Addressing the Real Problem

Brock Turner is again in the news.  I am sure everyone by now recognizes, if you are current with the news, the name of the twenty something college student convicted of raping a fellow Stanford Student who was overly intoxicated at a party.  It made news, not only because of the crime, but the exceedingly light sentence Turner received compared to other people convicted of rape.  Affluence and ethnicity all seem to be in play in the sentencing.  The news is being lambasted today for reporting that “former swimmer and Stanford student” had to begin registering as a sex offender, for the rest of his life, four times a year today.  The outrage is identifying him as anything other than a rapist.  Turner is our selected target of hatred.

The problem is that we will use this injustice, and focus most of our energy, in one place and then move on.  Is that where we really want to go?  We all know rape is a worldwide problem. The answer, I don’t think, should be to say, “Oh, here, we caught one, let’s all get him!”  The best it will accomplish is making sure that Turner’s life story goes as negatively as possible.  If this rape really makes us angry (and it should), our energies should be much more effectively targeted.

The problem is rape.  The problem is the culture that perpetuates it.  The problem is the drugs and alcohol which throw gasoline on the fire (and we want to pretend they don’t have anything to do with it).  The overwhelming majority of rapists, unlike Turner, get away with their crimes and focusing on one will not change that.  Even trying to make his life as terrible as possible won’t change that.  Turner, who also was drunk, did not stop and pause and consider the latest sentencing for rapists or how convicted ones are treated.  Why do we think the next rapist will pause at all if we all collectively trash Turner?  Just this morning, I read of a twenty something woman raped while being a lifeguard at a pool.  All the outrage at Turner didn’t stop this rapist (or help his victim).

We need to teach people greater respect for one another.  Men, in particular, when they are raised, need to be taught what a loathsome, repulsive, and criminal act rape is.  We need to take the shame out of the reporting of these crimes.  We need to increase the odds, greatly, that if someone commits this crime that they will be caught and they will be punished.  We need to increase awareness so that more people react like the two brave men who stopped Turner in the act of his crime and held him until police personnel arrived.

We should not let ourselves be lulled into thinking getting mad about one story and venting about it online is going to change the problem.  An individual rapist might get us mad (and should).  But will it make us want to change things, really change things? Let Turner’s story, and his victim’s, inspire us.  Let us make this world a better place and this crime increasingly less prevalent.

God calls on us to make the world a more just place.  Will we?

What do you think?

Until next time,

Tom

Ray and Janay Rice and Time For Change

At this time of year, Ray Rice is used to being in the news, but not in this way. As anyone who watches the news on the internet or on TV by now, Mr. Rice was indefinitely suspended by the NFL because a video surfaced showing him punching Mrs. Rice in the face and knocking her out. Both husband and wife are dismayed by the media coverage and feel this is a private matter left to them. I am sure they are both worried about his professional prospects in the future. To me though, what it highlights isn’t at its core about the Rices (certainly not just about them).  If at least for a moment, with our short attention span in our society, it highlights the cultural norm, worldwide and historic, of violence against women.

Here are just a few fast facts to refresh us on the topic:

~ In Guatemala, two women are murdered, on average, each day.

~ In India, 8,093 cases of dowry-related death were reported in 2007; an unknown number of murders of women and young girls were falsely labeled ‘suicides’ or ‘accidents’.

~In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United States, between 40 and 70 percent of female murder victims were killed by their intimate partners.

~In the State of Chihuahua, Mexico, 66 percent of murders of women were committed by husbands, boyfriends or other family members.

~Worldwide, up to 50 percent of sexual assaults are committed against girls under 16.

~An estimated 150 million girls under the age of 18 suffered some form of sexual violence in 2002 alone.

~The first sexual experience of some 30 percent of women was forced. The percentage is even higher among those who were under 15 at the time of their sexual initiation, with up to 45 percent reporting that the experience was forced.

~Over 60 million girls worldwide are child brides, married before the age of 18, primarily in South Asia (31.3 million) and sub-Saharan Africa (14.1 million). Violence and abuse characterize married life for many of these girls. Women who marry early are more likely to be beaten or threatened, and more likely to believe that a husband might sometimes be justified in beating his wife.

Is it just that the Rice’s are singled out for what is a worldwide phenomenon?  No.  Kind of like getting a speeding ticket, sometimes if you are in the eye of the law, you are going to get caught at something you might never have if you were elsewhere doing this same thing (and many others have and will continue to do the same).  Regardless, and even if provoked, a man should control his anger and never act out in violence against anyone, more less his wife. Men and women are given their strength to protect one another – not abuse one another.

But far more significant than this one case is that the litany of facts listed above (and these are but a few) do not stop us in our tracks about what is “normal” for half of the human race. We have got to train up a new generation on what is and is not acceptable. And using your strength against someone weaker is not who we are called to be.  For Christians, it is the absolute last thing Christ ever would do.

When is it time for change?  Now.  Let us get the word out, particularly to those closest to us, that violence against women is not like an epidemic (something new that has just swept in).  It is an unhealthy norm for humanity. It has been true for countless generations.  Yet, we have unlearned many harmful practices in the past and we can unlearn this one.

If you are a woman experiencing violence in the home, let someone know.  There are many professionals, including your clergy person of choice, who will help connect you the support that you need.  Do not suffer alone.

This is not just a personal issue for the Rice family.  This is an issue that plagues humanity.

By God’s grace, may we change.

Until next time, 

Tom

 

Where I Struggle in This 21st Century World

Today, I was in a public place in New Orleans waiting for an event to begin.  It was crowded.  I was among strangers.

As I study crowds, I look for people I might know  – a churchgoer, a military person, someone my age, another parent, etc.

What caught my eye was a younger woman’s daughter – a girl about the same age as my daughter.  Her mother wore a hijab in a public setting in a large crowd of people.  I saw people of every age.  I saw people of every ethnic background.  I saw men, women, and children.  My hometown of New Orleans is much more diverse than when I was young.  When I was a kid, it was unusual to run into anyone who wasn’t either Anglo or African American in New Orleans.  Today, you run into people whose parents (or they themselves) were born on nearly any continent on our planet.

The girl looked just like hundreds of girls her age.  But I couldn’t help but think that in just a matter of years, she no longer would be indistinguishable from her peers.  She would be wearing a hijab, too.  And, if she kept to the exact faith of her parents, no one except her immediate family would see anything but her face (in some cases just her eyes) again.

I have two competing ideals within me.  Firstly, I am a Christian.  I believe in the Christian faith, and I believe that God has most clearly spoken to us through his Son.  I believe that the more we adopt what he taught, the better off we will be.  I don’t believe Jesus was just a really good guy.  I believe he was God among us.  Secondly, and at the same time, I believe that God wants us to grow as individuals and as a species, and part of that growth is through choices we make and how we live with others.

After 21 centuries, it is clear to me that God expects Christians to live in community with non-Christians.  He does not want us to compel people to believe what we believe.  If we can convince them to make that choice, fine and good.  But we are not to force our faith on anyone (or it wouldn’t be faith).  And God has filled the world not just with potential believers but also with many people who are unlikely to become Christians.  Perhaps they grew up in another faith.  Perhaps they have had experiences which have made them look on faith in a negative light.  Perhaps they simply aren’t biologically wired for their brains to grab on to faith.  (I don’t mean by this that they are unintelligent.  Some people have a gift for music, some for math, and some for faith.)

How will we live in community with a diversity of people?  I have had friends–some good friends–who were Jews, Muslims, and agnostics, among other things.  I feel blessed and stronger for knowing them.

But the intentional covering of one’s entire body goes against my sense of fairness.  I would never want this for my own daughter.  While I do want my daughter to feel that her body is for the eyes of only one man, I don’t think she has to be covered from head to toe in front of others.  I would not want her to feel she is not as free as my son is to live autonomously.

It isn’t my faith in God which gets rubbed the wrong way when I see the daughter of a woman in a hijab.  It is my sense that somehow this is a cultural practice that is not helping men and women live in equality and fully appreciate one another as equals in the eyes of God. Yet, I understand that these are my values, not hers.  I don’t want to live in a society where everyone is just like me.  I am not for a society where anyone dictates the rules, even me.  Some schools try to make rules against such religious garb.  I don’t think forcing people into our perceptions or beliefs, even right ones, is usually helpful.

I guess my hope is that one day that girl, when she grows up, will choose differently.  I hope that she learns from the women who are not in a hijab around her that she can live a full and righteous and faithful life without having to cover herself head to toe.  No matter what faith she chooses to live, I hope that she believes her body is nothing that is in need of covering anymore than her brother’s body (if she has one) would be for modesty’s sake.

I also hope the boys in our culture can grow into men who will make better choices when they grow up and stop the objectification of women.  Our culture does nothing to allay the fears of parents who practice other faiths that their daughters won’t be objectified.

I guess my confession is that the logical side of me says, “Tom, don’t let it bother you.  We live in a multicultural world.”  Nevertheless, the emotional side of me says, “I hope she chooses differently.”

What do you think?

Until next time,

Tom

The Weaker Sex?

If you look up strong in the dictionary, the first definition is having or marked by great physical power.  The second definition though is having great moral or intellectual power.  When I was young, I would have always thought of the first definition as the one that mattered.  But as I age I ask myself, what type of strength really makes a lasting difference in this world?”

Samson was the person in the Bible with the greatest physical strength.  But he is seldom uplifted as a model of behavior, even in the church.  And when the Olympics come on TV today, the weight lifting competition (which requires the most physical strength) is not nearly as interesting to most folks as other sports where far less muscle is needed.

I am not saying physical strength is unimportant.  We spend millions upon millions both watching athletes and trying to get in better physical shape ourselves.  We could probably do our planet, our nation, our families, and ourselves a favor if we all exercised a bit more.  But, in the end, is physical strength our primary measure of power?  As important as our military is, it isn’t that type of strength in my book which makes America a strong nation.  When the Nazis controlled Germany, they had lots of military hardware and yet they surely were not strong in so many ways.

Males have traditionally been accorded the tribute of being the ‘stronger sex.’  And, there is no doubt, the median male usually has more physical strength than the female.  But, what is inescapable to me as a pastor is noticing the different trends in spirituality between the two genders.  I also noticed in school growing up that the median girl usually outperformed the median male academically.

So, does all this mean it is time to turn the world upside down and put women in charge?  Should we just make them our our intellectual, political, and spiritual leaders and relegate males to jobs more attuned to physical strength?  Of course not.  Some of the greatest minds and some of the greatest political, academic, and spiritual leaders we have  encountered in human history have been men (and there are and have been some women who possess incredible physical strength as well).  Men seem to have a greater ability to focus in on problems to solve them.  Women seem to see “the big picture” better than men often do.  Both have tendencies to benefit all of us.

I point this all out to say – we need each other and we need to broaden what we think of as “strong.”  Men, in general, need to be more open to receiving spiritual insights from women.  It should not be lost on us, even those who strongly support women’s ordinations, that denominations that ordain women seem to have less participation than ones that ordain only men.  My gender seems to pull back from female leadership (particularly spiritual leadership).  And that is a huge mistake.  Accepting women leaders does not mean men will be relegated to the ‘back row.’  We might just find our sisters will be far more equitable than men have been toward women over the years.

And women should not be so comfortable in gathering in institutions where just women predominate.  We need both genders.  Both of us have the image of God within us.  That means we need each other to get the full picture and perspective that God reveals to us.  I believe some women are very comfortable that there are less men in the church which, in the end, is to their detriment as well as ours.

The truth is there is no weaker sex (or stronger sex).  We both just have different tendencies.  We both need to realize that the other sex has something that we need in all aspects of life.  God made us to need each other.  God gave us different characteristics with a reason and a purpose.  We tend to understand this more on an individual level, but we need to see it on a societal level as well.

And especially as Christians, if we want to follow Jesus, there is only one way, to do it effectively and that is together.

What do you think?

Until next time,

Tom