Ford, Kavanaugh, and the Bible
These are hard days to keep up with the news. I’m feeling a little redundant continuing to say, “No, God does not approve of violence against women.” I’ve written reflections on #metoo and taught a seminar this summer that included two instances of sexual assault in the Bible, and as news refuses to let up, neither do my conversations with friends. It seems so clear cut to me that my faith is wholly incompatible with these kinds of actions, and yet questions about the behavior of Christians in response to reports of sexual assault continue to swirl.
Many people who consider themselves culturally Christian grew up with a version of the faith that pulls a short Bible phrase out of context to prooftext a particular idea. This selective Christianity proves especially dangerous when helping a person process through a painful cultural moment like yesterday’s testimony by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. When Christians read Bible verses, but not the whole Bible, it’s easy to start glomming together a set of cultural beliefs that begin to stray from the holistic picture of scripture. Short quips like finger wags dot their social media in response to more complex life circumstances.
But good theology means that we must look to the full picture presented in the Bible in order to understand how to think and behave. Ours is not a twitter faith.
With that in mind, there are a couple of thoughts I want to offer specifically in light of the latest news cycle, but to do them justice requires larger passages for context. I hope this will be especially helpful for those who are unfamiliar with the Bible, but they were also a good reminder to my hopeless heart this morning. I have personally struggled to listen to all the details of the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh for fear of triggering, so I will keep my commentary brief and let the Bible do the talking.
We must teach our boys to love like Jesus.
If the media is going to tell our sons that “boys will be boys,” then it is all the more crucial that Christian parents uphold Jesus as the model of manhood for them. Having grown up in the “True Love Waits” generation, I am deeply grieved by any suggestion that the Bible’s call to sexual purity applies only to women. But more than that, this kind of violence against a woman—before or after marriage—has no place among the people of God. Even though Jesus’ culture gave women little value, He engaged publicly with women, He mentored them, and He cared for their sorrows. Let us raise boys who do the same.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
—Colossians 3:1-17
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. —1 Corinthians 6:18-20
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. —Galatians 5:16-25
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. —Romans 13:8-10
We are called to take sin seriously.
Scripture does not mince words when it describes the gravity of sin—not only for our eternal souls but for our life on this earth. We need to be clear that sexual assault is sin. Women especially need to hear men condemn this sin.
Mr. Kavanaugh has been very vocal about how painful this experience has been for his family. This is just one of the possible consequences of sexual sin. When the Bible calls us to turn from sinful behavior, it is for our own good and for the care of those around us. We obey God because we trust his guidance as a good Father.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
—Romans 6
We must remember the costliness of grace.
While the Bible describes grace as a free gift to us, we must remember that it was a very costly gift for Him. Grace isn’t just a disinterested wave of the wand—poof! Sin absolved. Paying for our sins cost God the life of His most precious, perfect Son. To experience this grace, we must first humble ourselves, confess our sins, and repent—which is something I have yet to read from Kavanaugh.
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. —James 4:7-10
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. —1 John 3:16-18