Sexual harassment - what did
Jesus teach?
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His sexual
indiscretions may have been the British media’s worst kept
secret, but they were never allowed to become public knowledge until
almost a year after Jimmy Savile’s death in October 2011.
Harvey Weinstein, it seems, was also well-known for his mistreatment
of women, but Hollywood could not offer him the same protection.
Recently, aged 65, his own brother felt the need to sack him because
of his attitude to women. ComRes recently conducted a poll for BBC
Radio 5 Live in which they spoke to more than 2,000 people. The
figures released, here
for example, state that it found that 37% of
all those asked said they had experienced sexual harassment, ranging
from inappropriate comments to actual sexual assaults at work or at a
place of study. Breaking the figures down further, the report said
that 53% of women and 20% of men reported inappropriate behaviour
towards them with a sexual content. What is unclear is whether in all
these instances the harassment came from a member of the opposite
sex, which is what one normally assumes, but is that always the case?
Once begun, the flow
of accusations against people in public life has continued, causing a
storm-surge in the British Houses of Parliament and seemingly the
suicide of a Welsh Assembly Member. In this piece I want to explore
the background to the attention which has been focussed on Weinstein
and others since he was ‘outed’, to set modern behaviour
in an historical setting and to ask if Jesus Christ warned about the
dangers of such behaviour.
Teen culture in the sixties
I am one year older that Weinstein, so our teenage
years were jointly spent in the decade of “Free Love” as
it has become known. Savile was our senior by some 25 years. His rise
to fame first became significant as the manager of three dance halls
in the late 50s and early 60s. His radio career, initially on Radio
Luxembourg and later with the BBC, began in 1958 and this raised his
profile nationally. He presented the first Top of the Pops on BBC TV
in January 1964. All these led to his prominence at precisely the
same time as sexual “freedom” was becoming the focus of
the record-buying, music-loving teen culture of that decade and the
next.
The 1960s were the decade when the word groupie
took on a new meaning. It was
assigned to teenage girls or young women who would hang around
stage-doors, hotels and other places to get as close as possible to
members of the many hit-producing rock bands which flourished at the
time. It is thought that this term was first used by members of the
Rolling Stones around 1965. Later it seems that some stars made a
distinction between ‘fans’
who they assumed wanted brief sexual
encounters amongst other things, and ‘groupies’ who
travelled with musicians for extended periods of time, acting as a
surrogate girlfriend.
My point in relating
this is to show that during these years Savile and other prominent
disk jockeys became as much the stars as the bands whose music they
were playing. Musicians and DJs alike were idolised by teenage girls
in particular and, freed from what had for some time been the
traditional restraints, these men saw no reason not to take advantage
of what the era of so-called “free love” offered them.
Other recent cases have exposed similar attitudes amongst media
personalities of this and subsequent decades, Rolf Harris and Stuart
Hall for example both having been convicted of sexual abuse beginning
in the 1960s.
In the big picture of
human history, the sixties are not unusual as a period of sexual
promiscuity, but for the generations alive today they mark the point
when global attitudes to sexual practices began to change. This
sexual revolution is still ongoing and whilst it is widely applauded
by many, I believe it has become a Pandora’s Box out of which
great problems are emerging, rather than the promised cure for the
human race’s many ills. In the West every one of us has been
influenced in one way or another by this removal of boundaries, our
thinking shaped by the many “progressive” views which it
has encouraged. Perhaps back then no-one other than George Orwell
envisaged the all-pervasive communication system that the internet,
and particularly social media, would become. With its help the locks
have been removed from many cupboards, out of which are falling
multiple skeletons. The question therefore must be asked, are these
past and present public figures now reaping anything more than what
they have sown, especially their wild oats?
A longstanding issue
Harvey
Weinstein has been consistent in his defence that everything he did
was with the “consent” of the women involved. In this he
distinguishes himself from men like Savile, Harris and Hall who all
stand accused of abuse of girls below the age of consent. Weinstein’s
assertion is being disputed by many of the women who have gone public
with their claims that he sexually harassed or abused them. What does
his defence tell us about Western societies today? BBC Radio 4’s
Today Programme is slightly younger than me. In October it celebrated
its 60th birthday and in the preceding weeks listeners had been
invited to send in their thoughts on how life in Britain has changed
over that period. As I expected, several of the fifteen or so
segments broadcast over four months focussed on sexuality and gender.
This is probably a reasonable reflection of the way our society has
become preoccupied with sex, having previously tried to sweep it
under the carpet. However, society’s carpet would never lie
flat as the piles of accumulated muck refused to disperse.
Sex
has preoccupied significant numbers of people for millennia. History
is full of it, often to the detriment of those involved. It was
prominent in many ancient cultures; many of the gods of Greek and
Roman mythology were sexually indisciplined. The Kama Sutra, believed
to be have been compiled about two thousand years ago, is well known
for its descriptions of sexual acts. The Bible goes back even further
with its accounts of sexual immorality. The first, from around two
and a half thousand years before the Kama Sutra, may have provided
inspiration for some of the mythological accounts of sex between the
gods and women. In Genesis 6 we read, “the sons of God came in
to the daughters of men and they bore children to them.” That
occurred shortly before the Cataclysm of Noah’s day through
which The LORD wiped out a corrupt global society. The human race did
not heed the warning though; one of Noah’s sons was disciplined
by God shortly afterwards for taking delight in inviting his brothers
to view their drunken father’s naked body. The immoral
lifestyles which preceded the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah five
hundred or so years later are well known. Less familiar may be the
accounts of two of Jacob’s children; his only daughter Dinah
was raped by the son of a local leader, whilst Judah, Jacob’s
third son, visited a woman he thought was a prostitute, but who
turned out to be his neglected, twice-widowed daughter-in-law. These
five instances, all recorded in the first book of the Bible,
illustrate how far back into human history this issue reaches.
The
West did not rediscover sexual promiscuity in the 1960s, it just took
the covers off it. One only has to lift the carpet of English history
to find it rampant amongst both the rich and powerful and the poor
and oppressed. For instance, many National Trust properties have
tales of sexual scandal in their back-stories. Lyme Hall in
Derbyshire is well known as the set for Pemberley in the classic TV
portrayal of Jane Austen’s Pride
and Prejudice (BBC 1995). Less well known is the fact that one of the
estate’s former owners, Colonel Thomas Peter Legh (1753-1797),
had seven illegitimate children by seven different women, six of them
being born in the final year of his life. The eldest one, Thomas
Legh, had to be formally adopted by his father so that he could
inherit the estate. On a recent visit to another NT property, Hanbury
Hall in Worcestershire, I heard a talk about the life of Sir
(Bowater) George Hamilton Vernon (1865–1940), 2nd Baronet. He
was a very unhappy character, but it seems that he brought his woes
upon himself by continually having sex with the daughters of friends
and neighbours. In Argentina, where he owned a ranch, he was advised
by friends to leave the country after his nearest British neighbour
found out that he had had intercourse with all three of his
daughters. This man was so enraged that he offered a reward to anyone
who killed George. It was because of George’s infidelity that
his wife Doris left him. His most stable relationship was during his
last ten years when he lived with his secretary and companion, Ruth
Horton. It seems he cared for Ruth sufficiently to make sure she was
away from Hanbury when he committed suicide by shooting himself in a
bedroom there.
I
have not cited Colonel Legh and Sir George because they were
particularly notorious examples of bad behaviour amongst those with
privilege, but to make the point that Harvey Weinstein is not unusual
in his abuse of his position to gain sexual favours from women. Read
the story of Dinah in Genesis and you will see how her rapist tried
to use his status to cover his wrongdoing. Judah had to admit that
his daughter-in-law had been “more righteous” than he
had. One cannot deny that Zeus, the chief amongst Greek gods, used
his power and position to satisfy himself sexually. Like others,
Weinstein may have been deluded by the modern notion of free “love”
as a licence for promiscuity, without realising that with power comes
responsibility. When pressing himself upon his many victims, it
appears that he was too arrogant to realise that their submission was
not actually consent but an expression of fear for their own
well-being, be that their physical safety or their career prospects.
Actually, I suspect that men care little for such semantics when they
are seeking to satisfy themselves sexually. Ask any man who has
groped a stranger in a crowd if he sought their permission first.
Whose problem is it?
The Greek myth
concerning Pandora seems to me very much a man’s tale which
puts all the blame for humanity’s problems onto a woman.
Perhaps, as the first woman on earth, created by the artistic god
Hephaestus on the orders of Zeus, she is a reflection of Eve created
by Jesus Christ with the authority of His Father. To this day the
Jews place the blame for sin upon Eve, even though the Christian New
Testament places that responsibility very firmly upon Adam. It is
very easy to understand why the actions of men like Savile and
Weinstein fan the flames of feminism, which in seeking to lift women
up, often tramples men down. On the other hand many, including some
judges, have been accused of blaming the victims of rape and other
sexual aggression for inviting bad behaviour from their attackers.
Let me be clear: whilst I think that women would be wise to consider
behaving in ways that did not put them at unnecessary risk, men
cannot be exonerated when they take advantage of their stupidity.
Many years ago I witnessed a drunken man fall over in the street.
Almost immediately a car stopped and it looked as if the driver went
to help the man. Then after a few moments he walked back to his
vehicle and drove away. It was only afterwards that the man realised
his wallet had been stolen. Had he not been drunk, it is very
unlikely that he would have been robbed. One person’s
foolishness does not justify another taking advantage of them.
So in the following
paragraphs let me attempt to answer the dangerous question; are
sexual harassment and assault mainly male problems or is the drive to
physically force oneself on another person for sexual gratification,
something women equally struggle to control? On the whole what the
Americans euphemistically call “locker-room talk” is
rarely heard amongst women. On the whole ladies don’t
wolf-whistle at men nor do they wind down their car windows and shout
sexually suggestive comments at men even if they are topless. Most
strip clubs are aimed at men, as are brothels. Yes, today there are
male strippers, more glitzy acts like the Chippendales and male
escorts for lonely (and often rich) ladies. One has to wonder though
if what has become known as “ladette culture” arises
solely from the personalities of women or because many of them feel
they have to be like men in order to be better than them.
In most cultures
where polygamy is tolerated, it is polygyny (one
male and two or more females) which predominates. The 1980
Ethnographic Atlas listed a total of 1,041 such societies, whilst
listing just 4 which practised polyandry (one
woman and two or more men at the same time). Other say that this
figure should be around 50, but even so it is still much smaller that
those cultures where multiple wives are accepted. Whilst the law does
not allow any form of polygamy here in Britain, the Government is
unclear on how to respond to cases where under Sharia law men have
married several wives. Back in the 1970s when I was a detached youth
worker in central Manchester, I knew several young men who had
children by a number of young women. Nothing unusual in that you may
think, but what was surprising is that those women tolerated sharing
“their man” with others by giving him a home for several
months until the strains in the relationship became too much. Often
he would then move in with another of his girlfriends, going round
the circle of women repeatedly. I consider this informal practice as
a modern form of the harem, and like its ancient predecessor it
highlights the fact that men generally have more sexual drive than
women.
Whilst accepting that
men are at a higher risk of sexually harassing and abusing others, we
need to note that they do not reserve their aggression simply for
women. So far I have not mentioned the actor Kevin Spacey who has
been in the headlines because he has now been accused by multiple
other men of making sexual advances towards them. He has also
been vilified for announcing that he was homosexual in response to
the first of these accusations. Please note though that just as in
the Savile and Weinstein scenarios, Spacey’s colleagues were
not only aware of his bad behaviour but had collectively turned a
blind eye to it for some years.
Earlier this year I
came across an exhibition at Chester Museum called “Pride in
the Past” which sought to trace the history of homosexuality.
The picture is of one of the first in a series of boards on display,
and it focussed on sexual morality in the Roman Empire. With the
title “Roman Sexuality”, the first two paragraphs state
something I already knew, but they are useful confirmation:
“At
first glance the Roman attitude to homosexuality appears close to our
21st Century understanding, and often this can make the Roman era
appear like a gay paradise. In reality, however, the rules of Roman
society were stricter than they first appear.
Male
Roman citizens were free to indulge in any sexual practice they
wished, providing the person was of age, not a woman married to
another citizen, a beast, or too closely related to them. Non-citizen
males, e.g. slaves, adolescents and unmarried women could all be
objects of a man’s passion, providing the man acted as the
active partner - that he was the one penetrating the person of his
desire. To be penetrated was considered unmasculine, and not
befitting the position of a male citizen.”
It seems that in Roman
culture men were considered to have been born sexual, but with no
particular restraint on how they fulfilled their desires. As
recognised in the text, this is very different from today where most
lobbyists insist that sexual preferences are fixed rather than
fluid. My main point however, is that Roman culture put very
few restraints on the sexual activity of its male citizens as long as
they were considered dominant in
the relationships in which they sought to fulfil their desires. Like
the mythologies of these ancient cultures, it seems that their sexual
guidelines were written by men for the benefit of men.
In
today’s Western cultures there is a much greater feminine
influence on public morality, as the latest scandals perhaps reveal.
Some may welcome women taking the lead role, but that does not
guarantee that they will solve the problems of human sexuality and
the emotions surrounding them. In a very helpful
article Gavin
Ashenden, one time Queen’s Chaplain and now a Missionary
Bishop, has collated the results of various pieces of research on
homosexual and lesbian “marriages” and relationships.
Here I will focus on just one aspect of the evidence he puts forward,
that of violence in lesbian relationships. Quoting Dr
Suzanna Rose who produced the “Lesbian Partner Violence Fact
Sheet”, he reports that lesbian intimate-partner violence
produces 66% more domestic violence that heterosexual marriages
[reported in Advocate].
He also quotes from a study
submitted in 2012/13 to the British
Parliament which provided evidence that lesbian marriages were the
most unstable of all partnerships. Whilst around 15% of heterosexual
couples’ relationships failed within 5 years, in lesbians ones
the failure rate is double, at 30%. He also quotes a section on
research in Sweden where male unions were 50% more likely to end in
divorce than heterosexual marriages, whilst in all female
partnerships the failure rate is nearly double that for all male
sexually active relationships. History and current research therefore
demonstrate that whilst historically many men have been aggressive
and selfish in their search for sexual pleasures, women cannot claim
total collective innocence.
Before moving on
to consider what Jesus said about human sexuality, let me point out
one more observation from the above. The morality of Rome did not
serve it well. Like other cultures which cast off sexual restraint,
the empire fell apart just as Paul had previously assured Roman
Christians that it would. (See his letter here.)
He was confident about its destiny because he knew that no society
can discard moral restraint in one area and retain it in others.
There can be little doubt, given the dominant mindset in today’s
Western cultures, that we are on course to reap the same fate as
those once great societies. German philosopher and one of the
founders of German Idealism, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, is
credited with being the first to say, “We learn from history
that we do not learn from history.” The west is in the process
of proving Hegel right in that respect.
Eyes, hands and hearts
Churches
and Christians are often criticised for always going on about sex.
Any honest analysis of events will demonstrate that it is normally
those who who seek to undermine Christianity who bring up the
subject, presumably they believe for their own advantage. The fact is
that over the years churches have often failed to speak out about the
need for sexual discipline, and have at times positively profited
from the lack of it. For instance when the Romans established
themselves in London, Southwark became their Soho. According to Paul
Slade by AD75 Southwark
shipped in slave girls from all over the Empire to keep its brothels
staffed. These brothels persisted for many centuries and when King
Stephen’s brother Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester,
purchased Bermondsey Abbey in 1149 the abbey was granted its
‘liberty’, enabling this Bishop to make his own laws -
distinct from the law of the land - for the Abbey and the streets
around it. Twelve years later Bishop Henry granted licenses for some
of Southwark’s “bath houses” to function as
brothels. Richard Anderton,
author of The
Devilstone Chronicles, states that these brothels remained open,
and under the control of the Church, until the reign of Henry VIII
who tried to close them in 1519 and again in 1546. His son Edward VI
however reversed the ban. Anderton adds that Elizabethan theatres in
Southwark, such as the Globe of Shakespearean fame, were aided in
their prosperity by “the presence of the brothels, bear pits
and other forbidden pleasures”. With such a back story, is it
any wonder that the established church of today is having difficulty
addressing sexuality in the early 21st century?
Jesus did not
have such difficulties when speaking about the need for sexual
discipline, though most fail to recognise how blunt He was. Most
Christians know this assertion from what we call His Sermon on the
Mount:
“You
have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not
commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a
woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his
heart.” Mat. 5:27-28.
Of course
Jesus was quoting from the Ten Commandments when He referred “to
those of old”, but compared to the Mosaic Law, Jesus raised the
bar much higher. The Law dealt primarily with outward
actions, but Jesus declared
here that the real problem was within each one of us and not simply
what we do on the outside. Adultery is a whole-body activity - it is
impossible for two people to have sexual intercourse without it
involving every part of their bodies in some way. In this simple
statement Jesus focusses our attention on just two important parts of
our being. One of these is physical and the other is that part of us
which we find hard to describe. By “heart” Jesus did not
mean the muscle which constantly pumps blood around our bodies, but
that part of us where thoughts, desires and emotions meet. When we
tell someone that we love them with all our heart, then we too are
not referring to a part of our physical body, but to that hidden and
very powerful part of who we are.
Jesus
therefore warned His audience that the real issue is not what they
do, but what they imagine in
their inner self.
Think for a moment of pornography; sexually explicit images and text
have no physical effect on people, but through the eye they sink deep
into a person and stir up their imagination and their fantasies until
they begin to desire
to experience
what their heart has been
feeding itself upon. Whilst printing, film and electronic
communications are relatively recent inventions, pornographic images
in the form of carvings and paintings abound throughout the history
of civilisations. Jesus was not therefore addressing modern men
alone, when He warned specifically of the dangers of a roving eye
when it came to their relationships with women. This is an age-old
problem and He was calling men in particular to face up to it and to
discipline themselves. Let us remember that as our Creator He was
aware of all the earlier events of history; as the co-editor of what
is still the world's best selling book - the Bible, He included in it
accounts of some very sordid events. Jesus was fully aware of the
extent of the problem when He asserted that men should face the fact
that their attitudes towards
women were as sinful as the act of
committing adultery.
What
I find remarkable is that at my age I have still never heard any
Christian point out the connection between the two verses I have
quoted above and the two which follow them. These read:
“If
your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you;
for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish,
than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand
causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more
profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your
whole body to be cast into hell.” Mat. 5:29-30.
Am I the only
one who can see that these two warnings develop further what He had
just told them? Now I know that many self-identifying Christians,
including many evangelicals, brush these statements aside as not to
be taken at face-value. Consequently they fail to engage with the
thinking behind His reason for speaking in this way. The context
could not be clearer. He is teaching on the practicalities of being a
follower of His and how we prepare to be citizens of His coming
kingdom. He had already addressed anger and its connection to murder,
and He would later teach about lying and oaths, revenge and grace,
anger and forgiveness and so on. In these verses He highlighted
human, and in particular male attitudes to women and sex. The same
theme runs from v27 through to v32 - men need to respect women and
not treat them as potential sexual playthings.
I hope I
don’t need to press this any further, but for those who doubt
my assertion that these verses are specifically about sexual
discipline, let me remind you that the eye and the hand are the first
two parts of our bodies through which men are tempted to have wrong
relationships with others - mainly with women, but as we have seen,
also with men. We should therefore ask if Jesus was advocating
self-mutilation when He addressed the crowd in these terms? We live
at a time when the prevailing philosophy is naturalistic, i.e. that
there is a totally physical explanation for everything. People and
animals, we are told, behave as they do because they are collections
of chemicals which have evolved life. Those who argue in this way
take their lead from Charles Darwin and his notion of the “survival
of the fittest”. Animals, including humans they argue, are what
they are today because they have fought to survive in a dog-eat-dog
world. These struggles involve far more than who gets the best food;
sexual dominance is often put forward as the reason behind strength,
size, colouring and even features such as cocks’ combs. It was
because of this view that Richard Dawkins coined the phrase “selfish
gene” to describe this struggle to be the best and to mate with
the best. To such people, efforts by men to “chat-up” and
eventually mate with the best women are nothing more than the
expression of our biology. If that were really the case then perhaps
a face-value reading of what Jesus said could be the answer, though
atheists like Dawkins would also deny the concept of sin. After all
if men’s eyes are biologically programmed to assess every
potential recipient of their sperm, if their hands cannot be
restrained from testing the texture and quality of their flesh, then
losing those parts of their bodies may be a better solution than
castration!
It is
unfortunate that because many people consider the Bible
to be a
“Holy Text” and a religious book, they fail to recognise
the sarcasm which Jesus in particular used. For example he was very
sarcastic about the Jewish religious leaders of His day, nowhere more
so than in Matthew
23. If we are to truly understand his instructions to men about
their eyes and hands, then we must also detect the probable tone of
His voice in these words. As we have seen, they are preceded by His
direct connection between the eye and heart – between lust and
adultery. I am sure men defended themselves in those days just as
they do today; “Not my fault! I couldn’t help myself! I
couldn’t stop looking at her cleavage. I don’t know how
my hand ended up on her thigh.” I think if men were ever asked
what motivated them to look at women, especially naked ones, they
would find it hard to answer. This not because they were being
evasive, but because they don’t understand themselves and
therefore find it very hard to explain their behaviour to themselves,
never mind others. Ask them what they enjoy about touching a woman’s
body, especially what we call their “private parts” and I
think they would struggle just as much. Equally I am sure that women
too have similar difficulties explaining what goes on in their heads
and hearts. All of us therefore can fall back on the defence that we
cannot help ourselves, and it is that excuse which Jesus is
addressing in these two statements.
On a later
occasion, in a discussion with Peter about acceptable and
unacceptable food, Jesus said to him:
“Do
you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the
stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the
mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For
out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
These are the things which
defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”
Mat. 15:17-20 [Emphasis mine]
This ties in
completely with what we have noted about His Sermon on the Mount.
Murder, adultery, lies, blasphemy - they all have their roots in our
thoughts not in our actions, in our real inner self not in different
parts of our bodies. Once we appreciate that Jesus knew the true
nature of men and women, we cannot accuse him of promoting
self-mutilation when He said, “If
your eye” and “If
your hand” make
you do that which is wrong, then get rid of the offending piece of
your biological body. He was simply being sarcastic about the feeble
excuses men used then and still use today. He wanted them to realise
that He knew what they already understood - if their eyes and hands
strayed, it was not because these body parts had a life of their own
and were out of control, but that they were simply following the
directive of their corrupt inner selves. His teaching put the
responsibility on men (and women) to discipline their hearts in order
to keep their bodies in control. In today’s secular culture
“It’s only natural”
is a frequently quoted
excuse. Jesus’ response here was, “It’s not
natural, it’s sinful!”
The dilemma
of today’s culture
The political
buzz word for some time has been “progressive”, implying
that, like life, society is evolving into something better.
Underlying this concept is the view that religion, and Christianity
in particular, is regressive, imposing unnecessary restraints upon
people. “Let us break such chains and set ourselves free”
is the rallying cry which echoes through all Western and some
non-Western cultures. Thinking they have “grown up”, many
people assert that there is no Creator whom they should seek, no God
to whom they are accountable. If only we could get all nations
united, if everyone would agree with us,
they believe, mankind could be his own saviour. Yet the more they try
to get things right, the more their world falls apart around them.
Local and global events demonstrate clearly that humans are not
essentially good; they are, as Jesus said, bad at heart. The “peace
and love” envisaged in the sixties has failed to materialise.
There is neither peace on earth between cultures, nations or
individuals, nor is there genuine love for those we live amongst. On
every side crime has increased, rich and poor communities alike are
beleaguered by drug abuse, families have been torn apart in a
multitude of ways. The promise of “free love” has not
taught men to keep their eyes and hands to themselves. Despite the
failure of their social experiment, the majority of the progressive
elite are
unable to acknowledge their responsibility for the way things are
turning out. Instead of remorse, their pride encourages them to press
ahead with further irrational experiments which lack any foundation
in science or common sense. Like pied pipers, they lead successive
generations away from wisdom and safety.
Why are so
many prepared to dance to their progressive melody? Certainly, their
promise of a better future is a powerful lure, but on its own is it
sufficient to allow the blind to lead the blind? One of the more
powerful attractions of the call to secularism is not simply that it
does away with deference to divinity, but also that it discards the
concept of sin. This is particularly attractive in the post-Christian
cultures of the West. No longer are we duty-bound to follow our
Creator’s rules - we can write our own. Consequently, sin is
what we want it to be, and we can declare good anything which we want
to enjoy. One such axiom provided Weinstein with what he believes to
be his justification. Immorality, he believes like so many others, is
not wrong if it is consensual. Yet his victims beg the question what
is consensual? Who
gets to decide where that line is to be drawn? Is consent in the face
of fear actually consent? For many years there have been groups
lobbying for the age
of consent to
be progressively lowered, especially in regard to homosexual
activity. We sneer at the child brides of medieval Europe and some
present day cultures, but some modern Western men and women still
want to fulfil their sexual desires with young children. Is
acceptability
to
be the only arbiter of what is good and right? What would happen if
crafty lobbyists successfully campaigned for the rights of men to
grope strangers in public? Do I need to remind you that recent
cultural change has been driven not by the desire to restrain bad
behaviour, but by the call to respect people and to allow them to be
themselves? Such freedom is always abused by ‘the powerful’
and they do not need to be as prominent as Savile, Weinstein or
Spacey – even most ‘little people’ are in a
position of power over someone.
Let’s
be honest about ourselves
Perhaps
the real cause of its unpopularity is that the Bible is very honest
about how selfish men and women can be. One of its clearest
descriptions is in Romans
3:10-17, which is very blunt about human nature and its
shortcomings. It ends with the statement, “There is no fear of
God before their eyes.” Secularism declares that to be a good
thing, whilst the Bible is equally clear that there is great danger
in such a mindset. Returning to the sexuality of Greek and Roman
gods, the lack of restraint in many of them is lauded in their myths.
Today the European Union celebrates the Rape
of
Europa by Zeus in two statues (one in Brussels and the other in
Strasbourg), as well as on its 2 Euro coins. In striking contrast,
both the Old and New Testaments always describe a lack of sexual
self-discipline as a detriment
to
those who permit themselves such licence. Jesus was clear in the way
He spoke about such behaviour; immoral thoughts were just as bad as
immoral actions, and He declared roving eyes and wandering hands to
both be sin.
I know that is a word which will cause offence to many people today,
but I don’t apologise for using it. We need to be clear about
the true nature of self-centredness.
The
three named villains of this article, Savile, Weinstein and Spacey
acted out of self interest. They pursued their own pleasures no
matter how their actions affected other people. I have only once
served on a jury. The case we heard was of an average man who raped
an average woman and he, like them, tried to excuse his actions. The
very first message Jesus announced was “Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Mat.
4:17 &
Mark
1:14-15. We always need to repent - change our minds about - the
things we have done wrong, things which start in our hearts then
spread to every other part of our conscious and subconscious selves.
Human nature finds it very hard to accept responsibility for what is
in our hearts and minds. We want to defend, some may say justify,
ourselves and this often at the expense of others. We have
well-developed skills of not facing up to how self-centred we can be.
We see it in others all the time, but don’t like to admit that
we too are sinners and in drastic need of help to change.
In
John’s account of the life of Jesus we can read about a
real-life incident when Jesus defended a woman who had been sexually
indisciplined against a crowd of religious but hypocritical accusers.
You will find it in John
8:1-10. Knowing what The Law taught and that, as we have seen,
Jesus condemned adultery, these religious people brought a woman to
him who had been caught in the very act of intercourse with someone
other than her husband. Referring to what Moses had written, they
tested Jesus by asking Him for his opinion on what they should do
with her. They claimed that Moses said she should be stoned. John,
perhaps on purpose, only tells us part of what Jesus did in response
to this trap set for Him. First He gave permission for the one
amongst them who was without sin to initiate the stoning - thus not
contradicting The Law. John then records that Jesus bent down and
wrote on the ground with His finger but does not tell us what He
wrote. Whatever it was, the effect was dramatic for by the time He
looked up, all the accusers had walked away. John adds from his own
observations that the older people backed off first followed
eventually by the younger ones. All, he says, were “convicted
by their conscience”. It is frustrating that we are left to
speculate about what it was that Jesus wrote on the ground. There are
many suggestions. The one which I favour is that He wrote in full
what the command they were quoting actually
said.
Here is it from Leviticus 20:10,
“The
man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who
commits adultery with his neighbour's wife, the
adulterer and the adulteress,
shall surely be put to death.” [Emphasis mine]
Could
it be that here we see another example of men excusing bad behaviour
by other men to further their own hatred of Jesus? Had they failed to
apply the letter of the command they were asking Him to follow? In
their haste had they forgotten that He knew The Law better than they,
because He understood its intentions? It may be of course, as some
suggest, that the Jews had fallen into the practice of putting all
the blame on the women and letting their fellow men walk away from
their sins. One can understand that, but never justify it, for those
responsible for applying the legal sentence were men. No doubt they
were well aware of their own failings and did not want themselves to
be treated in the way they should have treated others. Whatever the
reason for their partial application of the Mosaic Law, we should not
forget that there was one person there who was qualified to throw the
first stone at this woman - Jesus Himself, for He had never rebelled
against His Father. Did He enforce the commandment on her despite the
absence of the man? No, He didn’t. Instead He asked her if
anyone had condemned her, to which she replied “No-one, Lord.”
His response was two-fold. First He said “Neither do I condemn
you; go your way.” Then He added, “From now on sin
no more.”
Perhaps
we need to learn from Jesus’ response to this woman as we watch
the steady flow of the powerful and the privileged being singled out
for their lack of sexual self-discipline. Like today’s
celebrities and politicians, she had also failed herself, her family
and more importantly her God. Jesus did not excuse the attitude of
her heart, nor the action her heart had led her to take in committing
adultery. However in whatever it was He wrote, He seems to have
condemned the hypocrisy of her accusers. The self-righteous in
particular need to remember constantly that before their Creator they
are just as guilty of self-centred, self-important mistreatment of
others as the person they are calling out as a wrong-doer. It is also
important for us to realise that whilst Jesus did not condemn this
woman for her actions, He warned her not to carry on as she had been
doing. Jesus did not water down her guilt - by telling her not
to sin again,
He clearly defines her action as sin. His instruction is also a call
to her to repent,
for if she was to obey this she needed to change her attitude to God,
to her family (especially her husband if she was married), to her
friends and acquaintances and importantly to herself.
Whilst
I do not expect everyone to heed the lesson of Jesus’ heart for
this woman’s welfare, I pray that some will, including some of
the “mighty” who as I write are ‘falling like
flies’ before the ongoing flow of accusations. If anyone is to
learn from their own mistakes, be they sexual or otherwise, then
there are important steps they will need to take. The first is to
face up to the “S” word. What they have done is to sin,
not just against God, but they have thought selfishly about others
and carried those thoughts through into actions. They have also
sinned in their attitude to themselves. Seeking to change our
attitude to our Creator, to others and to ourselves is the first step
of repentance,
but it is not the only one. Repentance yields the fruit of being
changed into a different type of person, but that change always
begins on the inside, in our deep inmost self and works its way out
into our actions, rather than the other way round. Changes only on
the outside are by definition superficial and commonly wear off in
time, sometimes almost instantaneously.
There
is one more thing which those who want to turn from their selfishness
will need to accept. It is simply this - that in trying to change
ourselves, both men and women are equally unable to get to the root
of our own problems. We need help, not just from others, but from the
One who made us. Trying to rid ourselves of every attitude which
hurts us and others is about as effective as a person who tries to
lift themselves off the floor by pulling on their ankles. A person
who has fallen into a slurry pit is not showing signs of weakness
when they cry for help to get them out; they are simply recognising
the reality of their situation. To ask for help from our Creator, we
need faith.
Faith is a confidence that He exists and that He responds positively
to anyone who searches for Him. When a person does that with
determination, He has promised that He will let them find
Him.
Belief
in the existence of the God of the Bible and the fact that He cares
for those who put Him first has been a great influence on many
societies in the Western world. In my lifetime they have exchanged
that confidence for the belief that there is no god and mankind is in
charge of both the present and the future. This is called progress,
yet it has not been able to throw off the incredible potential in men
and women to do the wrong thing, to harm others by violating them in
many different ways. Whilst I don’t expect our societies as a
whole to turn from their new-found confidence in godlessness, I want
to assure you that there is still time for individuals to ask for
help from their Creator. That opportunity will not last forever; it
is not there now for Jimmy Savile. I hope that some of those who now
stand accused in the dock of public outrage will take the opportunity
to let their disgrace motivate them to seek their Creator God. I also
hope than any who read this article who have not yet experienced the
same mercy that Jesus expressed to an adulterous woman, will not
stand back and excuse themselves from asking for His help in
releasing them from their sinfulness. You may not know where to start
looking for Him; can I suggest this short appeal for help is a good
place to begin:
“I
don’t know if you exist, but if you are the rescuing God the
Bible claims you to be, please help me to find you.”
Jesus
promised “I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek,
and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone
who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it
will be opened.” (Luke 11:9-10)
Randall Hardy – November
2017
www.amen.org.uk
©
Copyright Randall Hardy – November 2017
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