The Role of a Religious Coercive Discourse in Sexual Violence in the Protestant Church in Germany

Sexual violence is a longstanding scourge of society present in all social spheres. After a first study on the prevalence of sexual violence in the Catholic Church in Germany released in 2018, the pressure on a similar study of the Protestant Church has been strong. The Protestant Church in Germany, however, has a self-perception of a progressive institution in which sexuality is openly discussed and thus sexual violence is not as much of a problem as in the Catholic Church. The recent ForuM project on the reappraisal of sexual violence in the Protestant Church has shown however, that the problem of sexual violence in the Protestant Church in Germany is comparable to the Catholic Church. In this paper results of this ForuM project will be presented. Particularly, data from the subproject C “The perspective of survivors” has been analyzed drawing on 48 in-depth interviews with victims of sexual violence. Using the theoretical framework of the preventive socialization (Gomez, 2015) results show that while previous research on sexual violence has pointed to the existence of a coercive discourse that forces victims into sexual violence, the data presented here evidences the existence of a religious coercive discourse present in the Protestant Church in Germany. Data suggests that the religious coercive discourse reinforces a coercion into sexual violence leaving victims with feelings of guilt and blame for the violence they suffered. Potential opportunities to challenge this religious coercive discourse and provide support for survivors as well as potential prevention strategies are discussed.