25th November marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against women. It triggered 16 days of worldwide activism to raise awareness of the many atrocities and oppressions suffered by women and girls globally. Organisations around the world have raised their voices to shine a light not only on the darkness shrouding violence against women and girls, but also on the good work happening to ease suffering and make real and sustainable changes.
If you read the recent post about the Jubilee+ social action conference, 'Standing in the Gap' (read again here) you will have see some of the reasons why the topic of violence against women is important for us to engage with. Personally, this cause has been important to me for many years and my faith has only made me increasingly sure that this is the right thing to be doing.
The challenge is often in balancing the sadness and anger felt at the injustices seen against women and girls, and still holding to a biblical view of mercy when your sinful but hurting heart doesn't really want to! In the Old Testament in the Bible, Micah 6:8 says "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God". This verse states really strongly that justice and mercy can co-exist. We can seek justice but still have mercy for a fallen world. This takes humility, recognising the sinful nature of humanity outside of Jesus and the part we all play in upholding systems which can oppress people, specifically, women and girls. In the New Testament you see Jesus speaking with and taking every opportunity to bring justice and equality to women at a time in history when his actions would have been completely counter culture. He didn't shy away to protect his reputation, he actively built his reputation on justice, mercy and humility.
In my midweek small group we are using a bible study (buy here) written by former human rights lawyer Claudine Roberts (listen to Jezs podcast with her here), and in week four she unpacks the horrific story of the unnamed concubine in Judges 19. This woman suffered at the hands of many, including the Levite priest who 'owned' her and gave her over to wicked men of the Benjamite tribe to be raped. The tragedy which unfolded in these chapters, including the subsequent civil war and further gendered violence displayed what happens when the broken desires of humanity become more important than the continuation of a society built on the foundations of love and justice as theirs was. The book of Judges is peppered with verses such as "...again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord...", and "In those days there was no king in Israel, and did was was right in his own eyes". We witness the descent into lawlessness and evil, evidenced by the stripping away of the names of women, culminating in the violent treatment of the unnamed concubine, the wives and daughters of the Benjamites and the daughters of Shiloh when the country was driven to civil war. We are meant to see how the stage is set for an unfit king such as Saul, a descendent of the tribe of Benjamin, but it also shows us the propensity of society to implode on itself when God is not centred and his plans for humanity are ignored.
The tribes of Israel had seen the goodness of God, their existence and land bore testament to that. They had lived under the blessing of God for so long but had departed and chosen to live their own way. In satisfying only their own desires, women bore the brunt of this departure from God's plan and we see this continuing today with violence against women being described as a pandemic, impacting 1 in 3 women globally.
There is no apparent happy or satisfying ending to the story of the unnamed concubine and certainly it feels hard to imagine practising mercy in such a situation. However while she had no name in these chapters and seemed utterly unseen and unheard by those who should have protected her, God ensured that her story is both seen and heard down the ages. The perpetrators acts weren't covered up or stripped from the biblical account in ill conceived efforts to protect his status. In his Word, God raises the voices and status of those suffering injustice, answering for us the question of whether to speak up or not on the subject of gender based violence.
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