Today is the ending of the annual 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. The global campaign had its origin in 1991, and is supported by international agencies, national governments, and faith-based groups.
What is at the heart of this campaign is violence that is based on gender, that stems from the perversion of gender, that sees some human beings as fair game, discountable, or ownable, because they are female. Raping or beating up a woman or girl can be an act of sadistic pleasure (‘She had it coming’), or a sign of utter contempt, or an assertion of possession. As an act of war, rape is the ultimate demonstration of contempt for the enemy, in the violent possession of ‘their’ women. When men are raped, it is still gender based, because it humiliates them by treating them like women.
The Bible contains plenty of brutal examples of this kind. Both the Israelites and their enemies engage in sexual violence in the pursuit of conquest or revenge. Women are seen as possessions, so that a large harem of wives and concubines becomes a demonstration of wealth and power. A husband’s right to punish his wife, violently or otherwise, even becomes a model for God’s relationship with the People of God (read Hosea 2:1-13, for example).
This is by no means the only attitude to women in the Old Testament, but neither is it challenged, or hidden. The stories are there, raw and shocking, and we know that they have been used as a justification for institutionalized violence against women and girls.
Honestly – it’s as if Jesus had never lived! Jesus consistently and radically opposes the mindset that sees women as fair game, discountable or ownable. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) he condemns not only the act of adultery, but also the attitude that looks at a woman lustfully. He engages with women openly and intelligently, assuming their right to speak and be heard, and their ability to respond to his teaching. Above all, when faced with a mob of men, intent on using a terrified woman to trick Jesus into an illegal act of stoning, he punctures their bombast with one of the neatest put-downs in history! (John 8:7)
And just as gender-based violence is tied up with a whole range of dehumanizing attitudes, so Jesus’ Sermon unpicks the whole fabric of vengeance and sadism that undergird it. It is not only lust that he condemns, but the heart-hatred that lies behind the taking of life. Vengeance may look to the law to justify mutilation – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but Jesus teaches that there is no excuse for dehumanizing another human being: ‘I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’ Above all, it is the peace-makers who find blessing and a place in God’s household.
God of grace,
When I am tempted to hatred
or lust for control over another person,
remind me of your command to love.
When I am hurt
full of frustration and the desire to get even
show me how
to become a peacemaker
and find blessing. Amen
Janet Wootton
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