Proactive Digital Risk Management in the Church
Sexual misconduct in modern institutional settings is a dual problem of physical and digital risk that churches need to come to terms with.
Correction: Koester was arrested last June, not in January this year. The story has been updated to correct the error.
In the wake of two pastors of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) being arrested and charged in connection with the alleged production of child pornography, one last June and one at the end of January, the Synod and its affiliated institutions should move from reactive crisis management to proactive risk management.
2 Corinthians 6:14-17
Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership can righteousness have with wickedness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness? / What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? / What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.” ...
Sexual misconduct in modern institutional settings is a dual problem of physical and digital risk. Access to explicit content, live-streamed and commercial sexual content platforms, engagement with exploitative online communities, and participation in anonymous or semi-anonymous networks often precede or accompany more serious forms of misconduct. Governance structures must be updated to include this reality.
This is especially the case for the church, where sexual offenses or lewd behavior online and offline cause enormous harm not just to institutional reputation, but personal faith and family relationships.
Today’s digital forensics, increasingly supported by AI-driven analytics and data harvesting methods, is making everyone’s online presence and behavior discoverable and filterable.1 Digital footprints are difficult to hide2 and can often be reconstructed using commercially available tools. Many publishers also deploy detailed session recordings and replays that users are unaware of.3 Leaders should anticipate that some misconduct will probably end up being exposed publicly through those digital forensic research tools.
For example, how many Lutheran school teachers are using hook-up apps? How many pastors consume online pornography? How many church worker students at the Concordias have terrible gambling habits because of the proliferation of sports betting apps? What photos and videos do seminarians have on cloud accounts? The ability to discover this information is surprisingly simple, and the research costs are falling. The information can be used for blackmail and extortion, or simply to further discredit Christ’s Church.
Accordingly, leadership should prioritize evaluating digital risks and developing appropriate accountability mechanisms.
Each Synod-affiliated institution might consider establishing a formal, confidential digital conduct review and accountability program, administered by an independent digital risk office or a qualified external organization. The purpose of this program should not be prurient: no surveillance, humiliation, or self-protection. It aims to prevent misconduct, ensure accountability, and protect at-risk individuals.
It should apply to all Synod and partner personnel who are:
Rostered clergy (all statuses except removed/expelled),
Commissioned ministers,
Elected or appointed institutional leaders,
Seminarians, and
Church worker and pre-seminary students at the Concordias (Luther Classical College should be brought under this umbrella.)
As a condition of enrollment, seminary students (in any track) should participate in a confidential digital conduct screening and accountability review. Focused training and refreshers are also needed on appropriate boundaries with parishioners, children, and the common vices (e.g., alcohol abuse is an observable problem in many situations.)
Reactive Crisis Management or Proactive Risk Management?
Conduct and ethics failures in institutions are usually the sum product of personal ill-discipline, disjointed oversight, haphazard management, and misplaced trust. They are often matched with organizational reticence to address uncomfortable truths head-on, without fear of the facts, even when the facts and their consequences are exceedingly unpleasant.
Whether we like it or not, the pervasiveness of digital vice requires deliberate inclusion in institutional risk management. Church organizations have a moral and fiduciary obligation to implement documented training and oversight, especially for individuals responsible for minors and other vulnerable individuals.
This is not a call for indiscriminate or reckless investigation. Rather, consistently applied and effective safeguarding upholds the Eighth Commandment by preventing the innocent from being falsely accused or subjected to baseless rumors. It also helps all of us avoid bad company and the destruction that loose morals bring.
Proverbs 4:14-15
Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers. / Avoid it; do not travel on it. Turn from it and pass on by.
Conclusion
The recent arrests and criminal investigations warrant deep introspection and profound reform in and for the Synod. We cannot afford to assume the next crisis is far away on the basis of calculated low probabilities.
Cover Photo by Nik Shuliahin
This story was incidentally prompted after research for an article on a completely unrelated topic happened to surface an active clergyman with a pornography account.
The last 20 years of everyone’s online activity is stored in various formats and stitched together by data brokers and investigation services.
Session Replays record everything a user does on a website or app as a layer over the visual content - mouse movements, scrolling, clicks, keyboard strokes, time spent on a task/screen, and requested actions such as “rage clicks”. It is not a screen recording, but a facsimile that is very similar.
To clarify, you're proposing an audit of online behavior for all pastors, seminarians, teachers, church workers, etc. ? I think there's a lot of value in what you're thinking. I, however, can't begin to think how complicated that would be for the LCMS to govern and implement (depending on the extent the synod adopted and who falls under the umbrella) let alone the fall out that would certainly ensue as discoveries of sexual sins, abuse, etc, are GOING to be discovered, albeit worth it for the sake of the church, to not have child abusers in the office of the ministry. I would say it shouldn't be specifically for "new hires" or seminarians, but everyone. But there's also a tentative/sensitive line, as you mentioned, where I think research into private lives may cross over into things the companies/researchers shouldn't know about someone, and inevitably they would. Whether they tell the LCMS those things are not, it is in a way breaching peoples private lives. It's not a matter of "well, what do you have to hide, why wouldn't you be okay with it?" It's a complicated thing, where I don't think really anyone would want anyone or any company knowing their private searches, even if they are 100% "pure" of search history. Also, we'd have to work through the chaotic process for how certain discoveries would look and be treated on paper. Even at a local church level, if the LCMS as a whole didn't accept this and it was a local congregation's choice to do, it's still something that I think would crack open a lot of struggles for how things should look on paper, how district presidents would be involved, etc. . All together, great post, I just think this is a very complicated and non black and white issue. Great topic to continue digging into.
I understand the desire to keep child predators from becoming shepherds in the church, but is the solution to treat all potential church workers as deviants that need to continually prove their innocence? I know pastors who have admitted to watching Game of Thrones. Is that a level of pornography that should keep them from ministry? I definitely think it is important for pastors to seek out a father confessor who is not afraid to give wise counsel, but this seems akin to requiring that father confessor to file a sin report to the church.
Digitally, we can also track calories consumed and body movement to make sure a pastor is not being lazy or gluttonous. We could require a body camera to record conversations and make sure a church worker is being a faithful witness and a good steward of his time. I guess I'm asking where the line of accountability should be and whether there are methods we can use to encourage and support our church workers rather than act as their accusers.