149 - Sexual Abuse Of Women In The Bible

You're listening to the Pure Desire podcast, your safe place to find hope, healing and freedom from sexual addiction, betrayal and relationship issues. Hello again, people. I'm your host, Trevor Windsor, and you are listening to episode 149 of the Pure Desire podcast. Here joining me as always, is my co host, Nick Stumbo.

Wella, wella, well, aha. Tell me more.

That's from Grease.

Hey. Wow. I didn't even have to sing it and you picked up on that. Have you been watching Grease lately? That was just on the top of your mind all the time?

Just every single day? No, I've seen like a third of that movie. I wasn't allowed to watch that movie growing up. And for some reason I have yet to rebel in my adult years from.

It'S not that great of a movie, so.

Oh, wow.

I'm just impressed you pulled the quote.

I was fired. Okay. People are gonna send in and tell you you're wrong. I'm guar guaranteeing it right now. You said Grease is not that good of a movie.

It's my personal opinion, Trevor, we can disagree.

Okay. I mean, I don't have a brand. I'm just saying. Okay, so today we had a new guest on. We'll get into that in just a minute. So a couple quick things. Subscribe to the podcast. If you're not subscribed, don't wait any longer. Just do it. It's free on any of our platforms. You can find on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, itunes, all of it. And I don't know if you guys know this, but if you give a review, it actually helps boost really our appearance on all those platforms. So if you give us a review, it helps more people actually see it and it also means a lot to us. And then also, if you want to just keep up with what we're doing and the conversation, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Our handle is earedesirepdmi. And also if you like to consume content via video, we have these episodes now up on YouTube. Just search Pure Desire Ministries. Alright, so Nick, we sat down with. First it was Bob Vandermeer is here with us and he introduced us to a very educated and really an awesome lady that we just met, Juliana Smith. And we talked, man, we talked about a lot of things, but specifically we honed in on sexual abuse in the Bible and. And really still in the culture of the church.

Yeah, What I liked about our conversation is that we see the need to talk about things that often the church hasn't talked about and, you know, we're aware of it in our modern culture of the taboo topic that sex is. And we don't maybe hear much about pornography. But it's really interesting to hear from a scholar who says this is actually what faith communities have been doing all the way through history, that when these uncomfortable passages that are in our Bible, I mean, they're there in Genesis and Judges and King David's life, we just kind of gloss over them or skip over them. And so to have an academic who's studying into it say, this has plagued the church for a long, long time, it's actually useful to me to look into that and hear, this isn't anything new. But there are still things that need to be done to change a culture of silence and learning, to have hard conversations. I think that's what a lot of today was about, and I think the.

Conversation was really beneficial. The first few questions, you may feel like, are we going anywhere? Is this applicable to me? But we really do talk about historically, what it's been like in history, and then really move into what we can do today. So I think this episode's gonna be really good, and we hope you enjoy it. Enjoy the episode. Bob, welcome back. We're glad that you're here. And then we have a new guest, Juliana. We're super glad that you're here.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for being here. So a few months back, and, Bob, you're good at this. You'll reach out and be like, hey, I've got an idea, or a thought. You're an idea guy, and I like that about you. And you're like, hey, I have this friend, Juliana.

You.

She'd be great to have on the podcast. And of course, I immediately go, okay, cool. What? Like, what are we gonna talk about? Cause I have friends, I wish her on the podcast that maybe might not have things that they would say that would be valuable. But you told us about, really the perspective that you come from, Juliana, and obviously you said you were awesome too. So it's like, okay, cool, we'll have her on. But we're gonna talk about, really what you're studying and what you're pursuing right now in your doctoral studies. It's super poignant. I. And so let's just kind of start with that. You ready to go?

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah.

So since this is your first time, we usually just want to give people an opportunity to introduce themselves a little bit, and then, so tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, and then what are you studying? And what topic are we going to be jumping into.

Okay, I'm Juliana Smith. I'm from the Midwest, from the great state of Ohio.

And your bio did say the Ohio State.

The Ohio State University. Yes, I went to the Ohio State University. And, yeah, I went to. But I went to a small Quaker school in Northeast Ohio, and I was inspired by some great faculty members to learn and to ask good questions and then use whatever tools I had at my disposal to answer those questions. And that's a really good setup for. For going into doctoral studies where they throw you into the deep end of the pool and say, here's all the information you could ever want. And, like, you know, do something cool with that. Figure it out, rearrange the ideas, ask different questions, and see where your questions take you. And my questions eventually led me to Near Eastern Languages and Cultures program at University of California, Los Angeles, where I currently live and study. And I study the Hebrew Bible and its reception.

So explain reception then. Cause I don't think. I mean, when you first said that, I was like, I think I know what you're talking about.

I've been to a few wedding receptions myself.

Yes, right. Does this include drinking and dancing?

Buffet, please.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah. All of the other.

Okay, good.

No. So a lot of early study, early modern studies in the Bible were focused on the question of what did the Bible mean in its origin? And that's a really important question. And as we, as in the scholarly community, started digging into that, we discovered that those answers were elusive. But what we had a little bit easier time doing is figuring out how different communities throughout time interacted with the Hebrew Bible. How did they understand it in their own cultural context, and how did that come through in their writings about the text and commentary? And that's kind of, you know, the origins question is really important, but we're all doing interpretation, and we can locate ourselves in that interpretive history, even in our current era and culture. So I was interested in that question.

So it sounds like reception history is basically, how did different cultures throughout time interpret the same scripture that we're reading? And what did they make of it?

Yeah.

And learning from different people's perspective.

Exactly, exactly.

And so in that unique field, we know that what connected us to you today is you're looking in particular at passages and references throughout Scripture to sexual abuse. Yeah. Primarily related to women. But as we were talking before the episode, it's not confined only to women. It can also be directed towards men. And that's a pretty unique area of study when it comes to Scripture. So what prompted you and led you towards looking at these passages and references towards sexual abuse in the Bible?

Yeah. So this was a. It was a long journey to get to this point, but different points in that journey started, you know, directing me in a more focused way towards the question of sexual abuse. So I grew up in a good evangelical church, and we were told to read the Bible, read the Bible dutifully. And as a child, I was unleashed on the Bible. And maybe we should give children guidance when they go to it, because there are some instances in the Bible that aren't maybe PG.

Yeah.

Not even PG 13. Some of them.

Yeah. And so, like, some of my earliest memories of being troubled by the Bible in middle school, I remember reading the Judges 19 and 20 account of the concubine who gets cut up and sent to the tribes. And I thought, oh, that sounds. That sounds really violent. And this is. This is my holy scripture.

Right.

And not having the tools at that point to engage that, I, you know, like most people probably do in their churches, set that aside and moved on. And then when I got to college, I had a wonderful Hebrew Bible professor who brought some of those texts to light. And not in a way to push people away from the Bible, but to get them to more critically engage this text that they thought they knew. And so I started. That's where, like, my scholarly interaction with the Bible started. And since that point, I've had interactions. I had an instance where I was living in a home while I was studying abroad and the woman was abused while I was living there. And then, of course, as I'm sure all the listeners are aware, we're living in this MeToo moment. And, you know, these questions and issues of abuse of women just keep coming up. And the Bible is not silent on these issues, but it's not clear in its moral assessment of these issues. And so, yeah, I just thought it was worth another look. And it was worth looking at how religious communities, both Jewish and Christian, have dealt with these troubling texts in Holy Scripture.

Yeah.

When you and I first started talking about this, and this was just on a Sunday after church, when you're standing.

Casual conversation about sexual doctoral thesis, for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. While stacking chairs, actually, I ended up watching other people stack chairs. But, you know, one of the passages we talked about, they're just kicked off the conversation was talking about David and Bathsheba.

Yeah.

And so, you know, you had told me when you kind of first started approaching this idea and topic, that. That one really kind of set some stuff off for You?

Yeah.

What was that like?

Yeah. So I was at a lecture and the speaker highlighted a commentary dealing with the text that. And I would call it a modern pro David commentary, one that doesn't want to question David or his place in Israelite history. And the commentary condemned Bathsheba. It was written by a woman. It was written in the early 2000s, and it seemed as if David's moral failings were Bathsheba's fault. And I thought, oh, like this isn't. This isn't some, you know, Victorian era commentary or some. A commentary coming from a more strongly patriarchal culture than our own. And this is widely accepted in scholarly circles. And I thought, oh, I don't. I don't know about that. When I read the text, I see some really disturbing power imbalances here. And when I look at the Hebrew of it, I think it's ambiguous on how we should be interpreting this sexual interaction. It's not clear cut. It certainly could. We suggest that Bathsheba maybe had ill intent. Maybe. But we can also read this as abuse of power. And I think more clearly read it as abuse of power by a political leader and military leader.

Yeah, by a man after God's own heart.

Right, by a man after God's own heart. Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, go ahead.

I'll just say it seems like that's why this topic is so important, because we're given these stories in scripture and we wish the author had then given us 20 more verses of commentary. And why now? And what now? But so much the Old Testament is just, there's a story and we move on. And I think most of us did what you're describing, Juliana, that we read these stories and we kind of go, huh, that's weird. Next chapter. And we just don't include it in our teaching. We don't include it in our training. But they're there and they're kind of left up to, I don't know, to not have any purpose. But I think what you're trying to say is how does this fit in the overall structure of what God does say in scripture? And how should we faithfully interpret what's going on here?

Yeah, yeah. So this is one of my questions that I don't deal with so much in my own research, but as a person of faith, as some. A member of a church, in a church that values the Bible and its place in the Christian tradition, how I'm actively sorting through what am I supposed to tell people in the church about these scriptures? And I'm doing a lot of research on the philology and the nuts and bolts of the syntax and word usage.

Gosh, I'm so thankful there are people out there like you, because that is just not me.

But at the end of the day, this is a text that my community really values and they may want my input on. What the heck are we supposed to do with a chapter like Genesis 34 and the rape of Dinah?

Yeah, I think the, and I mean, if you're listening to this so far, this maybe sounds a little different than any Pure Desire podcast you've listened to thus far. But I think really the attempt, really the hope for this conversation is to dive into this, to then see what we do about it today and understanding scripture and understanding the prevalence of sexual brokenness and specifically in the form of abuse today. So if you're kind of confused so far into the episode, just understand that's where we're headed. But let's kind of continue on. In your studies, what have you found like in the research and what are some things that maybe jump out to you that you think some people should know about?

Yeah, I think that one of the things that I've seen in reading the, through text dealing with later texts dealing with the chapters on sexual violence is that ancient readers response to the text is maybe not so different from our own. So in, you know, I think about a text like Genesis 38, which is about Judah and Tamar, which might not properly fit into the category of sexual abuse, but there's some sexual impropriety in there. So when Josephus is retelling the story of Genesis, Josephus is an early commenter on the Bible and he rewrites the history or what does he do with a text like this? Well, he just leaves it out. It's a little uncomfortable. We can tell the story of Genesis without going into this particular instance. It's uncomfortable. And you, you'll see that in other commentaries as well later. I don't know if you've looked at children's Bibles recently, but they often do not include any of these texts.

And as a parent of young kids, sometimes I'm like, thank you. Like, yeah, I don't, I really don't. I'm not prepared to talk to my kid about this. This is why I bought this Bible.

Exactly.

I don't have to explain this interaction with donkeys at bedtime.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah. Another thing that we see in the, the commentaries, and I'm thinking of like some 19th century English commentaries written by women, is that they, they do what I would Categorize as victim blaming. So what was the woman doing that led to this abuse?

It must be her that brought this on.

Exactly. We see another tactic that we see commentators use to, like, make sense. Sense of what's going on in these texts is to make the perpetrator of the violence completely other. They're not our neighbors. Neighbors don't do this. They're monsters. They have a history of bad behavior. So we're going to add in some details about other bad things that these individuals did in order to make sense of the sexual violence that's recorded in the Hebrew Bible. If you knew what their people were like. And I think that these are all ways that we see in modern times that we try to rationalize or deal with sexual violence in our own communities. You know, watch. Watch the nightly news and see how they talk about rapists. And in that context, they're monsters. They're other. They're not. They're not members of the community. Yeah. And I think we should really interrogate that interpretation, not. Not justify. But think critically about how we talk about and think about sexual violence.

Something real quick and just because I want to make sure that we're clear on the language. You've mentioned it a couple times now. Sexual violence. Is there a difference between sexual abuse and sexual violence? And like, if so, basically, why do you use that language?

Yeah, I'm pulling my language from. I'm trying to use the most general terms.

Yeah.

Because you have different types of. Of sexual violence. You can, you know, if we want to, like, get into the nuts and bolts, we have rape, we have gang rape, we have abuse of children, and.

All of them exposure.

Right. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I just want to clear that up.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's good.

I think I heard that in the three things you were saying that one of them is silence.

Yeah.

So here's a text, and instead of addressing it, dealing with it, we just move on to the next, and there's silence. That another one is victim blaming that this happened to them because they. Whatever it is. And the third being to villainize or monsterize.

Is that a word?

Can we say monsterize? Yeah, or monsterize the villainize to the perpetrator of it, making it. So it's not our cultural issue, but it is their cultural issue that is invading our life somehow, which is really.

Just passing the buck. Like, I don't want to take responsibility to have to be a part of a solution, therefore I push blame away. Yeah.

And it sounds like all three of those are either silence, victim, Blaming or villainizing. In none of those do I hear someone saying, wow, how do I work with this text and find responsibility in this?

Right, right. And you know, and I, and I struggle with like what? How are we supposed one, are we supposed to talk about these texts in the church? Are they always useful? And I would say probably most of the time we're really good to pass on a sermon dealing with any of these texts. Not good general audience material. But I think if we open our eyes and we look at some of these very high profile sexual abuse cases that have come out of the church, we might benefit from thinking about our tradition's own, like the history of sexual abuse that we find and locating ourselves somewhere in that conversation.

And I think that's why, on the other hand, this is great audience material for churches and leaders to consider because I think we fall into the same trap. And it's the theme that I'm hearing you kind of talk about, that we create this us versus them. There's monsters that do these things, but that's not us. And even what you said about that commentary being like a very pro David commentary. I've seen that a lot in church history and even in the church today where it's like, well, this person's a saint or they're in the Bible and so therefore they cannot have flaws and faults and character deficiencies. And we train people that way, which is the very thing that pertinent to our work at Pure Desire I think we battle against because people are like, well, I'm not that whatever they define a sex addict or a porn addict as, whatever that is in their mind, they are not that. That's an other, that's a monster. And they're like, well, yeah, I struggle and I look at things I should and I found myself crossing lines. I promised I never would, but I'm not. That versus what if in our culture and our homes and our churches, we were able to teach people about just the brokenness of life and the messiness of that. We can be both a follower of Christ and someone with deep personal issues. We can be both a person of faith and someone that's a perpetuator of sexual violence because of other brokenness in our life. And yeah, if we don't allow people to see that we're all this kind of both and conglomeration, it just perpetuates, I think what we're talking about in the sexual violence because we don't deal with it, we just push it away or ignore it, which I think Is.

The reason why it's in Scripture. Like, if I can read that David was a man after God's own heart, yet also was, I mean, for all purposes, might have been a rapist and definitely a murder murderer and an adulterer. And like, if that guy can still be the one that God uses so mightily, for sure he can use me. Like, there's gotta be. That's just the way I see it. The more I read scripture, the more I understand brokenness. When you see those moments of brokenness, I feel like those are things that we should have, like a heart connection to in scripture because these people are broken, like me. And it gives gen, like, genuinely for me, it gives me hope that God can use me in my life. Because if he can use really messed up people that if we're keeping a scale, have done far worse than I've ever quote, unquote done, which that can be a whole nother theological conversation. But even on a scale like that, God can for sure use me then if that's so for me, I think that that's why in a lot of ways it's there.

Well, I mean, like, it's. I appreciate that it's narrative and so, like, in those narratives, to not dogmatize any of that, you know, but to say that the narrative is still in there, whether culturally or historically, they did anything helpful with it. Yeah, yeah. Isn't the point. But it's still there. And, and that, that does seem important because there's. I. I don't know. We're starting. We can, we can go down a lot of racks.

Yes, we can.

So maybe I'll try to reel it back. It seems like our, our approach in the church is still, be quiet about it, victim blame, or say it's somebody else's problem as opposed to us doing something with it. But those stories are still there, and those stories are still happening in our churches currently. Like, people are still, like, being the victims of sexual violence. There are still people that are perpetrating it. Like you were saying, there are still people that are just like, yeah, it happened, but we're just going to sweep it under the rug. And for at the very least to say their narrative is there in scripture. And our narrative, in a sense, still needs to be there so we can do something different.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's part of the story. And if we don't tell the whole story, we are missing something. So, Juliana, we're already getting into this a little bit, and hopefully we didn't answer your question, but as you've done this research and are really diving into this area, what are the similarities you see to the church today and the culture that we live in and what you've discovered about all these stories of sexual violence in the Bible?

Yeah, I think. Well, I think we have. We have really gotten into a lot of what I was. The direction I was thinking about going here. But, but silence is. I would say silence is the enemy of the church in this regard. And you see, and you see silence in, in the reception history. And then like Bob was talking about the monsterization of perpetrators, the othering they couldn't you see that there's this real reticence to take any type of responsibility for the perpetrators being within the bounds of community. If, if we can put them solidly outside and then like go through a laundry list of all of their other crimes, then, then we can make this not our problem. And, and I fear that's what we often do within the church, that we're reticent to see abuse and when it's finally exposed, often by the hands of a persistent media.

Yeah.

Then we like throw up our hands and say, well, you know, this person's always been xyz. And that's just, that's really damaging. I imagine it's damaging for the victims to watch a community completely throw up their hands and say, not us. We didn't know.

Well, it seems like it's where these two things kind of work together. This idea that it's us versus them, either a sinner or a saint. You're either the David of the Holy Bible or you're a sex addict, pervert. You can't. It's either or. And because of that, then we can't take responsibility or ownership if someone among us is discovered to be a perpetrator. Because then it's like we're committing the crime with them versus if we can allow that there's complexity in people, there's brokenness, and yet they are still a part of the community. That, that doesn't necessarily mean the whole community is nothing but, you know, violent perpetrators of these things. So it's like somehow those two things really, they go together in a negative way. And it seems like for us to grow and change, they have to both shift together also. Yeah.

And your guys's own work. And I'm going to ask you a question now if I can turn the tables here. Do you. How does that come out in your own work where you see very complex people where they're like leading. Does that come out Often when you're working with people.

Yeah, well, that's what I like about what we're saying. Because even for those that end up, like, in counseling or in a group, I think initially there's this denial of, well, I'm not really an addict, or I, yeah, that happened once, but I'm not. And you can see or hear them even internally fighting with, well, that's not who I am. Because we've created these categories, and I did it my own life. It's like, if I admit that I have an addiction to pornography, that means, like, I'm admitting I'm a monster. And. And I can't do that. And so through the counseling and the group I was in to understand that that didn't make me some monster. It helped me admit the pattern that I was stuck in and what it was going to take to change, you know, And I think we just see that multiplied over and over with people that because we have these categories, we don't. It's hard for people to allow themselves to get the healing and help they need, because first you have to admit you need the help. So I think that's what we work with, is just trying to help people break through that denial and the rationalization and the minimization that we do, especially sexually because of the. The personal nature, the private nature, the. The shame that can be associated with anything sexual. That all of that creates this hesitancy to admit that, yeah, that's me. Because then it's like I'm saying, well, I'm a monster. I don't belong in the church. I don't belong in community because I'm this other. And so it's. It's, I think, our mission to say we want to help people see, you can love God and be in a church and be addicted to sex and. And the one doesn't violate or, you know, disqualify you from the other.

Yeah.

Like, let's bring into balance that we want to help you find healing so that as you follow God and are a member of this church, you're getting healthier.

Right.

But you have to be willing to acknowledge that need first.

And you can be an abuser and still be a valued member of God's family. You can still be a redeemed saint. I think I just was thinking a lot about this as far as the culture in the church, why we do this. I think a lot of churches and just. I'll just speak from my experience, churches I've been in tend to keep bigger things like this or other failings of leaders or people in the church. Quiet. Because. And this has been, again, my experience that we're basically trying to protect the ministry of the church, quote, unquote, that the church can't minister to people if they see how broken and messy we are. It's not on their Instagram account, right? No, no, for sure. It's like, it's just your most glowing moments. Right? That's what we do. And I think that something you were saying earlier, Bob, I think that we avoid messy because clean, we think, looks better and is more inviting. But I'll be honest with you, if no one in the hospital is sick, that's the wrong hospital for me. Like, if you're not. If you're only admitting clean people. I'm not clean. Like, I can't come in. And so I think that it's this cultural thing that actually counteracts what the church can do. So in protecting our ministry, we act clean. And those an us and them type of mentality. What's actually funny is that if we would open up the conversation and really show that the church is messy and has a lot of broken people, more people would actually be attracted to it and your ministry would actually grow. And I think that that's what our ministry really tries to do as well, is not only help people find freedom and sexual wholeness, but also understand that once we can talk about a topic, specifically sex, sexual brokenness, sexual. Sexual integrity, all that, then you'll find that more people will be coming to your church or having conversations with people at your church. Because it's not, as you were saying, a silent issue anymore. Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So here's another question. This is something.

Yes, this is great.

That I see when I look at the Hebrew scriptures on. And particularly these passages that we find. The victims are largely silent. Almost. Now I'm going through it. I'm gonna. I'm gonna hedge here. Possibly completely silent and sometimes unnamed. And. And then when you look at the reception history that's maintained, the silence of the victim is maintained. And it's hard to write about, you know, from a scholarly perspective, the silence. Like, you can note it, this is a big gap. But I'm wondering if there's anything in there, in that silence that we can, you know, learn or interrogate or question as we think about victims within our own communities. Yeah.

Yeah. Great question. I think we see this a lot when we have a sexual addict either start attending a group or come for counseling, and they begin to see some healing and some momentum. And recovery that within their communities that they can be championed. In other words, we put them up in front and we say, look how far this person has come. And a lot of times in championing those people. And that's great. We want to encourage them. We want to say, great job moving from here to here and heading there still. But in doing that, we end up sometimes still missing the people that have been wounded in the process and not either validating or giving them a voice or giving them a place to even communicate if they want what their experience has been. And also to give them support and help and healing. I think that's one of the things that largely is missing within sexual addiction recovery programs is giving the support and help to the victim, but then also not championing, oftentimes the perpetrator overtly. Overtly. Yeah. Well, and just to the. To the point where there's. Where there's an imbalance in care. Yes, because the only reason those people were saying, hey, great job, you know, you used to do this and now you're not doing that, you're doing this instead. The only reason we're doing that is because we see value in this person and we see redemption in their story. And I think it's prettier sometimes to do that than it is or cleaner sometimes to do that. It is to say, hey, let's also support and encourage and also be a part of the redemptive story of this person over here that's been dramatically violated or wounded or broken by this other and the discrepancy between.

But now they have found hope and freedom and joy. And I think it goes back to something you said maybe in our pre show time. But that whole idea of the power imbalance, you know, the scriptures that are coming to mind for me, most of them involve a woman who in that Hebrew culture would have had very little standing value power in a story with a man who is usually an elder in the community or a political figure or someone in power. And so I think the truth is that those are the people that wrote the stories, either that person themselves or someone that knew them. And. And so the victim doesn't have the power or the platform to really get heard. And that's something I look at and say that's what we need to change, because we can see the deficiency of that. That if someone who is not in a role of authority or having any power cannot be heard and then silence kind of is their only go to.

Right.

It's like just go away and hope they don't Notice me. So I think for us to be people that listen, that support that, and if we are, you know, if God, whether we're male or female, has put us in a position of authority or power or where we're over someone of recognizing that part of the way I use that power is to leverage it for the good of those that don't. And so that they're heard and they're valued. And otherwise, I think silence just will continue to be the option.

Right.

Yeah.

It seems so lopsided. I'm just thinking back, like. And I just. I'm sorry, I can't think of a better example than this. But, like, looking back to World War II, I think very rarely would we see, like, a guard from a concentration camp being platformed and, like, you know, turned into a hero as this transformation from where they were to where they are now. But we do see stories about survivors from concentration camps or from situations like that and that and that we look at that and we're like, okay, that maybe is also lopsided because that guard also has a story. They also have their own narrative. But it's so weird that in this context of what we're talking about, it's the opposite of that almost always.

Yep.

Like, the survivors don't often have voices, and when they do, it isn't platformed the way that, you know, the perpetrator is. It just seems really, really lopsided.

And a lot of it, too, I think, speaks from the culture of the church, which. And again, we're speaking generally, not every church is this way. Need to make that disclaimer for sure. But I think it's important to identify that the church primarily looks at the outward action actions and then wants to work on that. If you're a betrayed spouse or someone who's been abused, you didn't necessarily do anything. And so it's like, oh, well, there's not really a. Like, there's not this, like, three steps to you getting free from trauma or from your abuse. So it's also really difficult to understand if you don't have any education on how to help that person, where it's like, well, we'll just help you stop acting out or stop abusing or whatever, which is why we have so many organizations and programs across, you know, the world for that. So I think that it's just easier to see the action and be like, okay, that's where we work on, and then forget that even though someone didn't have a role in their own abuse or in their, you Know, being betrayed, that they just as much need that opportunity.

Yeah, yeah.

This is, this is good so far. Heavy stuff, but really good. We're going to keep going. So obviously pure desire. We spend a lot of time helping people. And a lot of this I think is cultural because pornography is so prevalent now. You know, 40, 50, 60 years ago, it would be kind of more of a different conversation, still brokenness, but now it's playing out pornography. Do you think that pornography, especially with the over sexualized and saturated culture we live in, do you think that, that in your studies have you seen that it is actually making the sexual abuse worse today?

Yeah, I guess I want to back up on the premise of the question. And as somebody who looks a lot at the ancient world and in texts from the ancient world, I think that sometimes we see our position at this moment in history as particularly unique. And obviously like the Internet and the, and the ready availability of pornography is something maybe unique to our current culture. But whether or not the over sexualized nature of the culture is unique, I'm really reticent to say that that's true. Some of our, you know, earliest archaeological findings in the ancient world are like little statuettes of naked women. I'm not sure what these were used for. I know a lot of scholars have theories, but something suggests to me in this archaeological finding that we are not unique in thinking about, you know, the female body in certain terms.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you know, you've got the writer, you have Paul, and in First Corinthians, like begging the people for some like restraint and what they do with their bodies. And so when I think about our current culture, I'm wondering if maybe we think about it as being. And you know, here I am just going off the cuff and way out of my we like it area of expertise. So all the, you know, everybody can challenge this. I'm happy for that. But I think we may be coming at it from like an, you know, a post Victorian era where there was a lot of restraint on, on, on sexual actions and, and how we thought about sex and you know, compared to that we're over sexualized. But I, I don't know if you look throughout the history of the world if this, if we are particularly unique. The Internet is unique.

Yeah.

So not necessarily the content, but the quantity.

Yeah, yeah.

Quantity in the medium.

Yeah.

Like because as, even as, I mean we wrote these questions, but even as I'm thinking through it even more like it's maybe the mode of me acting out sexually has changed to be Maybe morally less bad because I'm not acting out with someone else. I'm just by myself. Right.

Yeah. I mean, like, if you want to look at. If you. If you're interested in thinking about sex, you can go back to ancient texts. You don't need to use the Internet and.

Wow.

Statuettes.

Statuettes.

Right. Well, it's interesting to think that this is not a modern problem, that this is as old as the hearts of men and women that are broken and move towards things that are unhealthy for them. It's always been there. So maybe now it's a little more overt, but interesting that the problem is consistent through these cultures. And also the response of silence. Ignore it. We talk a lot about how sex is the taboo topic in the church. Church. And we kind of talk about it like that's a new phenomenon. And yet here you're saying church fathers just skipped passages entirely on sexual content. It's like, maybe it's been the taboo topic for us all along. And so we're just continuing to see the uncomfortableness we have in our faith with. What do we do with this stuff.

Yeah.

So when you think about that, Juliana, what other things? You know, and we're starting to maybe look more at. Okay, what do we do?

Yeah.

What are ways that churches and even individuals, in a sense, that we're perpetuating these problems that you've seen in the ancient texts.

Yeah. And again, I'm going a little bit. You guys probably have more experience with this, with working in the church and in church leadership. I'm just a good church attender who.

Has more education than any of us sitting at this table. But. Okay, sure.

But, yeah, I don't know about that. But I think that when I think about what we can learn, ways that we can move forward, I think listening is listening to survivors, listening to stories that we have to tell, listening to perpetrators, making sure these conversations, their space, holding space for these conversations is really important. I come from a friend's background, a Quaker background, and they have this idea that silence is a ministry. And I think that maybe we can offer that in our churches as. As a ministry silence, space for these conversations to start. And I also come being a friend. We believe in the Spirit and Holy Spirit movements and guidance. I don't know where our listeners are.

We like the Holy Spirit.

But I think that these. The issues that we're dealing with require an enormous amount of care, and they're completely out of our ability. Like, you know, I can make toast in the morning, but I can't deal with people's history of abuse. We're kind of, you know, limited in our capacity to deal with big issues as human beings. And the Spirit is an underutilized tool in the Church. As somebody who's spending a lot of time, we value education and learning and what that can offer and getting the proper training. And I'm a big supporter of that. And I've spent a lot of my life pursuing that. And what I've learned in that pursuit is that this topic is entirely out of. Of my ability to deal with. And I have to believe other people feel that, too, but it's not outside of the Holy Spirit's ability.

So really what you're saying then is that we're not giving space. So the way that we're perpetuate, perpetuating it potentially is not giving space for people to talk about it or to share or to ask questions. And we're also. And I'm not sure if this is actually what you're saying, but what I'm hearing is that maybe we're leaning too much on our own understanding and, like, natural or gifting or ability or whatever you want to use in order to step in, like, okay, well, I'm not qualified, therefore I can't help. So is that what you're saying?

And qualifications. I don't want to say qualifications aren't important. I think that we should be going to professionals.

Yeah.

Utilize professionals. But utilize professionals with humility. And professionals should also have humility. And that's where the Holy Spirit can really work, I think, is in recognizing the limitations. We're going to work our hardest and learn as much as we can and develop these professional capacities. And then we come to an end.

And no one is disqualified, though, from being able to. Or no one is not qualified from being able to just listen.

Oh, yeah.

And listen to what people's stories are. And to help them understand that where they've thought of themselves on the spectrum of Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde or, I don't know, Bruce Banner to the Hulk. I just watched Avengers Endgame the other day on New Year's Eve. That's what I did.

Yeah.

And. And I was so. And I had. I didn't know this part. I was so impressed at. At the Bruce Banner Hulk character.

Yeah.

That he was neither Bruce Banner nor was he the Hulk. Yeah. That he was, like, in between. And. And I think maybe just in us being able to listen to people, help them understand that they're not this or they're this. They're all of this and. And that in all of that identity that isn't defined by this or this. That identity is in Christ. And identity is this broad umbrella. It's a lifelong narrative. But I think we're all qualified to listen to that. At least.

It's good you just found your new illustration, this weekend's sermon. Really good.

Well, and it speaks to me how important it is that when we use professionals, that it's in conjunction with what's happening in our community. Because I think that's for maybe a lot of listeners. Their response is, well, you need to go see a counselor. Or maybe they are currently seeing a counselor. And if that becomes our only connection, though, to care or to healing, it can perpetuate a sense of otherness for people that I'm an Other. And now I need to go to this outside professional source to get help so that I might be qualified to come back and maybe rejoin the community. And I think a lot of people that have gone through, whether it's sexual abuse and violence against them or whether they're the ones that have perpetuated it or they're the addict, they feel like that other even when they're getting professional care, because it's all kind of outside of community. And so I think we need to look at if we're the ones that are in some counseling, how do I also engage with my community and see that that's a part of my healing? Or if we're the one that is a counselor or is sending people to counseling to say, how is that a part of what we also do to include them in community care? Because I think if it's only the professional, it will continue that otherness that it can. I mean, again, I mean, obviously we're running a ministry here full of counselors, so we believe in counseling, but we don't want to inadvertently just continue that sense that you're not a part of us. So how can we bridge that gap so that it's both professional care and the community we're in?

Yeah. So switching it now, what can we do to push back against sexual abuse? And I'll be careful to say that it's not just women, that it's both men and women who've been abused. What can we do to push back against that in our world and in the church?

Yeah. I think silences can be a ministry when we're trying to create space. And it can also be an enemy when we're. When we're perpetuating, when we're perpetuating the sins of sexual abuse. And so I think getting some real clarity on when do I need to give space and when do I need to say, oh, this is out of line and being willing to stand besides survivors.

That's awesome. That's awesome. I mean, in that, like, the silence in one part is healthy, silence in one part is devastating. And to say, like, as a community, maybe we will not be silent on this topic, but I'll be silent if you need to talk to me, you know, that kind of thing. Like, we as a community will not be silent in ignoring sexual violence, whether perpetrator or victim. And we will provide at the very least an ear for you to say, hey, like, it's like, you're loved, you're welcomed, and we want to hear what you have to share. There may be. There may be follow through with that. There may be reporting that happens. You know, there may be like all. There's consequences for these things, you know, and there's repercussion. But yeah, that's awesome. The silence on both sides of that can play different roles.

Yeah. There's a wisdom in knowing when to deploy and when to.

In any place in life. That's a powerful truth.

Well, and I think about the role that we can have to be a part of the solution. I mean, you think about the story of David and Bathsheba. His story really continued to play out in brokenness until a prophet, Nathan, came in and said, you are the man and what you've done is not right, and you need to take some steps for change here. Or thinking of several of the stories in Judges, you know, they're really encapsulated in the statement at the end of the book that says, in those days there was no king and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. And both those stories and many others speak to people that did what was right in their own eyes, with no one to call them on it and no one in a loving, godly way to say, this is not okay. And I think what we're seeing in our churches, we've got to find a way to lovingly but firmly say, this isn't okay. But we can, we can recognize that this might be a part of our growth in Christ, that we're dealing with this brokenness and messiness in our life. So it's that dual side of, on the one hand, being willing to stand up and say it's not okay and we're going to. We're going to deal with it, but on the other hand, say and yet we love and care for you, and we're not just going to send you away and treat you like an other. If you're someone that's stuck in this, we're both going to include you and say, stop it. To kind of put those two phrases together that we want there to be health, but we also want it to happen in a loving, caring community that can handle seeing people move in the right direction.

Yeah. I would circle back to something you mentioned earlier. You were talking about how you viewed scripture and you asked questions and you interrogated the text. And I think that that's just what I'm ending on here is just we need to do more of that in topics like this. We need to ask more questions. And I think that. I mean, we know this at Pure Desire. We get so many leaders and so many churches who just assume it's not our problem or we know enough to help or we're already helping enough or whatever it may be. So I think that we need to ask more questions. And I think that you mentioned it as well. Humility. There's got to be humility in that. Because the second I ask for help or ask questions or become inquisitive or interrogate, I am admitting I don't have all the answers to that.

Yeah, yeah.

Off topic.

On topic. I've heard several people in different contexts talk about how, whether it's a reconciliation of a neighborhood or reconciliation within races or reconciliation within religious beliefs, that the only way that that reconciliation can happen is if people are known. And the only way that people can be known is if their stories are shared. And I think about, like, the work of Jesus in this reconciling, redemptive manner, that it can't happen without people being known, and people can't be known without sharing their story. And they're not going to share their story if they don't think that you care. And like, creating these safe places for people to be known, for people to be cared for, for reconciliation to happen like that, there's just a lot of really powerful stuff in that that can't happen if we're just sitting back saying nothing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think two ways that come to mind to do that are, one, there is power in us sharing first, us just saying, hey, here's my story. Here's what's going on in my life. And inviting people in, in vulnerability and authenticity, and then also creating that silent space where someone can then share and ask questions.

Yeah. One of the barriers to. I think even once you create that Silent space. One of the barriers that I see to people dealing with this is, is shame and judgment. And sometimes those two things go hand in hand. You feel shame because you are very aware of the judgment that is happening on the other side of that conversation and creating communities that, you know, people have that freedom to share. Like, I think of the community that Bob and I are a part of, and I'm, I'm very. It's a good space. I don't feel a lot of judgment in that space. And a lot of work has gone into intentional work by leadership has gone into creating a safe space where people are able to share. And that's, that's heavy duty work.

This has been really good. I, I don't. I would imagine this may sound weird, but thank you for studying and pushing into this and whether you know it, I mean, now we've got people listening to this who, I mean, you have, you've helped put a voice to, to this topic for some of them. And so we appreciate the time and energy it took to push in and to continue your studies and then your willingness just to meet with us today.

Yeah. Thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Sweet. And Bob, thanks for making the connection. Appreciate that. Yes. So I think it's really important here to let people know that if sexual abuse is a part of your story, whether abuser or abused, pure desire really exists to help create health in the area of sexuality and sexual brokenness. And so we have groups for both men and women who struggle with sexual addiction. And maybe abuse is a part of your past or your story. And then we also have groups for those who have been betrayed or have experienced abuse. And so please reach out wherever you're at on that journey, just know that we're here to help, help and really help you create a road map for your healing. So just go to our website, PureDesire.org and you can start your journey now. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, do it. It's free. Just subscribe. We hope that this conversation has been helpful. If you could write a review, let us know your thoughts that can help others find the podcast as well. And lastly, never stop being healthy.