Tangential Issues #4: A "Dismantling Rape Culture" Rating System for articles and books

Rape Culture: The Personal (fighting crocodiles) and the Systemic (clearing the swamp)

I am beginning to wonder about the purpose of many of the books and articles in the area of biblical scholarship that I have been reading over the last eight months. Are these works attempting to achieve anything vis-à-vis sexual violence against the believer in the pew or only within that group of Christians who make up its interpretative and authoritative strata? I have been finding it more and more difficult to understand how much of the biblical scholarship research that I read (or watch) would make a difference in eliminating rape culture in the long run. 

The #MeToo movement has made it possible to bring back into the foreground the problems of sexual violence in the Christian Bible, theology and norms. However, so often, what I am reading seems uninterested in solving the systemic nature of the problem in Christianity. The authors don't appear to be interested in or believe that there is a systemic nature to the problem in Christianity. If they interpret something differently, then that will be enough. 

You could say that they are worried about the crocodiles, and forget and/or rather don't believe that the crocodiles live in a Christian swamp created over the last 2,000 years. Furthermore, it seems to me that many of them are trying to reinvent the wheel. The ground-breaking work that was done in the late 1980s and early 1990s seems to have disappeared into thin air. What we need is a spaceship that is built on previous biblical and theological scholarship on sexual violence; in other words, a fundamental shift in the understanding of the nature of the universe and divinity. The historian in me sometimes wonders whether they even know that the wheel was already invented!!

So, as I start to put up a number of reviews, I will be asking two questions:

1. How useful is this book in the short run in the goal of helping Christian/ex-Christians survivors come to terms with the attempted murder of their souls.

2. How useful is this book in the long run in the goal of dismantling rape culture? 

My concerns in these books will be about addressing the problem of the systematic structure of rape culture in Christianity. This is a long term goal for many of us. However, helping victims in the here and now is also necessary. There aren't enough of us to walk the long path with the victims as they struggle to become survivors. I do accept that there are short term solutions that will help, and I certainly hope that they will change the face of Christianity in the future. 

Yes, I understand that many of you would argue that rape culture is not systemic to Christianity - stay tuned over the next few months or years to read why I believe that it is. 

My bottom line is that one needs to clean up the mess in one's own house before one even attempts to fix the world.

NOTE: The "dismantling rape culture" part of the title of the post comes from a 2021 book by Tracey Nicholls entitled Dismantling Rape Culture: The Peacebuilding Power of "MeToo". It is available FREE on Kindle or from other sources.

Tangential Issues #3: Five Essential Questions from "Christianity, Patriarchy & Abuse"

 I have decided to focus on book reviews for the next little while. Yes, I am back writing the blog with more consistency. I have created a "dismantling rape culture" rating system to use as I analyse these books. More about that in the next post. 

Some questions that will be in the back of my mind as I write my reviews come from the book where my first ever published article appeared. That article is still close to the most downloaded and quoted work that I have published over the years. It vies with "Remember the Good, Forget the Bad".

In 1989, five essential questions were put to readers of Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse: A Feminist Critique (p. xv) that are still relevant. They are as follows with my comments as of the day that I publish this blog post:

1.        1.  Is patriarchy inherent in Christian theology? My Comment: Can we replace patriarchy with "rape culture", which is what I am primarily concerned with? The latter term is even more of a red flag. Whatever you call it, my answer would be yes - even today. [This was published three years before Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza coined the term, "kyriarchy" in 1992.]

2.        2.  Can we call our “corrected” Christianity Christianity? My Comment: Many of the articles in the original book offered alternatives to the prevailing theologies on whichever issue about which they were writing. Today we can read “queer theology”, “feminist theology”, "biblical feminist scholarship", and “liberation theology” to look for examples of  "corrected Christianity". The question is still relevant and as of my readings to date, it is hard to find anyone who really deals with that question. The problem implies questions of definition, essential beliefs, foundational texts, etc. or "who owns Christianity?".

3.       3.  Is there an essential message of liberation in Christianity that runs counter to patriarchal oppression? My Comments: This is the question that was and still is addressed by liberation theology. If this question left out the word, essential, then I would probably answer, yes. Certainly, this is a debatable issue. My question is: "What happens to the dispossessed when they become the possessors of the power that oppressed them?" The problem hasn't been, and I would argue, won't be solved by giving women positions of power in any of its institutions, although that is a start. The patriarchal structure of the texts is so embedded in Christianity that even the liberation theology message is bounded by the will of its god who "giveth and taketh away(KJV)" (adapted from Job 1:20-22 NRSVUE).

4.      4. Why do we struggle so hard to remain within the tradition? My Comments: This is so easy to answer. The existence of the Christian God is embedded in children from the day that they are born. The monotheistic Christian god, no matter what denomination or interpretation has one quality above all else that makes it hard to leave the tradition: that god is personally involved in their lives. Furthermore, if the first twenty years within the system was not blighted by abuse, then  one's community was critically important to shaping your life. Thus, challenging your community is like challenging your whole life. As those who read my blog know, this is a struggle that I have had to work through all my life (still working on that one!). I can only say that being raised is the United Church of Canada was a godsend, whether I knew that at the time or not.

5.   5. Is there anything worth saving in the Christian tradition? My Comments: I am sure there is. Which parts are worth saving is a debate that has been ongoing since Christianity's beginnings. The problem is the Christian Bible itself. If there is no Christian Bible, does Christianity even exist? Well, of course not. The problem is that these texts are foundational - but are they revealed by the deity? And what does "being revealed" even mean? Few of the answers to the latter two questions are as clear as the 1992 statement from the United Church of Canada: "The Word of God, in every case, is larger than the text of the Bible." There is also this from the 2023 UCC website. Their statement of faith with respect to the Bible says: “The Bible is the shared standard for our faith, but members are not required to adhere to any particular creed or formulation of doctrine.” It's a beginning.

Introducing "The Shiloh Project Blog" to my readers

The Shiloh Project: Rape Culture, Religion and the Bible

From the Blog's About Tab:

The Shiloh Project is committed to fostering research into the phenomenon of rape culture, both throughout history and within contemporary societies across the globe. In particular, it will investigate the complex and at times contentious relationships that exist between rape culture and religion, considering the various ways religion can both participate in and contest rape culture discourses and practices.

It will also explore the multiple social identities that invariably intersect with rape culture, including gender, sexuality, race and class.

Our name, Shiloh Project, refers to a story replete with rape in the closing chapters of the Bible’s book of Judges. Judges is rife with brutalities and recounts a time of military skirmishes, preceding yet more organised warfare in the days of monarchy. The book ends with events at Shiloh and comments, on a closing note, that in those (chaotic and violent) days there was no king, so each man did as seemed right in his own eyes.

https://www.shilohproject.blog/