Mutual Responsibility

by Gardner Hall

An excellent article on sexual abuse in marriage, but...

Recently, I saw an excellent article on how some men, often with the collaboration of misguided preachers, misuse I Corinthians 7:3-5 to pressure their wives into “obligation sex” rather than working to establish an atmosphere of mutual joy and satisfaction in marriage as God intended. I translated the article into Spanish and used its main points for a video, which received an astounding number of views. Obviously, it struck a chord in Latin America!

I subscribed to the page where I found the article and began reading the posts, with a mixture of admiration and concern. The admiration was for the forthright way in which its articles point out the hypocrisy of many religious leaders who try to hush up and even defend the sexual abuse by men in their churches. They treat pornography as if it were no big deal, thus perpetuating the degrading of women as objects. "Boys will be boys!"

The concern? Two main ones:

1. As is often the case when crusading against a very real evil, the finger is pointed not at the real cause: selfish refusal of “Christian” men to imitate Christ’s love in their leadership, but rather it questions the fact that God gave them a position of leadership in the first place (Ephesians 5:22-25, I Corinthians 11:3). The page tends to follow the line of mainstream feminism that blurs the distinction between the roles of men and women. This blurring is becoming more common in the evangelical world, and, in turn, affects youth in the congregations we know. It takes us away from Christ.
2. Complaints about “the purity culture.” I understand that the evangelical “purity culture” has often been one-sided, placing more responsibility on women, their clothing, and their actions than on men. However, the response has often been equally one-sided - removing any accountability from women for promoting purity and placing it solely on men.

The way of love in the Bible is for both men and women to work together to promote purity of thought - women being careful in their conduct, thought, and dress, while men do the exact same thing! Both are responsible. If both accept responsibility, they won’t try to shirk it by assigning it solely to the other. That’s not a “purity culture.” It’s the way of Christ.

So, I applaud the exposure of hypocrisy that has too often characterized the relationships between the sexes, even among those who claim to believe in the love of Christ! However, I’m concerned that the response is one-sided - refusing to accept the concept of mutual responsibility.