Femi LazarusCEO at Femi Lazarus Consulting

This is one conversation on Declassified Podcast you don’t want to miss. Available this .

26 Jun 2026 · 3 min

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In this excerpt from the Declassified Podcast, Speaker A and Speaker B discuss the inappropriateness of involving pastors in rape and gender‑based violence cases. Speaker A recounts personal experiences where pastors attempted to "sort out" assaults by urging forgiveness and apologies rather than reporting to law enforcement, highlighting the harmful impact of such religious mediation. Both speakers condemn the culture of victim shaming, noting that families—especially mothers—often pressure survivors to stay silent. They describe how survivors are stigmatized as "damaged goods" and link this stigma to the broader "purity culture" that teaches women they are responsible for sexual violations, leading to self‑blame and trauma. The conversation advocates for directing survivors to legal authorities, using an analogy of referring a car buyer to a dealer, and emphasizes the need for systemic change rather than church involvement.

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I don't think a rape case should be reported to a pastor, and I also don't think a pastor should be handling a rape case.
It should be the authority.
It should be the authorities. Yeah, we've had cases. I've, I've had two, two cases myself of rape cases that were sorted out by pastors. What is the sorting out? Say sorry, won't even pay I heard one saying, uh, that she said that, you know, the pastor told the perpetrator, hoga, and tell her sorry. You know, one of the things I, I'm very, very, I'm very, very vocal about is there are measures that have been laid down. If someone comes to meet me, for example, and says, oh, I want to buy a car, I'm not a car dealer. Yeah, the wisest thing I would do is to refer you to a car dealer. Yeah, and at most now follow up with the car dealer and say, how is it going? So if at any point the pastor is coming in, maybe when it comes to— pastors even preach forgiveness when we talk about rape cases. They say forgiveness means you don't report it, it means you stay silent, it means that you are forgiven and you are forgotten about it. So it's, it's, it's not just family matters, but even gender-based violence. It's not something that should be— that the church should be so involved in.
Yeah. Yes, there's the culture of shaming the victim. Yes. And oftentimes, in order to avoid that, we've seen cases where parents But oftentimes mothers tell the victim not to reveal or speak out.
There is a notion, yeah, that a survivor of sexual violence is already stigmatized. So it's like, to use it in layman terms, it's like she's now damaged goods.
Do you think so?
So I, I would touch on this just a little bit. I feel there are many aspects of to this, but one of the reasons I feel we should really, really talk about, you know, there's this, um, there's this emphasis on the purity culture.
Yeah.
So When a woman who has grown up with that purity culture ingrained in her head, yeah, is violated, she's made to think, I did something wrong, I did something wrong, I'm no longer complete.
Do you— you— are you saying that purity culture is a bad culture?