The title’s central metaphor, the invisible mask, points to the way misconduct by religious leaders is concealed behind the public roles that clergy occupy. Protestant ministers operate within a dense web of expectations: they are trusted confidants, moral exemplars, community representatives, and, in many traditions, bearers of divine authority. That combination gives clergy unusual access to vulnerable people at moments of crisis, grief, and spiritual searching. It also gives them an unusually effective cover. When allegations surface, congregations often struggle to believe them precisely because the accused has performed the role of the trustworthy shepherd so convincingly. Researchers across sociology, psychology, and practical theology have documented this pattern for decades, and the mask metaphor captures how the professional persona can function simultaneously as a genuine identity and as a shield against accountability.

The scale of the problem has been estimated in several large studies of American religious life. Surveys conducted in the 1980s and 1990s, including work associated with researchers at the Center for Ethics and Social Policy and later analyses by academic sociologists, found that a substantial minority of congregants reported having experienced sexual contact or advances from a religious leader at some point in their lives, with the majority of reported cases involving clergy and adult women. Subsequent scholarship has emphasized that such relationships cannot be understood as consensual affairs in the ordinary sense, because the asymmetry of spiritual authority distorts the conditions under which consent can be freely given. This reframing, now widely accepted in professional ethics codes across denominations, treats clergy sexual misconduct as an abuse of power first and a sexual act second, a distinction that carries major implications for how congregations, denominations, and therapists respond.

What distinguishes the new volume, as its subtitle suggests, is its insistence that pastoral care responses to misconduct must be intercultural. Congregations in the United States and elsewhere are increasingly multiethnic and multiracial, and immigrant churches in particular occupy a distinctive position. In many Korean, Latino, African, and Asian congregations, the pastor functions not merely as a preacher but as an ethnic community leader, a social broker, and sometimes the most publicly visible member of the community. Scandal in such a setting does not stay within the congregation; it can threaten the standing of an entire immigrant community, intensifying pressures to silence victims, protect the leader, and preserve collective reputation. Scholars of immigrant religion have described how these dynamics can compound the harm done to survivors, who may face ostracism not only from their church but from the ethnic community that the church anchors.

Intercultural pastoral care, as a subdiscipline, draws on intercultural theology, postcolonial critique, and culturally grounded psychology to argue that caregiving practices developed in one cultural context cannot simply be transplanted into another. Applied to clergy misconduct, the approach raises hard questions. Standard denominational investigation procedures, modeled on corporate human-resources practice, may fail in communities where authority is understood patriarchally and where shame attaches to victims rather than perpetrators. Conversely, appeals to cultural difference must never become excuses for abuse. The challenge the field faces is to develop responses that are culturally attuned without being culturally relativist, holding offenders accountable while caring for survivors in ways that respect their cultural location and their particular burdens of stigma.

The appearance of the review in Pastoral Psychology is itself noteworthy. The journal, published by Springer Nature, has long served as a bridge between clinical psychology and practical theology, and its reviewers are typically scholars at theological seminaries rather than secular research universities. Hee Jin Lee, who reviewed the book, is based at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Kentucky, an institution embedded in the mainline Protestant world whose denominations have wrestled publicly with misconduct cases and with the policies that govern them. A review in this venue indicates that the book is being read not as an exposé but as a contribution to professional formation, the kind of text that may shape how future ministers, chaplains, and pastoral counselors are trained to recognize and respond to abuse of authority.

The broader institutional context has shifted dramatically over the past two decades. The Roman Catholic abuse crises, the #MeToo movement, and investigative journalism into Southern Baptist Convention handling of abuse allegations have collectively dismantled the assumption that Protestant congregations are structurally safer than other religious bodies. Denominations have responded with mandatory reporting training, background checks, clergy ethics codes, and independent review boards. Yet researchers and survivor advocates continue to document gaps between policy and practice, particularly in independent and nondenominational churches that lack external oversight, and in immigrant congregations where denominational connections are weak or nominal. Scholarship that examines how culture, authority, and silence interact is therefore in high demand among denominational officials, seminary educators, and clinicians who work with survivors.

For clinicians, the practical stakes are considerable. Survivors of clergy misconduct frequently present with symptoms that resemble complex trauma: shattered trust, spiritual injury, depression, and difficulty forming new attachments, including to religious communities themselves. Effective treatment often requires therapists who understand the specific theological vocabulary of the survivor’s tradition, since recovery may involve renegotiating a relationship with God that the abuser claimed to represent. This is where the pastoral care literature and the clinical literature converge, and where an intercultural framework earns its keep. A Korean American survivor, a rural Midwestern congregant, and a member of an African diaspora church may carry different layers of communal expectation, and a caregiving response that ignores those layers risks re-traumatizing the very person it aims to help.

The publication of a 331-page monograph devoted to the intersection of clergy misconduct and intercultural care also reflects a maturing of the research field itself. Early studies of clergy misconduct were largely descriptive and often denominational in scope. More recent work has become theoretically ambitious, drawing on feminist theology, liberation theology, and critical studies of race and religion, all of which appear among the subject classifications that Springer associates with this title. The book’s placement within Palgrave Macmillan’s religious studies list, and its pricing at $109.99 for the hardcover edition, mark it as a library and scholarly acquisition rather than a mass-market title, the typical route by which such specialized research reaches seminary classrooms and eventually filters into denominational policy debates.

Readers seeking the full assessment can consult the review itself, published as Lee, H., ‘Protestant Clergy Sexual Misconduct and Intercultural Pastoral Care: Invisible Mask. By AHyun Lee. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. xv + 331 pp. $109.99 hardcover,’ in Pastoral Psychology (2026), available through Springer at doi.org/10.1007/s11089-026-01380-1, with the underlying book accessible at doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-89199-1. As congregations continue to grapple with the fallout of misconduct cases and as their memberships grow more culturally complex, scholarly work that names the invisible mask, and asks what it takes to remove it, is likely to remain both contested and essential.

Subject of Research: Clergy sexual misconduct and intercultural approaches to pastoral care in Protestant congregations

Article Title: Protestant Clergy Sexual Misconduct and Intercultural Pastoral Care: Invisible Mask. By AHyun Lee. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. xv + 331 pp. $109.99 hardcover

Article References: Lee, H. J. (2026). Protestant Clergy Sexual Misconduct and Intercultural Pastoral Care: Invisible Mask. By AHyun Lee. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. xv + 331 pp. $109.99 hardcover. Pastoral Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-026-01380-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s11089-026-01380-1

Keywords: clergy sexual misconduct, pastoral care, Protestantism, intercultural theology, pastoral psychology, abuse of power, immigrant churches, survivor care, seminary education, feminist theology, religious authority, Palgrave Macmillan