Abuse victims were persuaded that submitting to pastors’ sexual demands was God’s will.

Evidence

One woman recalled her own assault at the age of fourteen. “He was a man of God,” she recounted, and even though it felt wrong, she knew it must be what God wanted: “He compared himself to David in the Bible and how he was anointed, and said this is what I was supposed to do … to take care of him because he was the man of God.” — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 646

Categorization

• XREF: This is the mechanism at the heart of Du Mez’s thesis — submission to male authority as a religious duty makes followers suspend moral judgment of leaders.