“She had it coming.”
Those were the words a relative said to the television as the anchor finished his report some years ago about a sexual abuse football scandal at Baylor University. Tevin Elliot, Baylor’s star linebacker, had been accused of sexually assaulting Jasmin Hernandez, who bravely identified herself to the media and filed a lawsuit that culminated in Coach Art Briles’ firing.
What, pray tell, was the ostensible justification for Elliot’s exoneration and Hernandez’s fault? The two had met at a party.
In my relative’s logic, Elliot’s sexual assault (“It was probably consensual anyway, right?”) was merely the sum of its sinful and asking-for-it parts: partying, alcohol, immodest dress, etc. These justifications are all too common, especially for women. Other classics include: It was consensual, she never asked me to stop, it isn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be.
Unsafe campus and boogeymen
David Bumgardner
Indeed, this type of logic continues to predominate on college campuses, even on ones no longer explicitly evangelical in their educational philosophy.
By way of example, the University of Findlay, which is the host campus of my seminary, Winebrenner, has plastered a flyer around campus claiming that “90% of sexual assaults on college campuses involve the use of alcohol or drugs.”
(I do not single out UF out of malice, but only out of sheer convenience and personal proximity. It is also important to note that these types of posters with this kind of messaging are everywhere, including both public and private schools.)
UF has roots in evangelical revivalism, even though it has not explicitly marketed itself as a Christian undergraduate institution in decades. UF remains a “dry campus” to this day, a remnant of the progressive prohibition movements that were popular both among Methodists and the Winebrennarians who predominated Northwestern Ohio.
There is, however, a twofold problem with this poster. First, there is no credible statistical evidence backing up this “90% of all assaults involve drugs and alcohol” claim. Reliable data suggest the number is closer to about 50%.
More important, however, is the second point: Alcohol use (or clothing, or initial consent, or anything else for that matter) in sexual assault is irrelevant. There is one and only one cause of sexual assault, and that cause is the second most grievous sin a person commits: rejecting another human person’s agency to enforce your own will, thereby violating the very essence of the image of God.
The fundamental issue in sexual assault is just that: assault (and, by extension, the assailant). A rejection of this affirmation is a rejection of the divine image and, according to the Apostle Paul, a rejection of the God who gives us his Holy Spirit.
“Assault is not just a violation. It is a sin. The former is a legal category. The latter is a moral category.”
Assault is not just a violation. It is a sin. The former is a legal category. The latter is a moral category. If there is anything worth stigmatizing, it should be the sin of assault, not alcohol, revealing or tight clothes, or anything else.
Period. Paragraph. End of discussion.
A distinctly evangelical problem
I am old enough to remember when evangelicals used to believe in sin and righteousness. I am old enough to remember when I was taught that personal character and integrity matter (yes, even in public office). It seems, given the preponderance of moral failure and abuse in evangelical circles, which I have repeatedly documented for nearly five years, beginning with my Clemons Fellowship here at BNG, they no longer do.
Sin and moral culpability are no longer recognizable theological categories for evangelicals. Instead, it has been replaced by power, authority, submission and domination of others, including displacing our Lord Jesus Christ.
Emir Caner
The most immediate example that comes to mind is the case of Emir Caner, a dubious figure from the spiritual lineage of the disgraced and former president of my alma mater, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
In addition to his fundamentalist bona fides, Caner was the archetype of the deflection strategy among evangelical men on the issue of sexual assault and abuse. When a soccer player was abused by Truett-McConnell University’s former vice president, Bradley Reynolds, Caner was purported to have told university staff that any comments about Reynolds’ alleged misconduct or reporting the relationship were tantamount to gossip and fireable offenses.
In Reynolds’ own words in emails obtained by the media, Caner is alleged to have said: “(The) student services crowd, or whoever it is, are the biggest busybodies.”
For his part, Reynolds defended the inappropriate sexual relationship with the student because God had apparently revealed to him in a dream that his wife was soon to die and that the victim would be his new wife.
This, in essence, is the problem with evangelical men and many evangelical leaders’ response to abuse. Women exist for the pleasure of men, and those who object to this fundamental truth are not welcome in their spaces. They must be dismissed as gossips, accused of liberalism or doctrinal drift, or even fired for speaking out in righteousness.
A deeply theological problem
Indeed, the theology of Paige Patterson, Doug Wilson, John Piper, Emir Caner and the entire basket of patriarchal evangelical deplorables, is that of male domination.
Consent, mutuality and the image of God play second fiddle to the worship of the man-god, in stark opposition to the God-Man, Jesus Christ.
“The theology of Paige Patterson, Doug Wilson, John Piper, Emir Caner and the entire basket of patriarchal evangelical deplorables, is that of male domination.”
What matters most is that a man has his own desires and longings fulfilled, even if that means another human person is subjugated, both in the socio-political sense and theological sense.
What is best is what benefits men. What is proper and correct is what the men say. What is worthy of admiration is the male form. The only power worth recognizing is male power.
Women must wear modest clothes. They must abstain from alcohol. They must do what we say, when we say it, and if not, you will learn what happens when you disobey.
This is the reason Doug Wilson calls women he does not like “cunts.”
It is why Paige Patterson founded an evangelical convent to “break down” women and then reshape them into “homemakers.”
It is why John Piper does not believe it is appropriate for a woman to give directions to a lost man on a driving trip to the nearest filling station.
It is why, including at institutions I have previously served, concerns about faculty with histories of sexual misconduct are dismissed because “I know him. He repented. He’s a good man. He made a mistake.”
It is why evangelicals react so viscerally to the concept of empathy and compassion and rail against “victimhood,” including at actual victims. Don’t pray for a lighter load, they say. Pray for a stronger back.
Flee from the wrath to come
But God is not mocked. Indeed, as Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4, “the Lord punishes people for all these things.”
In an immediate sense, worldly justice has been served as much as possible with both Caner and Reynolds’ firings.
What remains for both, however, is the judgment of a Good God who does not let the evil go unpunished.
Caner, Reynolds, and evangelical men everywhere would do well to heed Christ’s famous warning: “Flee from the wrath to come!”
David Bumgardner is a writer, theologian and educator living in Columbus, Ohio. He is a former BNG Clemons Fellow and a graduate of Texas Baptist College at Southwestern Seminary. He is a licensed commissioned pastor and holds an evangelism license through the Anglican Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Diocese of Boga, and Missio Mosaic, an ecumenical missional society and religious order. He is awaiting the conferral of his master of arts in practical theology degree from Winebrenner Theological Seminary. He is currently conducting postgraduate theological research (MTh) at the University of Aberdeen in New Testament and Early Christianity.