When powerful people take advantage of those under their authority, it poses serious questions for all of society to think about.
Recent revelations about the behaviour of certain TV producers & some of our elected politicians is a sobering wake up call. Sadly, the Church has not always been exempt from such accusations either. How tragic for the victims of this conduct that they’ve felt nobody would listen and they were powerless to speak up. Maybe what is currently unfolding is the beginning of a shift in culture? Here’s hoping. But it begs the question….how much of this stuff is still happening today?
When an abuser says ‘I may have done that, but I don’t remember‘, this should send a shudder down the spine of our society. It speaks of a culture which has either turned a blind eye to abusive behaviour, or even unwittingly encouraged it with frivolous dismissal. In any case, as a nation, we would do well to ask ‘why?’. What on earth would create the impression that these dispicable actions are somehow ok? Why is it considered ‘fair game’ for some men to treat women as objects rather than human beings? What kind of environment espouses such utterly disrespectful treatment towards others? These are VERY serious questions which require an honest conversation. Yet too often, it seems like there’s only a willingness to discuss the symptoms, but not the cause.
The flurry of horrid stories which have been reported in the news are just the tip of the iceberg. Yet as we look ahead, wisdom asks where do we go from here? Will culture really shift…or will todays lured headlines just become tomorrow’s junk? And what about God in all this? Maybe the Bible’s wisdom has been too contemptuously discarded by secularism? Perhaps we have missed the point of a loving God who actually REALLY cares about the world and genuinely wants what’s best for us?
In the midst of the mess which greed & selfishness has left behind, society would do well to revisit what the Bible has to say. More than ever before, we need God’s healing grace. After all, that’s what the big story of the Bible is all about.
