“I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.” — Maya Angelou.

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I have been asked by many the following question when I write about a child sex abuse situation in a church.  “What is it about the theology that causes someone to do this?” Recently, I responded to this question in a new way: “Suppose a public school math teacher is exposed for sexually abusing a kid in their class. Would you ask what it was about the math curriculum that caused them to do this?” The point is this: I contend that a pedophile is already a pedophile, and their despicable activity has nothing to do with their position, their theology, or their curriculum.

Let me clarify: A pedophile will seek out a position, usually one of authority, to find a victim. The school teacher and student is one such relationship of a power differential. The same goes for a pastor. However, a pedophile might choose a church because they know that the theology that stresses the authority of the pastor along with the belief that exposing a sexual abuse situation would be “airing the church’s dirty laundry before the public eye” means there is a system in place that is apt to keep things quiet. But that might also be the case for a secular school.

That situation is not only found in churches. It is found in schools and elsewhere. Recently, I read two articles showing how two different venues, one secular and the other religious, demonstrated eerily similar grooming techniques by two different molesters. The first was posted by Vanity Fair Magazine The Sex Abuse Scandal That’s Rocking Miss Hall’s, an Elite Berkshires Boarding School for Girls. Miss Hall’s is a tony, not religious, private girls’ boarding school.

Founded in 1898, Miss Hall’s School appears to be a cocoon of safety. But for decades, an alleged sexual predator operated on campus. Alumnae are speaking out in hopes of holding their former teacher—and the school—accountable.

The next was found in a Wisconsin Lutheran day school  AOL.com posted Christian school teacher charged with child sex crimes after allegedly pulling down 10-year-old’s pants. This school is affiliated with Christ Alone Church, a Lutheran church that appears to be affiliated with the Wisconsin Synod since both pastors graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.

Daniel Rick, 36, who is also the athletic director at Christ Alone Lutheran School in Thiensville, was reported on Nov. 15 to police by child services, who alleged he had “inappropriate contact with a boy student,”

For purposes of this post, I am only focusing on the grooming tactics of the molesters. Miss  Hall’s School has been accused of covering up the abuse or downplaying the abuse over the years. As of the writing of this post, Christ Alone Lutheran School has not been accused of coverup, but I will update the post if things change.

Similar grooming tactics

Pedophiles can be crafty, but they often use similar tactics.

The Christian school

Daniel Rick at Christ Alone was reported by Fox 6 Milwaukee:

A criminal complaint accuses Rick of picking “favorite” boy students each year and having some of them sit on his lap, where he would touch their stomachs or rub their backs and kiss them.

…Last month, detectives learned of even worse accusations, dating back to January 2024.

A student told police Rick asked him to come to his classroom after school.

According to prosecutors, Rick compared the boy’s athletic abilities to older students, then pulled the boy’s pants down to “see his pubic hair.”

Rick’s accused of later kissing the boy on the cheek and instructing him not to tell anyone because he “didn’t want to get in trouble.”

The secular girl’s school

Matt Rutledge had been teaching at the school for years. He was reportedly the ‘big man on campus,’ according to the girls. And just like Rick, he would pick a favorite girl every few years. He targeted lonely girls.

She began going to his study halls in his classroom, where she says they’d usually be alone. On such evenings he’d outfit his room with debonair touches: snacks like dried cherries, raw almonds, and fancy dark chocolate from Canada, where he had a cabin. He’d have cool music playing—Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Police, Van Morrison. He’d encourage her to take a nap if she was sleepy. He thrilled in the size differential, it seemed. “I don’t want to say twice my height, but he towered above me,” says Fares, who is five foot four. He began to call her “Little One” and would comment, for instance, “Such a big sigh for such a little girl.” (Rutledge did not respond to detailed questions from Vanity Fair.)

As their sessions continued, his conversation became more daring. “You’re my type,” he told her one evening: “dark hair, dark eyes, like Penélope Cruz or Salma Hayek.

Then,

he’d drop in a question about her boyfriend back home. “He asked if he had performed oral sex on me,” she recalls. He’d put his legs up on the table and encourage her to rest her legs on his.

… On Friday-night school trips to the Berkshire mall, he drove the van and had her sit beside him, with the other girls in the back. He’d have one hand on the wheel and the other on her thigh. “I’m thinking, This man has lost his mind,” Fares recalls. “He must be obsessed with me. He can’t resist me.

He even reached out to her mother, sending her gifts. Eventually, the sex started.

she showed up at his classroom, as instructed, wearing her pajamas. He met her at the doorway, locked the door behind her, pulled down the shade. He told her to get under a classroom desk, took off her pajamas, and performed oral sex on her for the first time.

…he brought her to the closet, where he’d laid down a yoga mat, and he raped her. That’s not what she called it at the time, but it was the first time she felt a sense of having been violated.

“People ask me, ‘Well, was it consensual?’ And I’m like, How do you give consent at that age, in that context? He’s a big guy and was just forceful. So I didn’t say anything. And he came inside me.” She bled, and she panicked—she wasn’t on birth control. He assured her that he’d had a vasectomy

This relationship continued into college, but she eventually broke it off with him. Over time, she learned she wasn’t the only one.

Why compare two disparate sexual abuse situations?

When I first started to write this, I would use it to discuss grooming tactics, which seem similar in most situations. I still might do that in the future. This was a way for me to collect my thoughts on how to answer the “What is it about faith or theology that “causes’ pedophilia/other paraphilias? The better question is, “How do pedophiles use the system they choose to abuse?” Pedophiles are going to molest. They will enter systems that provide access to potential, preferred victims.

The secular institution allegedly covered up the situation. Was it because it had an institution to protect? Perhaps it was feared that parents would pull their daughters from the school. In other words, secular organizations might behave like churches, fearing the airing of dirty laundry might damage their reputation, which is often all about protecting the money while the kids’ safety is of lesser importance.

I have yet to get the full story of the Christian school’s response. Since the children lived with their parents, it is possible that everyone involved got the information from their children sooner. Time will tell. At  least now I have a template to answer that oft-asked question: “What was it about the theology that caused the sex abuse?”