Dr. Trible labels such stories “texts of terror.”
.. When we remember that a third or more of the women sitting in our pews have been sexually assaulted and the majority of them have been sexually harassed, the absence of biblical women’s stories is telling.
.. almost half of transgender individuals report being sexually assaulted.
.. The muting of the #MeToos of the Bible is a direct reflection of the culture of silence at work in our congregations. An assumption is woven into our sacred texts: that the experiences of women don’t matter. If religious communities fail to tell stories that reflect the experience of the women of our past, we will inevitably fail to address the sense of entitlement, assumption of superiority and lust for punishment carried through those stories and inherited by men of the present.
.. Statistically, perpetrators do not lurk in shadowy corners, waiting to pounce. They are men who have a hint of power, or wish they did, who understand women in much the same way so many of the stories of the Bible do — as objects to be penetrated, traded, bought or sold. They are sitting in our pews, or, sometimes, standing in our pulpits.
.. Abuse takes place when one person fails to see the humanity of another, taking what he wants in order to experience control, disordered intimacy or power. It is the symptom of an illness that is fundamentally spiritual: a kind of narcissism that allows him to focus only on sating his need, blind to the pain of the victim. This same narcissism caused the editors of our sacred stories to limit the rape of Dinah to only nine words in a book of thousands.
.. abusive narcissism must be unraveled through a transformation of heart and mind.
.. If I were preaching the story of Dinah, I might simply ask, “How do you think she felt?” It’s a question that some men have never considered. Though some abusers are beyond the reach of compassion, I have in my work as a pastor witnessed the ways hearts can open when someone tells a story. It is empathy, not regulations, that will create a different vision for masculinity in our nation, rooted in love instead of dominance.
.. But transformation happens only in the hard light of truth.
Why Bill’s Past Could Still Hurt Hillary
.. Among Democrats, the conventional wisdom is that this can only help Hillary. Bill Clinton remains incredibly popular. People historically rally around Hillary when she seems like a victim—her approval ratings surgedduring the Lewinsky scandal. Besides, the oft-married Trump can’t credibly attack anyone for infidelity, especially given his own past defenses of Bill, whose only sin, in Trump’s estimation, was not cheating with hotter women.
.. having a thrice married, philandering blowhard like Trump trying to beat up on a woman over her husband’s philandering, about which she is if anything the victim rather than the perpetrator, is almost comically self-destructive on Trump’s part.”
.. for the right, the Clinton sex scandals aren’t about infidelity. They’re about sexual harassment and assault.
.. Conservatives are itching to turn the new feminist consensus on sexual violence against the woman who wants to be the first feminist president.
.. Broaddrick refused to talk, however, and she later denied the rape in an affidavit in the Paula Jones case. It was only when she was interviewed by the FBI in the course of Kenneth Starr’s investigation that she changed her story and said the rape had in fact happened. (In the New York Times, she explained the about-face by saying she hadn’t wanted to go public but felt she couldn’t lie to federal investigators.)
.. frustrated with rumors that had begun to circulate about her, she gave several high-profile interviews.
Southern Baptist seminary drops bombshell: Why Paige Patterson was fired
He lied about his treatment of an alleged rape victim in 2003, and in 2015 he tried to isolate another woman who had reported a sexual assault from the seminary’s chief of security so he could “break her down
.. Many Southern Baptists considered that decision too lenient because it allowed Patterson to remain on staff as “president emeritus” with compensation and the ability to retire on campus.
.. in 2003 when Patterson was president there had come to Patterson alleging she had been been raped by her then-boyfriend and was encouraged by him not to go to police and to forgive the man she said had assaulted her.
.. Megan Lively identified herself on Twitter as the person in the Post article.
.. Patterson is revered in the Southern Baptist Convention for his role in steering the denomination in a conservative direction
.. “People have always been afraid of him. Not anymore,” Lively said on Friday night.
.. Ueckert said Scott Colter’s wife, Sharayah Colter, published a blog post contesting Lively’s account of the event in 2003 and attached documents without the permission of the students referenced in the documents or from leaders of either seminary. “I believe this was inappropriate and unethical,” Ueckert said.
.. In the blog post published Thursday, Colter said Patterson “is not guilty of all of which he has been accused in recent days.” She posted letters, appearing to show correspondence between Lively and Patterson, that do not state that the two of them met in person as Lively has maintained. However, none of the documents appear to directly contradict Lively’s story. Lively said that
In the blog post published Thursday, Colter said Patterson “is not guilty of all of which he has been accused in recent days.” She posted letters, appearing to show correspondence between Lively and Patterson, that do not state that the two of them met in person as Lively has maintained. However, none of the documents appear to directly contradict Lively’s story. Lively said that the documents Colter published had been altered and that the original ones had referenced three meetings with Patterson.
.. Ueckert said Patterson wrote an email to the chief of campus security at the time in which he “discussed meeting with the student alone so that he could ‘break her down’ and that he preferred no officials be present.
.. “For 15 years of my life, I thought I did something wrong,” Lively said. “It wasn’t until Dr. Akin told me I didn’t that I firmly believed it.
.. the publication of statements he made starting in 2000 about the Bible’s view of women and his beliefs about spousal abuse and why it does not serve as grounds for divorce.
“As I’ve said before, he shamed the crap out of me,” Lively said after seeing the statement. “He tried to ‘break her down.’ My story is almost identical to this girl’s story.”
.. Akin said he believes files that would help an investigation of the incident were taken from Southeastern when Patterson left. Ueckert said in a statement that Southwestern has located those documents and is working on returning them to Southeastern.
.. Ahead of the board’s May 22 decision to demote Patterson, two Southern Baptists on President Trump’s evangelical advisory board, Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas and Richard Land of Southern Evangelical Seminary, commented in support of Patterson in conservative media.
Harvey Weinstein’s Arrest May Define Manhattan D.A.’s Legacy
He made a name as the scourge of men who traffic in underage prostitutes and reduced the national backlog of untested rape-evidence kits. But he also faced withering criticism for dropping the prosecution of a French politician on sexual assault charges in 2011 and steadily mounting outrage over his decision in 2015 that there was a lack of sufficient evidence to make a case against Mr. Weinstein, the movie producer.
.. Sexual assault cases are notoriously challenging to prove in court
.. Mr. Vance’s office will face a long legal battle against a wealthy defendant and one of the city’s best defense lawyers, who will spare no effort to portray Mr. Weinstein as someone who behaved badly but did not break the law
.. The prosecution will have to prove Mr. Weinstein used physical force or threats of harm to get what he wanted, a high bar in cases with little or no physical evidence.
.. prosecutors have said the attack occurred in Manhattan more than five years ago — a gap in time that creates an additional hurdle for prosecutors.
.. there was grumbling among advocates for rape victims about his office’s grueling questioning of women raped by acquaintances before an arrest was made.
.. Several critics, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing prosecutors, said the questioning of rape victims in Manhattan was unnecessarily harsh.
.. Former members of the sex crimes unit said it is standard procedure to rigorously vet a victim’s credibility to avoid surprises at trial. “You better know everything that might come out,” one said. “It’s not personal.”.. the police closed proportionately fewer rape cases in Manhattan than other boroughs, but prosecutors had a high conviction rate... Mr. Weinstein had hired Elkan Abramowitz, a friend and campaign donor to Mr. Vance, to represent him and had paid for private investigators to dig up information about her statements in the Italian case... Some critics in the Police Department said Mr. Vance had become gun–shy of taking on powerful men after being forced to drop a sexual-assault charge in 2011 against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund.. the Weinstein case fed an impression that Mr. Vance’s office gave the wealthy preferential treatment... Public defenders pointed out poor defendants are often arrested and charged with forcible touching on nothing more than a woman’s complaint. “They are prosecuting our black and brown clients on sex crimes with far less,” said Justine M. Luongo.. Advocates for rape victims have met repeatedly with Mr. Vance and his top lieutenants, demanding that Ms. Bashford and her assistants adopt more modern, less confrontational interview techniques for sexual assault victims, which take into account that trauma often scrambles memories.They also urged prosecutors to employ more expert witnesses to explain why women sometimes do not fight with their attackers or report rapes right away... Mr. Vance and his team hope more women will come forward now that Mr. Weinstein has been arrested. Some of the older cases in which he cannot be charged may yet come into play too, as evidence of a pattern of behavior.“Sexual predators are now on notice: No one is too rich or too powerful to fall,” said Susan Ossorio, the president of National Organization for Women-New York City. “What’s happening now is bigger than this case. Harvey Weinstein’s arrest really represents an era of new accountability.”