International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation Volume 3 2022 4
an especially common grooming strategy—one that
capitalizes on children’s innocence. Using touch:
The offender will exploit the child’s naivety
and trust by introducing increasingly intimate
physical contact such as play acting, tickling
or wrestling and even hugging to gradually
sexualize contact with the child. The use of touch
is particularly important as this determines
whether or not the child is receptive and begins
the process of desensitization—gradually
the abuser will escalate the boundary violations
of the child’s body which eventually culminates
in enticing the child to acquiesce to engaging
in sexual activity (McAlinden, 2006, p. 347).
Research indicates, “that for the child one of the
consequences of this desensitization and relationship
building process is that by the time the child knows
that abuse is taking place ...,the child may feel she has
given consent (e.g., because she did not say no when
the back of her head was rubbed) to the abuse” (Conte,
Wolf, and Smith, 1989, p. 300). Touch in the form of
tickling and playing may even occur in the presence
of the child’s parents as it seems like innocent fun
(van Dam, 2001). Furthermore, Lanning characterizes
some acts of grooming as comprising sexual acts in and
of themselves when they cause sexual pleasure for the
offender. Hence, in at least some cases, grooming is
not a means to sexual activity, but is the sexual activity
(Lanning, 2018). Additionally, the grooming process
involves “symbolic as well as practical dimensions,”
as they contribute to the objectification of the child.
Hence, children are stripped of their agency (Salter,
2013 p. 128).
When grooming and abuse take place in institutional
contexts, then offenders have exploited their social
roles and the trust therein. They have “violated inter-
personal relationships and defaulted on their moral
obligation and commitment to ensure the care, safety
and well-being of the children for whom they are
responsible” (McAlinden, 2006, p. 345). Research on
institutional grooming has been limited—a problem
that McAlinden’s (2012) recent work addresses.
Moreover, her discussion of Catholicism clearly invites
further examination of religiously situated grooming.
A caveat to consider in all research on grooming:
many behaviors that are a part of the grooming
process are not considered grooming when they occur
in the absence of abuse (McAlinden, 2006). Thus,
acts of affection, the provision of gifts, spending
time together, and an array of other typical adult-
child behaviors are not necessarily indicative of an
adult grooming a child—indeed, typically, they are
not. This proviso applies to religious settings also.
3. What Makes Grooming in Religious Settings
Unique?
3.1 Religion and Legitimation
A variety of social and cultural factors influence
child sexual abuse and hence the grooming process,
and, as Amy C. Tishelman and Lisa A. Fontes (2017)
note, “religious influence constitutes one of the most
understudied cultural issues in CSA [child sexual
abuse]” (Tishelman &Fontes, 2017, p. 120 [emphasis
added]). From their interviews with nearly forty
individuals who work with victims of child sexual
abuse, they found that the religion in which the child
victims were raised affected the children throughout
the entire victimization process (Tishelman &Fontes,
2017).11For researchers of religion, this finding may be
unsurprising, given the well-recognized influence that
religious institutions often have on the perceptions
and meaning-making processes of adherents (and of
course, younger children especially may be less likely
to have access to other conceptual frameworks).
Many religions are major social institutions—although,
as this article demonstrates, not all religious settings
exhibit the typical or perhaps expected features of
the religious institutions with which most people are
familiar. Moreover, not all religious rationalizations
for abuse occur within religious institutions per se. An
individual, such as a family member, may not occupy
a religious position of authority, but may still use
religious rhetoric to groom a child.
11 The research incorporated findings from a wide variety of faiths,
including Amish, Baptist, Catholic, Evangelical, Jehovah’s Witnesses,
Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Pentecostal, and others (Tishelman &Fontes,
2017). Likely, one could identify cases of the sexual abuse of children in
most, if not all, faiths. Though this reality may be difficult to accept, it is
not unusual, given the rate of sexual abuse of children across society more
generally. It would be imprudent to assume that religions are immune to
such crimes against children.

ISSN: 2710-4028 DOI: https://doi.org/10.54208/0003 5
Religious institutions and religious ideologies and
doctrines incorporate a range of specific features that
shape the grooming process in several unique ways.
Religion is, fundamentally, a foundation for human
interaction and association: it fosters the establishment
of communities that allow for the “expression of shared
meanings” (McGuire, 2002, p. 25). Hence, situated
within the religious group, individuals interpret their
life experiences by drawing on the dominant meaning-
making systems that the religion provides (Hood Jr,
1998 McGuire, 2002). Religious institutions are adept
at maintaining their belief systems as the only objective
truths, and they normalize their beliefs and practices
inter-generationally via religious socialization.
This process of legitimation whereby religions posit
their unique relationship to the supernatural realm
(Berger, 1967/2011, p. 10) is vital because it allows
religions to confer a high level of status and capital
to their worldviews. Critically, when attempting to
understand the world, events that occur in it, as well as
their own experiences, religious adherents are likely to
turn to this worldview above others.12 Drawing on Peter
Berger, McGuire states, “The provision of meaning
is particularly important for an understanding of
religion because of the ways that meaning links the
individual with the larger social group. Meaning is
not inherent in a situation but bestowed” (McGuire,
2008, p. 27 [emphasis in the original]). The bestowal
of religious meaning is critical to our discussion.
Children especially may not have the wherewithal to
access alternative meaning systems when confronted
with abusive behaviors that offenders bestow with
religious significance. And, as Malcolm Hamilton
notes, “religion does not simply legitimate and make
sense of the social order. It makes sense of experiences
which might otherwise be disruptive and disordering”
(Hamilton, 1995, p. 162). That is to say, religions offer
theodicies to their adherents—explanations for why
terrible things can happen to individuals, despite the
existence of God.
3.2 Religious Power, Authority, and Patriarchy
Because “religious groups and institutions can be
understood as hierarchies of unequal power” (Shupe,
12 Commitment levels may vary a great deal among religious
adherents, especially within larger denominations and world religions.
Children often are influenced by their parents’ or other caregivers’ levels of
commitment, although other factors may influence.
2007, p. 6 [italics in the original]), congregants and
especially children have little to no access to religious
power. Furthermore, those who occupy a lower status
typically are taught to credit the institution as being
entirely compassionate, caring, reliable, and altruistic
religious leaders are supported as trusted and as
possessing great spiritual acumen and knowledge.
These dynamics allow religious leaders and authority
figures to use their “moral persuasion” within a unique
set of “special ‘opportunity structures’ for potential
exploitation, abuse and mismanagement” (Shupe,
2007, p. 6).
Religious power, authority, patriarchy, and opportunity
coalesce to foster conditions that some individuals
exploit to groom and sexually abuse children. In their
brief discussion of religious grooming, Tishelman and
Fontes (2017) found that sexual offenders used “the
authority of the religious institution to groom the child
and justify CSA [child sexual abuse]” (Tishelman &
Fontes, 2017, p. 123). They reported that in one case,
the offender referred to God’s authority, stating that
God had “ordained me to do this.” They found that
offenders who used appeals to religious authority made
the child more “compliant” to grooming. Moreover,
in some cases, abusers used religious narratives to
legitimate the grooming and abuse as part of the child’s
religious “education.” For example, this focus was
evident in a family where the adoptive father, a devout
Mormon, wanted to keep the “teaching and training at
home” (Tishelman &Fontes, 2017, p. 123). By drawing
on the religious meaning system and the importance
of religious “teachings,” offenders such as this one can
present grooming behaviors to children as uniquely
legitimate religious “lessons.”
In some cases, the grooming process even rests
upon the pretext of freeing the child from spiritual
malaise. In Nigeria, for example, some Pentecostal
pastors frequently groom children and their families
on the premise that they will help to free children
from demonic possession. The pastors then perform
‘exorcisms’ on them—a euphemism for the subsequent
sexual assaults. The pastors realize the absolute trust
that the community has in them and therefore are able
to effectively groom families to accept their claims to
‘helping’ their children (Agazue, 2016).