A service to denounce sexual abuse within The United Methodist Church and reclaim hope was held during General Conference on Monday, April 29, 2024. We enocurage you to view and utilize the liturgy in your own ministerial context. Litrugy available in English, French and Portuguese.
Download liturgy in pdf format:
Here are some quick facts from our Women by the Numbers data
- Since 2005, reports for seminary students have increased when compared to other groups.
- Overall, clergy are more at risk to experience all behaviors than laity, and younger persons report misconduct more than older groups. In fact, as age increases, reported experiences decrease.
- The most commonly reported site for incidents were public settings (41.9%) such as meetings, classes or events.
- Most respondents (53.6%) said they were not aware of their perpetrator harming anyone else, but almost one-third (32%) said they knew of others, while the remainder (14.4%) were unsure. Those experiencing some of the most severe forms of sexual misconduct were the most likely to know of others being harmed.
- The most common response to sexual misconduct is to avoid the person (50.8%) or ignore the behavior (46.3%). Also notable is that women and younger respondents are more likely than others to tell a supervisor, request a transfer, or quit.
- For those who made a formal report to a supervisor, the most common reaction was that they were believed, supported and corrective action was taken (52.9%), but that was closely followed by the second most common result, which was that the complaint was minimized, trivialized or dismissed (40.3%).
Since the 1990s, sexual harassment is a recognized form of sexual violence and misconduct in our societies and in The United Methodist Church. The Church declared sexual harassment a sin against individuals and communities, and a chargeable offense against our clergy or laity. Critical to our understanding of the impact of harassment is the recognition that it is certainly an abuse of power over another, not only inappropriate sexual or gender-directed conduct.