Why Rape is Always Relevant: Reflections on Evangelical Loyalties
I often wonder what we might be embracing today that will make future generations of Christians recoil. Christians today — myself included — reflect in utter disapproval on how Christians and pastors ever could have advocated for racial segregation in American churches. We are stunned at stories of Christians in Nazi Germany trying to syncretize their faith with Hitler’s satanic ideology.[1] Surely, we are enlightened enough, as Christians living in this age of progress, that we needn’t worry about having blind spots of our own.
I am worried. Very worried.
One such worrisome moment of reflection was recently triggered by comments from a prominent Evangelical leader about the allegations brought against now Chief Justice Kavanaugh. During a recent interview with CBN News, Evangelist Franklin Graham called the allegations irrelevant — even if they were true.[2] The justification for this statement was based on the fact that the alleged crime took place 40 years ago.
I cannot overstate how grateful I am to live in a country where we aim to presume innocence over guilt, unless proven otherwise. Yet, the presumption of innocence is something we rightly expect to be maintained by evidence. If it can be shown that our presumption is wrong, and a person is in fact guilty, that is most certainly relevant. Chief Justice Kavanaugh has been cleared by the FBI. I am content to believe he is in fact innocent of the charges brought against him. I am glad that a man holding his values will take the open seat on the Supreme Court. I am in no way content, however, to be silent about Mr. Graham’s notion that, had the Chief Justice been proven guilty, it would not have mattered.
The video interview with Mr. Graham is, as one article put it, “uncomfortable.”[3] Heather Sells, the interviewer, was quick to challenge Graham with the question of what message his words were sending to victims of sexual abuse.
At this point, you can feel the tension through your screen.
Graham maintained his position and insisted no crime was committed. He heavily emphasized that the Chief Justice and Dr. Ford were adolescents, and that he respected her wishes to not engage in any sex act. This, of course, was error on Graham’s part, considering Ford’s claim was that she escaped during a drunken scuffle that interrupted the alleged attack.[4] When Sells pointed this out to Graham, he still did not budge: “There’s a lot of things that I’ve done when I was a teenager that I certainly am ashamed of and not proud of…This is a tactic by the left to try to keep conservatives off the bench and it’s unfortunate that it’s working.”[5] The interview ends.
Is this a 2018 Evangelical blind spot? I do not want to assume that Graham’s sentiments are widespread (though there were plenty of supportive comments left under the article). I would like to believe that he does not even believe his own words, and that he made an ostensible defense in the heat of the moment. But, nonetheless, his statements are now immortalized on the internet for some to revile and some to embrace. Those statements make me afraid that we are so committed to getting a certain kind of candidate into political office that we will hide our eyes from evil and focus on leftist tactics instead. Is no one worried about differentiating between policy and virtue? The most disturbing part of the whole interview was that Graham said it would not have mattered to him if Kavanaugh were guilty.
I have always respected Mr. Graham. I have found myself agreeing with most of the statements I have heard him make, counting them as courageous stands against a culture hellbent on opposing God. But I find this statement betraying a sort of hypocrisy that has crept into our Christian values. Due to a high view of marriage, many churches and denominations in America cannot agree on whether or not to ordain divorced persons, yet Graham is here suggesting that we could swear in a would-be sexual offender to the highest court in the land — provided the offense was in the distant past. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to beware. We may be more committed to maintaining a political hold on our nation than we are to biblical principle. And it is to biblical principle that we now turn.
Perhaps one of the first Scriptures to consider is Romans 13:1–2, in which Paul commands Christians to obey the “laws of the land.” If the state of Maryland says that there is no statute of limitations on the sort of assault alleged by Dr. Ford, then no one should declare such allegations irrelevant.[6] If the law of the land is that a victim of rape or sexual assault never loses their right to pursue justice, then the Church ought not to deny them that right. God is of the opinion that victims deserve the dignity of being heard (Jer. 5:28).
Secondly, we need to reflect on the Scriptural presentation of how horrendous the crime of rape is in God’s eyes. I wish I felt including a section on this was unnecessary, but if even one representative of American Christians is going to give the impression that rape is only relevant within a certain timeframe, then we need to remind ourselves why some crimes must be able to overshadow our political interests. No matter what.
The Old Testament regards rape as the act of using sexual violence to humiliate an individual and shame their entire family or community.[7] It is essentially a form of oppression. It is especially heinous when juxtaposed with God’s original design for sexual intimacy in Genesis 2:28, where Adam and Eve are depicted as being unashamed in their nakedness. There is not a shred of insecurity, nor is there any sense of danger or threat. They abide in a state of total trust with each other, and it is in this setting that sexual intimacy finds its divinely ordained meaning. The beauty of God’s intention shows us the utter evil of rape. There is no security or sense of safety in rape. There is no intimacy in rape. And it seems the ancient Israelites understood this. Perhaps their equation of rape with humiliation is meant to powerfully depict how far afield from God’s design the crime actually was. The safety of marital love and the shame of rape are diametrically opposed.
Under Mosaic Law, rape was a capital offense (Deut. 22:25–27). It is interesting to note the comparison between rape and murder in Deuteronomy 22:26. This is not to say that the two are being equated with each other, but that they both communicate force — as well as malice.[8] The narrative portions of the Old Testament go on to graphically depict the rage, tragedy, betrayal, and heartache that inevitably followed cases of rape or of attempted rape: The two angels at Sodom (Gen. 19:1–11), Dinah (Gen. 34), the Levite’s concubine (Judg. 19:22–30), Amnon and Tamar (2 Samuel 13). It cannot be clearer in Scripture that sexual violence is utterly reprehensible to God, and so it should be to His people. Time does not heal the wounds inflicted by such an act. Nor does it guarantee that abusers have changed.
Chief Justice Kavanaugh has been proven innocent, and now sits on the Supreme Court. I as a Christian do not feel I had to shut my eyes to anything evil in order to support him. But I am very bothered by the fact that some of us may have been ready to do just that. Will our political commitments be something our generation is reviled for in days to come? It may be time to take seriously the words uttered by Russell Moore at The Gospel Coalition’s MLK50 Conference: “If God’s way upsets our political alliances, let’s crucify our political alliances.”[9] Chief Justice Kavanaugh has been proven innocent of assault. But I fear some of our political concerns could prove us guilty of compromise if we are not vigilant.
[1] Strom, Margot Stern, and Phyllis Goldstein. “Protestant Churches and the Nazi State.” Facing History and Ourselves, 2017, www.facinghistory.org/holocaust-and-human-behavior/chapter-5/protestant-churches-and-nazi-state.
[2] Sells, Heather. “Franklin Graham on Judge Kavanaugh Accusation: ‘Not Relevant’.” CBN News, The Christian Broadcasting Network, 21 Sept. 2018, www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/2018/september/franklin-graham-on-judge-kavanaugh-accusation-not-relevant.
[3] Koslosky, Kayla. “Franklin Graham Says Accusations against Kavanaugh Are ‘Not Relevant’.” ChristianHeadlines.com, Salem Web Network, 20 Sept. 2018, www.christianheadlines.com/blog/franklin-graham-accusations-kavanaugh-not-relevant.html.
[4] “Read the Letter Christine Blasey Ford Sent Accusing Brett Kavanaugh of Sexual Misconduct.” CNN, Cable News Network, 17 Sept. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/09/16/politics/blasey-ford-kavanaugh-letter-feinstein/index.html.
[5] Sells, Heather. “Franklin Graham on Judge Kavanaugh Accusation: ‘Not Relevant’.” CBN News, The Christian Broadcasting Network, 21 Sept. 2018, www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/2018/september/franklin-graham-on-judge-kavanaugh-accusation-not-relevant.
[6] Ericksen, Brittany, and Ilse Knecht. “Statutes of Limitations for Sexual Assault: A State-by-State Comparison.” The National Center for Victims of Crime, National Center for Victims of Crime, 21 Aug. 2013, victimsofcrime.org/docs/DNA%20Resource%20Center/sol-for-sexual-assault-check-chart — -final — -copy.pdf?sfvrsn=2.
[7] Pilch, John J. A Cultural Handbook to the Bible. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company: Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K., 2012. Print.
[8] Woods, Edward J. Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary. Ed. David G. Firth. Vol. 5. Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 2011. Print. The Tyndale Commentary Series.
[9] Moore, Russell. “King and Kingdom: Racial Justice and the Uneasy Conscience of American Christianity.” Russell Moore, The Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, 11 Apr. 2018, www.russellmoore.com/2018/04/10/king-and-kingdom-racial-justice-and-the-uneasy-conscience-of-american-christianity/.
