Abuse by any other name would smell as sour

Harassment comes in many forms, some of which remain legal

Logan M. Isaac
Sep 6, 2018 · 4 min read

Hopefully this piece encourages others, especially victims, to think outside our boxes (no pun intended, seriously) in order to name the fact that harassment and abuse come in many forms, and no one form is less important or potentially traumatizing as any other. Although I write this as a Bible-thumping millenial, hopefully anyone reading this can take something away from it.

Insofar as sexual harassment occurs in the workplace, it is an issue inseparable from economics. Its consequences include the private and internal indignity and violation of the act itself, of course, and also the public and outward effect upon one’s job security and ability to earn an income. Anna North makes this important point in her 2017 article on Vox. At worst, the consequences are both: the harassment occurs and the victim loses their job. That was the case for me, but that’s another story.

From a faith perspective, progressive Christians like myself may object to the idea that sexuality is the primary focus of our ethics. Matters of sex like homosexuality, gender identity or expression, etc. have too often been used as moralizing distractions from real economic abuses of power and exploitation of the poor. Is it really all that important to tell boys and girls where they can go to the bathroom while 2.5 million children are homeless? Don’t get me wrong, sexual abuses are abuses, and not at all insignificant, and they ought not distract from other legitimate and damning forms of systemic evil.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which was started by a WWII Navy veteran to administer and enforce civil rights laws in the workplace, defines two types of harassment, 1) quid pro quo and 2) hostile environment. The former is Latin for “something for something,” a one time exchange of favors proffered by a supervisor to either provide some benefit to a victim or avoid some detriment. A hostile environment, on the other hand, must be so persistent and severe as to affect a person’s job performance. For each of these types, the EEOC can intervene only if the behavior was premised upon a limited number of protected characteristics. There are two typically protected characteristics that are excluded from the EEOCs harassment jurisdiction: Citizenship and Veteran Status. In other words, it is not federal a crime to harass either veterans or immigrants.

So what about Christians and the Church in America?

Whether we find it to be a problem or not, economics factor far more heavily in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures that make up the Christian Bible. God even provides special protection to the poor, a fact so self-evident that to try to list all the supporting scripture would be overwhelming. Sojourners lists some of the 2,000+ verses dealing with God’s love of the poor and the importance of economic justice, but that’s likely a very conservative estimate.

However, we need to be careful not to pit sexual justice against economic justice, as though advances in one threaten advances in the other. The #MeToo movement has been an inspiration and an encouragement to me. Without it, I never would have had the language or the courage to speak up for myself. My hope in writing this essay is to make sure we do not give victims of economic abuse any less attention than they deserve.

Enshrining justice in our laws has often come only after delay and moral struggle; it was Saints Augustine, Aquinas, and King who reminded us that “an unjust law is no law at all.” Their prophetic witness hopefully serves as a reminder that sometimes the law has yet to catch up with justice, that something being legal does not mean that it is just. Although some forms of abuse are still legal, that does not make them right, nor will it truly be made right until we force our laws to catch up with justice.


I wrote this essay in anticipation of objections to my decision to speak up about an abuse I encountered at the hands of a popular religious figure while under the employ a large institution. All things being equal, I can expect no less wagon-circling or victim-shaming than we’ve seen in countless other recent scandals. Nor ought my speaking up about my abuse be seen as less important or deserving of public dialogue.

Whether it’s Matt Lauer, Harvey Weinstein, and Asia Argento or Theodore McCarrick, John Yoder, and Bill Hybels, sexual abuse is wrong, full stop. It is not wrong because it deals in sexuality; sex is just the form of abuse expressed. Abuse is impossible without a difference in power between two parties, whether that abuse is premised upon a difference in age, professional prestige, biological sex, or clerical status. One could even argue that these things are themselves forms of power.

Abuse is abuse; no matter the form it takes, no matter the perpetrator, no matter the justifications. For these reasons and others, we must be diligent about making sure that discussions about all the many and varied forms of harassment are welcomed into public dialogue and debate.

Logan M. Isaac

Written by

Veteran Author, Advocate, & Entrepreneur. My real passion is education; I love to teach almost as much as I love to learn. Founder, @CenturionsGuild & @PewPewHQ

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