The Scars Are Written on My Soul: The Impacts of Adult Clergy Sexual Exploitation

This article examines the multifaceted impacts of sexual exploitation perpetrated by clergy on adult congregation members within evangelical and Pentecostal Christian faith communities in Australia. Drawing on responses from 33 participants, the findings illustrate extensive spiritual, psychological, emotional, relational, physical, and financial injuries. A central theme to emerge was compliance and entrapment, reflecting the cumulative effects of systemic grooming, institutional complicity, and post-abuse control tactics. Several participants identified counselling as a critical factor in their healing journey, thereby reinforcing the need for practitioners to understand the unique dynamics of clergy-perpetrated sexual exploitation and its complex trauma impacts. The findings emphasise the necessity to reconceptualise clergy sexual misconduct not as consensual relationships but rather as sexual exploitation, which is a form of gender-based violence with impacts that parallel those experienced by victim-survivors of domestic violence.