While Google-ing the term “sexual assault”, I found numerous websites with definitions, statistics, how to determine if you were sexually assaulted, help for victims of sexual assault, and coalitions against sexual assault. When I searched “sexual assault + Christianity” I found forums for survivors of sexual assault, news articles about Christian leaders that sexually assaulted an individual, and counseling services that promote that they help people find “restoration, truth and wholeness from child abuse, domestic violence, spiritual abuse, and sexual abuse.” Never once did those broad searches offer support for predators or even something so simple as: ”God still loves you. God always loves you. YES, you.”*
The Christian community is quick to embrace alcoholics and drug addicts and proud people and any other acceptable form of sin, perhaps because those are things most all of us have openly and admittedly participated in. It’s almost a badge of honor in a Christian’s life to be able to say, “I fell away from God… I got drunk by 5pm/shot heroin to numb the pain/think I’m better than you.” (Kudos to anyone who leaves behind a life of sin.) But what about the sinners with the sins we’re not so willing to embrace? ”I’ve fallen away from God… I masturbate to porn for up to five hours a day/act upon sexual fantasies about someone of the same gender/really think I have a special relationship with the six-year-old I regularly molest/like the feeling of power I get when she says no.”
We were never told to choose who gets to be loved by God; we were simply told that He loves. We were never told to choose who we love; we were simply told to love. We were never told to choose who gets to be forgiven by God; we were simply told that He forgives.
* There are websites like that. A couple of my favorites: XXXchurch and The Strip Church.
Thanks Sarah, here is a link to another similiar organization that is trying to get started. I think they’d love to go national eventually, but right now it is hard enough to do it in Little Rock.
http://www.bighouseburgerjoint.com/
Correction: They are started, but they are trying to get the restaurant going. Right now they have a few other businesses that are functional and hire exclusively ex-cons.
That last paragraph is so on point. So good. Why is it so easy for us to accept Christ’s love & sacrifice for us, and yet so hard for us to love another broken person with even a shred of that love, just because we deem their actions so much worse than ours?
A church sign in Lenoir, NC said it well, “Judging people leaves no time to love them”