Why women go out with married men of the cloth

 

Over the last five months, Deborah Wairimu has been having a secret affair with her pastor. Deborah, who is a lead member of the choir at their church in Donholm, Nairobi, says that the secret affair started in October last year.

"He is 40, married, and has three children," she says. Debbie, as she is popularly known among her friends and fellow church members, says that she had just lost her job as a banker when the affair started.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, her employer downsized the workforce and Debbie was among those who faced the axe.

"I was among those who were fired," Debbie, 33, who now runs a clothing and perfumes boutique in Kilimani, Nairobi says. Losing her job broke her down. She took a taxi home, locked herself in her bedroom, and started crying. "I felt as if my whole world was collapsing in front of my eyes and there was nothing I could do. I had a bank loan that I was servicing. How would I repay it? Where would I get rent money? How would I survive?"

Debbie then called her pastor and requested prayers. "He asked where I was. I told him I was at home. He offered to drop by and say a prayer." Debbie says that when her pastor came, the prayer, consolation, and encouragement metamorphosed. "One thing led to another and we ended up getting intimate," she says.

The affair

Instead of feeling guilty after the encounter, Debbie says that she felt relieved. "It was awkward at first, but we both knew we had started something that would not end soon," Debbie says that even though she was in a vulnerable position when the affair started, she had always admired her pastor. "I knew I was attracted to him. He is dominant, intelligent, and confident. He has his act together and I knew I wanted a man like him in my life. I wouldn't have minded having his child," she says.

Since then, their arrangement has been simple. He helped her start her boutique business, he settled a portion of her loan, and now pays her rent. In return, she meets his sexual and emotional needs and keeps their affair secret.

Debbie is not the only church-going woman in an affair with her pastor. Neither is her pastor the only man of cloth having secret sexual rendezvous. Affairs between pastors and their sheep have become commonplace nowadays. For instance, in December 2020, a pastor with the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Thika was found to have been in a three-year-old affair with a church elder's wife.

But perhaps one of the most widely broadcast affairs involving a pastor was the affair between former Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz and Ranin Karim in the US. This affair came to light in November 2020 when the pastor's wife Laura discovered their steamy messages in a work computer where church workers were present.

Ms. Karim publicly confessed that she was having an affair with the celebrity pastor. Ms. Karim said that the famous pastor had initially told her that he managed celebrities and suggested that they meet up. They then began a romance. "I knew he was a pastor with a wife and kids. I knew what I got myself into," Karim, 34, who is a divorcee said. "I really wish I never met him. I told him that many times because as time passed by, I couldn't see the point in the relationship. I am not a monster," she said. Her confession prompted pastor Lentz to admit to having the affair. The pastor was then fired by the church.

The confessions

Granted, not too many pastors will readily admit to having affairs with their flock. Neither will a woman in a relationship with her pastor confess willingly. Affairs involving men of the cloth are bound to elicit controversy because of the high moral ground that pastors are held. But statistics show that these affairs are happening more often than society is willing to acknowledge. According to a survey by the journal Christianity Today, up to 23 percent of all married pastors will admit to sexually inappropriate behaviour with someone other than their wives while in the ministry. An even bigger percentage of pastors will not admit despite engaging in sexually inappropriate behaviours with female church members.

Not too many pastors will readily admit to having affairs with their flock. PHOTO|FOTOSEARCH

The rise in the number of cheating escapades suggests that cheating has no religious boundaries. Statistics from the Journal of Psychology and Christianity show that as many as 65 percent of men and 55 percent of women will have an extramarital affair by the time they are 40 regardless of their religious beliefs. This suggests that being a Christian leader does not lessen the possibility of infidelity. For instance, according to the research book Torn Asunder by David Carder and Duncan Jaenicke, which deals with infidelity within the church, adultery and divorce rates within the evangelical population are nearly the same as within the general population. So why is this form of cheating growing?

Psychologist Ken Munyua says that there are two types of women who will have an affair with their pastor: the vulnerable woman looking for solace and comfort and the social go-getter who isn't shy to go out with her pastor. "Pastors and church leaders are often seen as the paragon of good virtue, success, financial and emotional stability. They inhibit qualities that are emotionally very endearing to many women," he says. Munyua points out that since sex for women begins emotionally, the position of a pastor targeting one of his flocks is usually an advantage.

It is also not so farfetched that in both rural and urban churches in Kenya where affairs with pastors have been reported, women form the biggest percentage of the congregants. David Muriithi, the Bishop at House of Grace Church says that women are more spiritually sensitive than men. "Women have always been more religiously inclined than men. The figure of women who devote themselves to church is 60 per cent compared to men at 40 per cent," he says.

Women more religious

This is echoed by a 2016 study by the Pew Research Centre titled 'The Gender Gap in Religion Around the World'. This study says that Kenyan women (Christians) are 14 times more likely to attend religious services per week than Kenyan men. These women are also 16 per cent more likely to attend weekly worship services. Among the most important things in life, Kenyan women single out religion as very important. "Muslim men and women are about equally likely to view religion as very important to them. This changes among Christian men and women, with women recording higher rates of allegiance to the church than men," the study report says. By viewing religion as very important, the study suggested that women equally view their pastors as very important.

This has led to scenarios where some women view their pastors more favourably than their spouses and romantic partners. "This favour is what the crooked pastor will use to make and score sexual advances from emotionally vulnerable women in the church," says Munyua.

He singles out a scenario where a woman who has struggled to bear children in vain ends up in bed with a pastor. "Such a woman may know that the sexual act is wrong. But due to desperation and social and emotional vulnerability, she may end up falling for the lie that a sexual encounter with a pastor is holy and ordained to end her problems," says Munyua.

This is echoed by Bishop Muriithi, who says that women become an easy target because of the way they are naturally wired. "Women are naturally more emotional than men. But some of these emotions are not supported by knowledge. They go overboard, which creates fertile ground for sexual exploitation," he says.

Sometimes, women are driven by desperation. Take Loureen Lumbi. She was engaged in a three-month sexual affair with her pastor in an attempt to get cleansed for conception. "I could easily say that I was bewitched, but he made it so convincing that one night of sex would unblock my fallopian tubes. I fell for it and one night turned into weeks," says Loureen who is an advocate of the High Court. When in despair, a woman will do anything her pastor asks her to get a solution for her situation without questioning. She'll give him astronomical amounts of money if that's what he says will save her marriage or if that's what it'll take to get a solution to her problems.

Life of servitude

Some women sexually expose themselves to their pastors in the name of servitude. In September 2014, a pastor at a Pumwani church was busted pants down with a female member of his congregation at a lodging. In his defense, the pastor claimed that he had gone to the location to pray and intercede for the woman. In February of the same year, another pastor was exposed while in an escapade with a female church member in a Karatina hotel. The church member had approached the pastor in search of marital counseling.

Christina Chanya Lenjou, a consultant sociologist based in Nairobi, says that where the primary goal is sexual gains, pastors skew their teachings or counseling to manipulate the most desperate or the most fanatical women. These women will be tuned to believe that they are worthless and their human weaknesses are horrible before God. "Such pastors portray themselves as being closer to God in all aspects, including sexual, and make their female followers believe that they have to always act on their behalf. Sex becomes a mode of intervention between the women and God. Their decision-making capacity is made subordinate to the pastor's," says Ms. Lenjou.

The patriarchal model of society in which the man is required to provide a sense of security to women has a hand in the affairs involving pastors and their flock. "Despite the woman having high education levels and financial stability, she's made to look weak and vulnerable, and will still look for that male figure that will give her a sense of value and security. The pastor is a top candidate due to the way he packages himself," says Ms. Lenjou.

Troubled marriages

Some pastors go out of their way to have extramarital affairs due to their problematic marriages. According to data from a survey by the Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development (FASICLD), 77 per cent of pastors who took part in the survey said that their marriages were troubled. 38 per cent were divorced or in the middle of a divorce process. 30 per cent confessed that they were having an affair or that they had engaged in a one-time sexual encounter with a member of their church.

Oliver Oluoch (name changed to protect identity), a young pastor with a leading Pentecostal church in Nairobi, says that he has been having a premarital affair with one of his church members for the last two years. "I am having an affair and I am not about to end it. I love this woman. She has been the source of my peace and comfort since my marriage hit the rocks," he says. Oliver, who is 39, shares that he and his wife sleep in separate bedrooms and are in constant verbal fights. "I have no peace at home. Our church members don't know this because we keep everything under wraps and smile at the altar like the role models we are mandated to be," he says. BY DAILY NATION