Yesterday afternoon all of the first year seminarians attended a mandatory seminar on clergy sexual ethics. Other than the obvious (don't sleep with your parishoners, don't date your parishoners), the conclusion time and again was to make sure your marriage is healthy, and don't have meetings/friendships with only one member of a married couple (in this day and age that may include same sex friendship), and even possibly don't have close friends in the congregation. This leads me to ask how I, as a single woman who is probably choosing to stay single, hope to have a social life? Granted, I plan on working in academia, but I'll be in a church for some period of time too. I enjoy having male friends. I talk to my friends' husbands/boyfriends/fiances without them present. I consider that healthy and good. But apparently if someone takes it the wrong way it could get me fired, or arouse all kinds of unwarranted suspicion that could divide the congregation. Now I'm secure and happy about staying single, but this is one case where the married folks have got it made. The hiring committee doesn't look at them like there must be something wrong with them, and they have a spouse to "rescue" them from pushy men/women and keep them sane.
The seminar also revealed a ton of subjectivism and gray areas. I and my pastors/professors have done tons of things that technically cross some boundary or other. I lived with my pastor and her family for a month, I've eaten in a dimly lit restaurant with a male professor (it wasn't sketchy, I promise), I've met with male professors many times in their office with the door closed, I've hugged them, and received a fatherly kiss on the top of the head from one. None of this has ever made me remotely uncomfortable, and I have never felt in any way like a boundary had been crossed. But an outside observer, unaware of the context, could probably get some of these people in trouble, or at least get them forced to change some things.
We live in a complicated age of suspicion, and though some of the suspicion is wise, I wonder when we are all going to be forced to be personality-less automatons for fear of offending or unconsciously violating someone.
Overall though, the seminar was useful and important and I don't want to dismiss what they talked about. Just food for thought from a single woman in ministry.
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I've actually been thinking quite a bit about this topic lately (mostly after my ex-boyfriend decided he wanted to be a eunuch pastor - his words, not mine). But more recently there have been a string of unfortunate incidents crossing boundaries - and good people in church leadership getting into inappropriate situations. Each situation began innocuously and turned sinful later. It has left me furious with our sex drives and filled with sorrow over the destruction wrought by sexual sin. So, I think I understand the caution behind the silly rules, even though it seems excessive.
I think these interactions depend on how well you know yourself and the person with whom you're interacting. For instance you hanging out with Matt would be/ is no problem: both of you are people who are not easily temped into scandal. However, you may be wise to hold off one-on-one meetings with men in a ministry setting until you know them sufficiently to not worry about their hearts. And, if you ever found yourself attracted to one of these men, it would be best not to meet with them in a ministry capacity, either. Probably. But I really don't know.
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