By Ruth Everhart
I really appreciated Ruth’s exegesis of Biblical passages in this book. David & Bathsheba stands out to me as Ruth so powerfully provokes the question: can anyone refuse or truly consent to the king? The imbalance of power makes it impossible for Bathsheba to consent (or refuse) and impossible for us to legitimately call this adultery. It may have been viewed as adultery back then, but now, we call this rape.
Ruth addressed various forms of sexual assault, harassment and abuse. She called them out. She named names. She refused to back down. In her own life, she has took a stand against the pastor who groomed and then forcibly kissed her. She boldly screamed “this is not okay,” as a representative of all people who are sexually violated, particularly women. She is a feminist fighting for sexual equality justice.
She taught me, through this book, that staying silent changes nothing. Staying silent is not forgiveness, it is only self-protection. To truly reconcile with another person, there needs to be an acknowledgement that something is wrong. This is what the #metoo and #churchtoo movements are all about!! They’re about sexual abuse victims and survivors, putting their foot down and saying, “this is wrong”. More than an apology, and even, dare-I-say, more than a jail sentence, what we really want is social reform. It’s evolution. It’s men facing up to the ways they have treated women as lesser and stripping those urges and discriminating thoughts away; challenging the objectification of other people and their bodies! This is about heterosexuals challenging heterosexist ideas and turning the tables to fight for the equality of all genders and sexual preferences. This is about human equality justice. Yes, some abusers need to be locked away where they can’t hurt another soul, but it is our whole society that needs healing. A reversal of rape culture. The cessation of purity culture. The breakdown of patriarchal norms and other discriminatory gender norms.
There was a story told in this book that really stood out to me. A young woman was raped on Christmas Eve. Then, as she cried to a male friend the day after Christmas, he found her story somehow sexually arousing. He recognized her vulnerability in not being able to stop it from happening. He branded her as “impure,” her purity stolen from her, and since she was no longer his ideal woman (virgin = marriage material), he decided to rape her too. Right there in her house, while her parents slept in another room. How could she scream, for fear they might view this as a consensual act?! This story is sickening and heartbreaking. This life-altering story reveals some of the ills of purity culture and how it is tied directly to rape culture. This is a depraved picture and one that desperately needs our attention as human beings trying to improve our moral compasses.
Thank you Ruth for this bold and timely stand for justice.