A CHRISTIAN VIEW ON CHANGING THE ROOTS OF GENDER BASED VIOLENCE
Presentation to the think tank on Gender-based violence held at Bedfordview Methodist Church, 23 November 2019
Jonathan Cook

I want to talk about two things today: Jesus’ compassion and anger that together should underlie our response to GBV; and then secondly to look briefly at seven ways the Church can respond, in the process making sure no one remains with the impression that the Bible supports any sort of domination of men over women. Then I want to mention some helpful websites.

Two Christian emotions are appropriate when encountering GBV: compassion and anger. Jesus demonstrated both to us, and both are essential in a Christian response to GBV.

I am going to begin at an unexpected place in the Bible for a study on GBV: Luke 19:41-48, which is the passage that immediately follows Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, that we celebrate on Palm Sunday. But you’ll see why it fits.

When Jesus enters Jerusalem, he weeps. “If you . . had only understood on this day the message of peace!” But they did not. Jesus weeps for Jerusalem – I am sure he wept for the poor and the powerless and the oppressed, but the parallel passage in Matthew’s Gospel indicates that he was weeping too for the powerful leaders who would shortly kill him. “You that kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you.” He weeps for the perpetrators. He has compassion for the worst of sinners. He mourns their being lost.

But he doesn’t stop there.

Next he goes to the temple and drives out the money-changers! Jesus was angry. If you want to see just how angry Jesus could be, read Mark’s Gospel. He was often angry. I have added an appendix to this document that illustrates that anger. In this instance he was angry because the temple was being defiled by greedy interests. Jesus used the temple as a metaphor for his body (he said that when the temple was destroyed he would rebuild it in three days, referring to his body – John 2:19). And we, his church, are also the body of Christ. So he seems to be saying, don’t defile my body / our body.

We defile the body of Christ whenever we defile another human being. “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). This means that GBV and all other forms of violence are crimes against God. That also includes apparently nonviolent oppression such as allowing people to starve or be ill without treatment, or be restricted in movement. It also means abusing the minds of others and damaging their souls through cruel words.

But who was Jesus angry with? Interestingly, not the common people. Nor the traitor tax collectors (remember Zaccheus). Nor even particularly the Roman occupiers. So who? Well, he was consistently angry with the religious leaders, and interestingly, quite often irritated and even angry with his followers.

Surely Jesus is angry today. With whom? I rather suspect his greatest anger is directed again at those religious leaders who find little rules and texts and doctrines to justify oppressing his people, even using the letter of Scripture to contradict the Spirit.

And I think he must be angry with us, his disciples, if we allow business as usual to continue.

2. So, after first learning the compassion and the anger of Jesus, the second thing that has to change in our response to GBV as a Church is to move beyond merely being innocent, to allowing compassionate anger to drive us to change the church and change society.

Historically the structure of the church has been based on the model of the Roman army rather than Jesus’ model of the body! We are still rather hierarchical.

There is much that needs to change, but today we deal with just one aspect, which is the power dynamic between Christian men and women. Why is this important? If the church is organised according to power, which it largely is, and men are more powerful, the powerful inevitably begin controlling how we think and behave, and the powerless lose their capacity to influence their own destiny. Then we begin to take as normal ways of relating that are entirely different from what Jesus taught.

The Rape Culture Pyramid that Renate has chosen as the symbol for our WhatsApp group on GBV shows how a rape culture is underpinned by attitudes and careless use of language, that in themselves may not seem too dangerous, but that provide the source of the thinking that can lead to all the rest.

Similarly, the Church has for too long been influenced by attitudes and language that suggest that men somehow have the right to decide what happens to women.

This is seen in some branches of the church only allowing men to be ministers and priests.

It is seen in our teaching that wives have to do what their husbands demand of them, and not the other way round.

It is seen in our language, where God is a He.

But the Bible teaches something different.

Gen 1:27: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

Gal 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Now we, the body of Christ, in the 21st century are growing up. Bedfordview Methodist Church is responding wonderfully. The Methodist Church of Southern Africa has just inducted Purity Malinga as our first woman presiding bishop! Things we accepted even fifty years ago or less are no longer acceptable. Indeed there is an extraordinary and exciting wind blowing through current theological thinking, offering to release us from the constraints of the dualistic and exclusive worldview that has defined us for too long. Our structures now need to begin to reflect more accurately these liberating, energising concepts.

3. So the structures are slowly being sorted out. What about our teaching, the third area I want to highlight?

The church, with its reach into every stratum of society, could make a huge difference through teaching its members. We should teach . . .
• . . . Men and women how to respect each other, in our Sunday preaching and in training for special life passages such as membership, marriage, parenthood;
• . . . Parents how to raise girls and boys to respect each other and themselves.
• . . . Sunday School children and youth groups to respect each other and themselves.
• . . . Members how to give feedback without giving offence, and how to listen with empathy and not be offended – in the family and everywhere. Imagine the huge impact we could on the church, on marriages and families, and on every part of society where our members find themselves if we trained ourselves how to talk to each other! These are skills that can be learned.

Life in the family should be based on the example of Jesus and the church. And do not be misled by the lies peddled by those who want to retain male dominance. They like to use St Paul to justify their warped ideas. It is true that in Ephesians Chapter 5 Paul does write that wives should submit to their husbands, and husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church. But notice the introduction to that section. Paul writes, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” That’s everyone to everyone. I am very happy to submit to my wife as a Christian sister.

To justify male dominance, people have made very selective use of Paul! They may quote for example the first part of 1 Cor 7:4, conveniently failing to read the next sentence: “The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.” That seems clear enough to me. In the trust that Christian commitment to each other generates, we give ourselves to each other for mutual love, protection and nurturance. No way can that possibly mean that women should submit to abusive husbands.

4. The fourth area of transformation is in our language: Jesus was a man. He described God as father. To balance this, the church has tended to give the Spirit a feminine nature. There is nothing wrong in this, but God can surely not be either male or female!! God has to be both and neither. In itself the pronoun we use is not important, but avoiding referring to God as masculine serves two very helpful functions.

The first is signalling to all people that we do not agree with a male-dominated hierarchy. This reminds men to behave themselves and it tells women that gender does not count against their position or their belonging in the body of Christ.

The second is a reminder to ourselves to take gender inclusiveness seriously. So we can use “God” instead of “Him” and be reminded that God is parent – unless of course we are talking about the historical Jesus, who clearly was a man. So for example instead of saying “God sent his son”, we can say “God sent God’s son”. If it sounds a bit strange, all the better; it reminds us of what we believe! It’s okay to over-correct. But do it humbly! Let’s not become judgmental of other people.

5. The fifth area of contribution is in social change – in contributing to and leading change in the formal institutions of society (laws, education, government, infrastructure, etc.) and the Informal institutions of society – culture. Christianity has largely created Western culture, for better or worse – often for better, but (dare we admit it?) often for worse. It falls on us now to model a better Christian contribution to culture. So we need to speak clearly, assertively and often, not to reinforce oppressive family and other relationships and power structures, but to be in the forefront of liberating people.

6. The sixth area is in ministry to those damaged by the current violence and oppression – the kind of thing that some members of Bedfordview Methodist Church are setting up, teaching themselves how to respond when encountering victims of GBV.

7. Finally, the seventh area is of course personal change. It begins with us, and conversion has always been a major part of what the church does. Part of our conversion is to see all people through the eyes of God. Conversion would be the ultimate solution for the perpetrator. We have an answer to their sense of shame, in the grace of God and the power of God’s spirit to make us new! And the person being abused too can discover herself as a child of God, and discover this infinite source of worth, a dignity that cannot be removed.

I have said that we need to be angry. But let’s take care to direct our anger appropriately. Paul says that our enemy is not principally people: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12). Getting angry with people will not bring the change we need. Christian anger is motivated by compassion and seeks the redemption of all. Our strength and resilience and assertive refusal to be pushed around, our courage to stand unmoved when facing a violent bully, comes from the example of Jesus refusing to submit to tyranny, but equally refusing to accept that the tyrant must remain a tyrant. Perpetrators must be stopped. And they must be offered the kind of compassion that will invite them to be transformed.

So with the anger we need the compassion of Jesus – a compassion that binds up the broken victim and restores her to health and dignity and belonging in a cherishing community; and a compassion that seeks to redeem the perpetrators and bring them with us into the Kingdom of God.

Resources
• Thursdays in Black: An amazingly comprehensive South African resource on GBV: https://www.thursdaysinblack.co.za
• https://www.cbeinternational.org – CBE exists to promote the biblical message that God calls women and men of all cultures, races, and classes to share authority equally in service and leadership in the home, church, and world. CBE’s mission is to eliminate the power imbalance between men and women resulting from theological patriarchy. One of their papers is a thorough review of biblical passages dealing with the equality of men and women at https://www.cbeinternational.org/resources/article/priscilla-papers/bible-teaches-equal-standing-man-and-woman.
• Renate Volpe and Rene Steyn’s book about narcissism and its mirror in dependency: Senseless Sacrifice: Givers and takers in relationships.
• HeForShe.org – the United Nations global solidarity movement for gender equality.

Appendix: The anger of Jesus

For the first several chapters of Mark Jesus is pretty consistently furious, and if you read it with that picture in mind, all the rest of the text takes on even more liveliness. He is of course especially cross with the religious leaders, but also repeatedly frustrated and irritated with the disciples. Interestingly, like the immediacy, there seems to be a shift in the second half of the Gospel. Compassion always underlies his anger, as in the passage in chapter 3, where his anger with the people is mitigated by his sorrow for them because they are so obstinate and so wrong. But gradually compassion takes over as the dominant theme, pushing anger to the back of the picture, until the cross is all compassion and absorbing the anger of others.

It’s a great corrective to false religion. “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild”, although a comforting picture for a scared child, has misled us. It’s the barely-contained fury of the Messiah driven to liberate his people from oppressive religious authorities and their own limited vision that strikes a chord today. We need to be more angry – not in the self-centred temper born of desires, or the mindless political extremism that would blow up anyone who disagrees with us, but a righteous explosion of indignation that comes from seeing God’s children exploited or settling for less than they/we were created for.

This anger is selfless and directed, not mindless, and deeply compassionate, not just with the victims but also with the perpetrators of the exploitation.

We used to be angry enough with apartheid as Christians in this country to find the energy to do remarkable things. Today the evil is lacking a face to focus on, so we have to a large extent lost that energy. We need to put a face to evil – gender-based violence, poverty and lack of dignity are part of that face.

Perhaps a good prayer would be “Make me really angry with evil today, Lord, and focused and compassionate enough to take the practical loving action that the anger directs me to”.

Passages suggesting the anger of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel:

It is probably better just to read the whole book noting the unfolding story, but the following are passages I have noticed, beginning with some that are not so angry, but suggest a resoluteness and urgency that escalates into fury later:

1:25 Jesus orders evil the spirit “sharply”. Then he “drove” out demons and would not let them say anything
1:41-44 “Stern” warning to the man healed
2:8-11-25 Note abruptness of the language in his arguing with the lawyers and Pharisees
3:5 Jesus is angry with his followers
3:12 Still stern with evil spirits
3:28-30 Accusing Jesus of having an evil spirit is not forgivable!
4:13 Exasperated with the disciples
4:24-25 Jesus is not angry, but sounds quite stern
7:6-13 Jesus issues a scathing rebuke of the Pharisees and lawyers
7:18 More exasperation with the disciples
8:12 Deep groan of sorrow (born of exasperation?) with the Pharisees demanding a sign
8:17-18 More exasperation with his disciples. Really laying it on now.
8:33 Calls his leading disciple Satan !!
9:19 More exasperation – “How much longer must I put up with you?”
10:14 Indignant with disciples for sending away the little children
11:14 Even cross with an uncooperative tree
11:15-17 Drives out the money changers in the temple
11:18 Interesting that the authorities were scared of him
12:38-40 Rather mild version of what Matthew records much more directly and at considerable length in Matt 23:13-39, where he addresses the religious leaders: “Serpents, brood of vipers, how can you escape being condemned to hell?”