Thoughts on celeb status, the church and our attitude to rape
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I’ve been pondering this whole Russell Brand rape case for the weekend. For me there are many factors but two or three here that I’ll mention
Firstly CHURCH and the way the congregation Brand attended handled him. I’m not going to say much about it as Jon Kuhrt does a great piece here on cheap grace and the truth – Russell Brand: three lessons in grace + truth – Grace + Truth
But I would like to add that we, as in church and as in human beings and how we live life now don’t do accountability well. I remember my first husband worked in a factory that was family run – father and his best mate started the company and their sons worked on the shop floor and would eventually take it over. Some of the conversations he had, as an teenager starting work at 16 and onwards, helped him in many areas of life. There was lots of “walking together”. Now my current husband works from home at a computer all day, rarely sees anyone and rarely has those “life” conversations. I’d also say too that school has changed. There is much more competition and less collaboration. It is hard to be accountable and open with each other when you are in competition with each other.
Even when I first became a Christian over 30 years ago there was much hanging out together, eating together, sharing lives together. Now I don’t remember the last time I was invited for a meal. People are busier. There might be discipleship groups and bible study groups and events but it is not the same as just being together and talking life.
Then there is our attitude to RAPE. I think too often we don’t understand how a woman, or a man for that matter – and that is another whole matter!! – feels when they are rape or when they live with the fear of rape. Someone I know was raped over 60 years ago and she still has flashbacks. It is a deep trauma that we don’t like to talk about. Really this case with Brand has only come to court because a reporter went all out to make a case and prove his guilt. It is hadn’t been for Urwin and her team this would never have come to court. How many other women, who were raped by men who are not big name celebrities, have never been able to get to their case heard? Have had to be told to “get over it” to “move on”? Or been taken through the ordeal of a court case only for it to be throw out due to lack of evidence? Due to a judge who thought maybe they “asked for it”?
It is said that the number of rape cases reported are only a small proportion of the number of rapes that happen. And of those that get reported there are only a small number where there is enough, what would be called “clear concrete” evidence to take them to court. So there are a lot of men out there who don’t get tried, who don’t get convicted, who then go and do it again because there really is no team of reporters working towards getting them to court. How do you try a case that happened 60 years ago, that still affects the victim, but the perpetrator may have forgotten about?
I would like it if this famous case helps us open our eyes to rape, to how hard it is to convict people of rape, and to the damage it does not just to those raped, not just at the time but how it affects their futures.
And many it would be great if the Christian church could take the lead on this? Wouldn’t that be a testimony?
