Those who believe man represents the sinless Creator and woman represents fallen humanity, have mud in their eyes and need to wash it out!
Jesus healed a blind man by putting clay on his eyes and telling him to wash in the pool of Siloam.
This is an object lesson to all Pharisees and and hard-hearted leaders who refuse to accept that their eyes have been blinded by a defective anthropology of gender.
Aaron, thanks for writing on such a tough topic. I agree that there needs to be caution, for men in particular, of carrying around harmful presupposition’s. I.E. It is harmful to assume all women are lying about sexual abuse or even most of them. This articles timing is important because of current events, which I won’t delve into. The challenge with this particular topic, especially for pastors and others in leadership, is that they become a target for false allegations. On one side we need to treat victims with care and love and gentleness, and on the other end you have to have an appropriate legal standard that requires some form of corroborating evidence (at least things like time, location, etc) so that there can be some sort of basis and the prosecution holds the burden of proof. I get that this opens up the door for predators, etc to “get away scot-free” and it would be nice if we had a better way of truly knowing/some sort of system. The church does need to hold itself to a higher standard and put safeguards in place to protect victims and appropriately investigate allegations. The unfortunate truth is that predators go to where there are vulnerable people and the church happens to be one of those, just like schools, etc. This is even more reason for these institutions to help by doing all they can to put SOPs, etc in place to help prevent it and investigate accusations with respect and thoroughness that the victim deserves. Anyways, such a tough and complex subject and I appreciate your perspective. These victims do exist and they are humans that God loves and we are to do what we can to come alongside them.
Those who believe man represents the sinless Creator and woman represents fallen humanity, have mud in their eyes and need to wash it out!
Jesus healed a blind man by putting clay on his eyes and telling him to wash in the pool of Siloam.
This is an object lesson to all Pharisees and and hard-hearted leaders who refuse to accept that their eyes have been blinded by a defective anthropology of gender.
Thanks Barbara, well said.
Aaron, thanks for writing on such a tough topic. I agree that there needs to be caution, for men in particular, of carrying around harmful presupposition’s. I.E. It is harmful to assume all women are lying about sexual abuse or even most of them. This articles timing is important because of current events, which I won’t delve into. The challenge with this particular topic, especially for pastors and others in leadership, is that they become a target for false allegations. On one side we need to treat victims with care and love and gentleness, and on the other end you have to have an appropriate legal standard that requires some form of corroborating evidence (at least things like time, location, etc) so that there can be some sort of basis and the prosecution holds the burden of proof. I get that this opens up the door for predators, etc to “get away scot-free” and it would be nice if we had a better way of truly knowing/some sort of system. The church does need to hold itself to a higher standard and put safeguards in place to protect victims and appropriately investigate allegations. The unfortunate truth is that predators go to where there are vulnerable people and the church happens to be one of those, just like schools, etc. This is even more reason for these institutions to help by doing all they can to put SOPs, etc in place to help prevent it and investigate accusations with respect and thoroughness that the victim deserves. Anyways, such a tough and complex subject and I appreciate your perspective. These victims do exist and they are humans that God loves and we are to do what we can to come alongside them.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Taylor. On the issue of false allegations, I recommend this article by Brad Hambrick: https://bradhambrick.com/why-is-it-so-hard-to-have-constructive-conversations-about-abuse/. My main issue with the possibility of false allegations is it being framed (not by you, just in general) as a 50/50 concern — 50% attention to the accused and 50% of attention to the accuser. I also discuss this here: https://open.substack.com/pub/onceaweek/p/toward-a-biblical-discussion-about
Then there is Jesus who appears to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection, showing us how he values women and their witness.
Yes!