Through WeWillSpeakOut.US, IMA and our partners are digging deeper into how we can raise the profile of SGBV across all levels of our faith communities and build the necessary bridges. With Harvard Divinity School, we are conducting a qualitative study among faith communities in the Boston area to dig deeper into the questions explored in the Broken Silence report. With our denominational members, we are examining how institutional leadership can trickle down to congregations, and through our awareness campaigns such as Speak Out Sunday, we are working to reach the grassroots level. With the FaithTrust Institute, Sojourners, and several other esteemed partners, we are examining theological education and ordination standards to determine how to increase supply of and demand for gender and SGBV-related education among up-and-coming clergy. Following these and other pathways, we hope to amplify the great work already being done and identify new ways to inspire the change we know the faith community has the power and imperative to be.