I hate the language of my title. I have to correct it now. The actual title should be something more like, “When being an abuse victim is somehow worse than being someone who abuses” but that’s a long title for a blog post I think. Regardless, this title better reflects the deep-seated hatred for femininity in our society largely spurred on by half-read, misinterpreted scripture combined with a hunger for power.

In the Hebrew text, we see a lot of sexual assault. Though, of course, it isn’t read as sexual assault. Most often, it is just glared over. I’ve never heard a single pastor talk about the sexual assaults committed by saints, prophets and people in the Bible unless it was within an anti-gay message most often propagated in evangelical settings.

Oh, who am I kidding, most churches are more comfortable telling gay people to stop being gay than they are challenging the status quo and telling people who rape to not rape. I suppose this happens more due to the fact that the powerful rarely see their power through the lens of their victims. I mean, how do you commit rape when it’s your god given right to have an orgasm? amiright?

There are a lot of incidents of rape in the Bible that we rarely speak about. Of course there are all the rapes in Sodom and Gomorrah. There is the implied rape of Hager, who bore Abraham his son, Ishmael only to toss them to the wind when his wife bore him Issac. (Genesis 16:4). The rape of Dinah, Jacob’s only daughter, by Shecham (Genesis 34). There is Tamar, who is raped by her half brother, Ammon in 2nd Samuel. There are plenty more I am missing, but there is one we speak of often, yet rarely as an assault, one that epitomizes so much of the problems of today when it comes to seeing abusers as abusers and victims as victims.

The rape of Bathsheba, by the “holy of the holist” when it comes to evangelicals and their kings – David…. In 2nd Samuel 11, we learn that David sees Bathsheba proforming a ritual cleansing, he lusts after her, sends people to get her, “takes her” and then she conceives a child – which God appears to take away later in scripture. For me this brings up the question about how God handles the “sanctity of life” discussion we humans can’t seem to agree on. After all, this child was not at fault for the actions of their father, yet one could argue they paid a price for David’s abuse.

This isn’t an agreed upon subject of course. There are many who choose to see Bathsheba as a temptress – she was bathing on a roof in clear vision of the king mind you. Regardless, I think what’s most striking to me is how swiftly we see a man have “lust”, one of the greatest sins I’ve heard in the evangelical world, and act on that sin combined with the swiftness of evangelicals around me to brush it off, or worse, blame the female.

We tend to not see power structures as abusive in the faith world, I’ve discovered. In fact, in a recent article I read about why there are many victim/survivors of abuse supporting a candidate for president who has 30+ credible allegations of sexual assault among video/audio of him bragging about sexually assaulting women, walking in on minors naked and objectifying women, the most common answer is that he represents “protection”. He is the quintessential “man” the world tells us as women, we need.

Men who “take what they want”…. Men who “go for it” …. This is what we’re raised with. We ladies don’t call a guy first, and god forbid we kiss a guy first, or even worse don’t kiss a guy at all but kiss another… gasp… female? …. The problem with this, is that so often men of this style tend to be those most likely to commit some form of sexual violence. When I’ve asked youth, females in particular, why they want a guy to “just kiss them!” they say it’s because it makes them feel wanted, desired and that the guy is willing to risk rejection. When I follow that up with, “Why wouldn’t you feel the same way if the guy said, ‘I really want to kiss you, would you be okay with that?'” They don’t have an answer.

Our entire life, girls have been fed this story of our lives being saved from one. single. kiss. Yet in my life, and so many others, a single kiss is what broke us. Stole a part of us we weren’t ready to give. And what’s worse, is our perpetrators are hailed, while we’re condemned.

There’s often a saying I hear in the church… When they speak about sin up there on that alter. “Jesus can and will use anyone. Even a prostitute.” I don’t understand how this messaging aligns with the churches new found campaign to eradicate sex trafficking. How does one see through a clouded judgement? If we’re talking about innocents, how does one ignore the economic abuse throughout the Bible forcing women into sex slavery in order to eat? Why does David get to be remembered as a man after God’s heart, but Bathsheba is only remembered as the “temptress”?

Why is it sin when men commit rape, but identity when women experience it?

The women of the Bible leave a lot to tell because the men who wrote their stories deemed them unworthy and yet… Jesus…. Jesus chose women before he chose men. Jesus spoke to women in a way men never would. I don’t know if I believe Jesus was never intimate – I’m not so sure I believe it. But here is what I do think. The idea that Jesus loved these women, free of sexual impulse, is something I try to hold onto. Because what better way to show the world, ruled by men, how different he truly was from the men in the world.

The truth is… Until we can grapple with the abuse in the Bible, committed by the very people we look towards for inspiration, we will always miss the message God is trying to give us – the lesson on loving others. And we will continue to see victims today as “temptresses” and abusers as “sinners”.

The cycle of Sodom and Gomorrah will continue – a city consumed with selfishness, taking what they want without thought of another person.