Why Nobody Should Be Surprised By John Crist

At first I thought I'd just write an open letter to John Crist, after news of his sexual misconduct & crimes became public. I find myself experiencing the same righteous indignation that I felt when the Duggar Family scandal went public.

I was left grappling with the fact that Christians were defending a rapists (Josh Duggar). Like, what sort of twilight zone am I in that ANY of this is okay? That it is somehow excusable because "well, God has forgiven him..."

It was after that very public incident and my very own experiences with domestic abuse/violence that I knew I could no longer 1) stay quiet and 2) align with fundamentalist evangelicalism. 

Let me be very clear about this: sexual abuse is a crime. Abuse is a crime. 

And the church has done a shit job at protecting (and believing) women & victims. We cannot begin to fix a problem that we aren't even willing to acknowledge exists. 

For decades, women in the evangelical denominations have been labeled inferior to men. Young girls have been told their entire lives that they are "stumbling blocks" to boys. Young girls have been told their entire lives that the only thing that will make them worthy of a Godly man is their sexual purity. That they will somehow be damaged goods (like chewed gum) if they fail to remain virgins until marriage. 

And while the church may not be directly yelling "HEY BOYS, IT'S OKAY TO DO AND SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT..." that's precisely the message that purity culture sends. When we tell girls that they are responsible for the sexual thoughts of boys it makes it easy for the response to be victim blaming. 

"Well, what was SHE wearing? How drunk was she? She was probably asking for it..."

There are so many women who are walking around today with spiritual scars from the damage of purity culture. And the church has a responsibility to stand up and say:

1. We've been wrong.

2. We are so sorry.

3. We believe you.

Stop labeling young girls as stumbling blocks. Stop giving boys a pass when it comes to self-responsibility and consequences.  Then and only then, maybe will men be held responsible for their destructive & abusive behavior towards women.

We can teach young girls biblical truths about sexuality without all of the other junk. 

Grace & forgiveness are real. I truly believe that. But so are consequences. 

There is no timeline for grief or abuse. Victims should be no less believed because it maybe took them years to come to grips with what happened to them and for them to stop blaming themselves. 

I'll leave you with this quote by one of John's victims:

"I haven't been to church in years," Lindsey says. "It's hard. It's hard to go into a place where you know that people know things that are going on, and they never do anything about it, because they just list it as 'bad behavior' or something that someone can just be forgiven of and then it's fine. It's not fine. Even when you forgive someone, it's important to go back and make restitution and to change your ways and change your behavior. It's really hard to even consider participating in a community, in a body of believers, that would allow such behavior to unfold unchecked, and give it a platform. No, I don't consider myself a Christian anymore. ... I have no ill will toward the church. I don't have bitterness there. I think a lot of people are really earnest in what they believe, and I respect that. But I want to be able to respect it more."

Church, let's be brave enough to call this what it is - abuse.