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A lot of people have expressed shock and surprise over the revelations of brutish behavior by so many men they had previously admired. How could these men have done such things? And further, how could so many of them have done such things? What have we come to? What is wrong with us?

What I find shocking and surprising is the shock and surprise.

For decades, our culture has engaged in the very kinds of thought and behavior that virtually assure that we would end up right where we are. For starters, we have used one of God’s delightful gifts—our creative energies—to trivialize another of his delightful gifts—sexuality—by reducing it to mere biological function. We have created, and rabidly consumed, entertainment that makes women mere collections of body parts to be ogled (we call that PG) and fondled (we call that R). For the most part, the women in our movies, our television shows, our game shows, our sports broadcasts, and even our news programs (!) are no more than eye candy, there for the shot that deftly catches the angles most likely to focus the viewer’s mind on the external and provoke a merely physical response. One news analysis show sports a “leg chair” featuring a clear shot of a female pundit—always a female—in a short skirt—always short. This is about news analysis, and the woman is a lawyer, for crying out loud; what’s the real objective here? Oh, and this is the politically “conservative” channel.

Yikes.

If we take in a steady diet of material that sees women as meat, we’re going to think of them as meat, and we’re going to toss them around like so many beef carcasses.

We’ve reaped what we’ve sowed.

A second practice is our elevation of creatures to the status of creators. We’ve made gods of mere men.

We all want heroes, and genuine heroism should be thanked and celebrated. The generation of young men who took on two world powers at the same time, on opposite sides of the world, and by dint of grit and guts and discipline and determination ground them into powder—the Greatest Generation—are rightfully heroes. But I’ve noticed that those men, real heroes all, didn’t really ask for anything special. They didn’t want to talk about their exploits except to deflect praise to others, especially those who died by their sides. They wanted simple, ordinary pleasures—a wife, a child or two, a house, a back yard, maybe a picket fence. Peace.

And they cared for their people, because they had fought for them.

But opportunities for real heroism on that scale don’t come along very often, and in those in-between times, we want heroes. So we make them up. We celebrate actors, and athletes, and musicians, not simply respecting their legitimate accomplishments or their disciplined devotion to their craft—which are worthy of respect—but pouring adulation and worship on them, making them idols, American or otherwise. And then we adulate those in power in those industries or in politics. And eventually we even make gods out of people who just read the news.

Humans aren’t designed to be gods; they’re designed to be worshipers. When we make them gods, they respond poorly, like anyone else who’s in a position for which he is completely unqualified. They are corrupted by the power, they feel undeservedly invulnerable, and away we go.

There’s irony here.

We pride ourselves on our modernity. We’ve outgrown our ancient superstitious ways. We’re scientific. Yeah, that’s it.

How scientific is it to compile terabytes of data on physical and psychological human sexual response—something we’ve put an inordinate amount of time and resources into studying—then do all of the things that incite the raw hormonal reaction, and then act surprised when the chemical reaction occurs? How scientific is that?

“Officer, I just poured gasoline all over the building and then lit a match; I had no intention of burning the place down.”

And to increase our guilt, we’ve criticized those who said, “Um, you keep that up, you’re gonna burn the place down,” as joyless prudes.

That’s not gonna stand up in court.

Part 4

Who is it today?

Who’s been outed as a sexual harasser?

The parade goes on, day after day; another famous person, it turns out, has been creepy all along. And the “outing” is happening because suddenly, people are starting to speak up.

Good for them.

Everyone I know hopes that the parade of perp walks continues until justice has been done for everyone. And maybe, just maybe (hope against hope!), this is the beginning of a sea change in our culture, one that changes fundamentally the way we address our sexuality. (More on that later.)

As I’ve watched all this unfold over the past few weeks, I’ve had a few thoughts that I’d like to share in the next few posts.

First, as I suppose everyone knows, most of these cases have been about a fundamental imbalance of power. Someone in power—perhaps a boss, or someone else in a position to affect the victim’s career significantly, seeks sexual favors from the victim, with the explicit or implicit promise of good career prospects if the victim consents or the threat of bad ones if she (usually she) refuses. Many of the victims said that they gave in because of this pressure. I’ve found it interesting to note that in this latest wave, some Democrats have finally spoken out against Bill Clinton’s misbehavior, more than two decades after the fact; is it just a coincidence that with Hillary Clinton’s loss in the presidential election, the Clintons are now not in any position to retaliate? Is the two decades of silence simply part of the same power imbalance?

This is a serious problem, first because it involves the deepest urges of every human, and second because it crosses cultural and chronological barriers: it’s been going on for a long time, and wherever human beings interact.

We would expect, then, that the Bible would have something to say about it. And it does.

We could start with Jesus’ teaching, specifically with the fact that he elevated love of others to the second great commandment, below only our relationship with God himself. If you love someone else, then you sacrifice your own well-being for hers; using others, whether against their will or not, to satisfy your own needs is precisely the opposite of how Jesus lived his life and how he expects us to live ours—indeed, how he demands that we live ours, with open threat of future judgment.

But the Bible speaks even more directly to what we’re seeing play out on our newsfeeds day after day. The Old Testament prophets raged against those in power who used that power to abuse others. Amos condemned leaders in Israel “who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted” (Amos 2.7), who “turn aside the needy in the gate” (Amos 5.12)—that is, who withhold justice from those appealing to the court system. Amos’s contemporary Isaiah joins the chorus, calling Israel to “seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Isa 1.17). And more than a century later, Jeremiah turns his fire on neighboring Judah:

Execute justice in the morning [i.e., immediately], and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed, lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of your evil deeds (Jer 21.12).

Judah, as we all know, ignored the warning and spent 70 years in captivity in Babylon. After they returned, God sent more prophets to warn them against returning to their old ways. One of them, Zechariah, said,

Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart (Zech 7.9-10).

Is this all only for Israel? Did God judge other nations for allowing the weak to be persecuted by the powerful? You can find the answer to that question by reading the book of Obadiah. It’ll take you less than 2 minutes.

Micah lyrically sums up what God expects of those in power: Do justice; love kindness; walk humbly with your God (Micah 6.8).

Perhaps the clearest example of this kind of abuse comes from a surprising figure, King David himself, the sweet singer of Israel, the man after God’s own heart. In a moment of lust, he takes to himself another man’s wife. (Of course she assents; what choice does she have?) God sends the prophet Nathan (2Sam 12.1) to tell the satisfied king a story about a rich man who takes his poor neighbor’s one little beloved lamb to feed to a guest. The outraged David orders the rich man’s immediate execution. Nathan violently jerks the potentate’s chain with the simple words, “You are the man!” (2Sam 12.7).

Speaking truth to power. It’s a thing.

And governments should have protections in place to prevent the powerful from using their power to abuse the powerless.

That’s what God says.

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Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash