The Church is in the Epstein Files

I write this month’s post not as another rousing expose or thought about the inglorious Epstein files, but in the hope that our eyes are open to the scale of what the files mean in relation to the church. I write as a believing Christian and a member of the body who recognizes how much the church, over centuries, has used scripture as a weapon of oppression against women. The files are a catalogue of the everyday horrors and abuse women face in their granular detail. From verbal and emotional abuse to domestic violence, prostitution and trafficking, across institutions and industries, the exploitation is present and persistent. The most unfortunate of places I find, is of course, the church. And so, in a sense, the church is in the Epstein files. 

The church, in caucuses and cohorts, partakes in the debasement of women, continuing in a pattern that may be biblically recorded but not always godly. It consents as a follower of an ideology that only the man is an express image of God and so, the world is invariably run by them, often by looking away, keeping quiet, aiding and abetting, and in some perverted way, waiting patiently for their turn in the game, because they can see that when it comes to violence perpetrated against women as a result of being seen as lesser, men tend to get away. It is a privileged and favourable bubble to remain in. To the untrained eye, it can present as docility, an unwillingness to confront a patriarchal natural “order of things”. 

I think about how the church often cloaks the story of David in the Bible with a demure veil, giving credence to his unassuming boyhood, and then his assured killing of a bear, and  Goliath, but never quite to his gross abuse of power and the rape of a married woman. It is the same for Judah, who first failed in his cultural obligation by leaving his daughter-in-law destitute. Yet, the church speaks mainly about Tamar’s trickery or prostitution. What about the story of the adulterous woman, with no reference to any adulterous man? You would think adultery was an individual sport. There are several other stories from the Old to the New Testament.

I don’t know one woman in the Bible who was ever granted that graceful largesse that the church so easily grants to the likes of King David. In fact, the Samaritan woman at the well is automatically assumed to be a promiscuous woman, simply because Jesus mentions five previous men. Solomon writes to his son about immoral and seductive women. You would be hard pressed to find writings to women about dangerous and exploitative men, meanwhile, the entire Bible is crawling with them. Men who see strangers come into their city and their first instinct is to demand to rape them (Judges 19). Men, who act so cowardly and hand over young women to evil (Genesis 19). Men who kidnap and traffic women for their own pleasure (Judges 21).

Rather than the church proclaiming women’s equal standing with men as heirs of Christ loudly, it has perpetuated their victimization through the continuous misapplication of Scripture and the framing of sexual evil and immorality as something inherently female. This is dangerous. From the scapegoating of non-conforming women to the preaching of wives submitting to husbands under any circumstances, stories abound in every corner of the church. A man may beat and violate his wife and the response of church leaders would be to cover the story up. A pastor in the UK recently reached his wits’ end and announced to his congregation that he would now have no choice but to report cases of physical abuse to the police because the cases he was dealing with as a pastor were now too many. It was his way of sounding off a warning to the men in his congregation, perhaps to frighten them into decent behavior with the involvement of the police. One wonders though, the more positive outcome that would have been, if he had simply backed the women and set a precedent by reporting the very first case from day one. Women are encouraged to toil to keep their marriages, instead of men facing justice and being encouraged to seek counselling or therapy.

I write this with the historical context of the Bible being fundamentally patriarchal in view because it was only the leadership of men that was considered in both the writing and eventual canonization of scripture. The teaching of it remains so too, propping up the falsehood that masculinity is equal to leadership. Till this day, the leadership of the church of Jesus remains mostly male because of this bias, even though women served as judges, teachers, evangelists, caregivers, financial investors in Bible stories, and ultimately, the first key witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus, stories which are largely untold or diminished to continue to center men. It was never intended by Jesus for women to be oppressed and subordinated. We know without a doubt that Jesus honored and protected women. What we do not know is where the church learnt this doctrine of shame and its view of women as being lesser from. The casual stripping away of the freedom of women that Christ died for in this manner leaves the door open for men to continue to exchange values for impunity by doing the dirty work of simply looking away from abuse in the church, participating in actual abuse or covering it up, not considering the far-reaching consequences of it. 

Abuse does not happen in a vacuum or in isolation. It happens when institutions like the church neglect their responsibility to care and protect those who need protecting. The poor, the abused, the trampled on, the hungry, the homeless. Those who are unable to fight for themselves. 

Abuse has happened over time because justice is rarely served in real time. This then conditions perpetrators into the belief that they can get away again and again. It leaves them with their agency intact, the ability to progress up their different ladders, while the victims, mostly women and girls, remain collateral damage.

From gym bros to corporate executives, religious leaders to politicians, tech bros to royalty, men rest assured in the simple fact that they will get away, that they will never be held accountable, that they are untouchable. It is why, at its peak, the #MeToo movement, instead of being a reckoning, even for the church, felt like an attack, a shake down of men.

The problem with the story of David and Bathsheba in the Bible was never Bathsheba’s nakedness. The problem was that an army commanding King David, did not have self-control. This must never be swept under the carpet. We must address that indiscipline in church, regardless of how uncomfortable it feels, because the issue is not really that teenage girls look a certain fresh and attractive way or that women are not wearing head covering or appropriate clothing, therefore seducing men. The problem is indiscipline. Indiscipline that breeds an inability in the church to see women as Jesus does. 

This is why framing matters. This is where the church’s work is cut out for it. The biases and lenses through which we retell Bible stories matter. We must tell them properly, pointing out in each story both the justice and mercy of God. This is the only way that drastic change can begin to happen. As long as a demeaning view of women remains, abuse is only a short step from them.  Understanding and acknowledging the Bible’s complexities, like in the case of all the rapes and murders does not diminish its sacredness. We can honour the inspiration of the Bible as divine while also acknowledging the unvirtuous human history of it.

Over the last few months, I have observed with keen interest the manner in which Christian leaders have engaged with the news of the Epstein files, many by way of offering broad prayers. For God to have mercy and heal our land, at best, to no mention of it, at worst. While comments do not have to be made by church leaders every time there is a breaking story, it is especially telling that when prayers are offered, prayers that specifically cover victims are conveniently side-stepped, perhaps because they will require God’s justice.

When a supposed pregnancy out of wedlock has only the woman in question, when a divorce has only the woman in judgement, when only female clothing is policed, when church leadership looks away despite evidence of moral failures against vulnerable teens and women and the response of the church falls only within the parameters of a demonic attack instead of a call for justice, the church becomes complicit, sharers in the culpability of intimidation. 

And like Gisele Pelicot, the French icon who waived her right to anonymity as the victim of an unconscious gang rape said in her recently released memoir, “the shame must change sides”. The shame of women bearing the brunt of evil done to them by men must switch sides. The cover-up of evil must be exposed, including in the church. 

Every time the church looks away from the horrors being done to women, it is in the file. Every time the church trades compassion for foolish issues like what was worn or not worn, it is in the file. If you are a leader put in charge of a youth camp, sending inappropriate texts to teenagers, you are in the file. If you use photos of young girls to blackmail them on social media, you are in the file. If you are spreading STDs like Skittles, you are in the file. If you are falsely using a pastoral cloak to lure women and young people under the guise of a special grace, you are in the file.  

Every time you have cornered women and girls and done anything for selfish reason, you are in the file.

It is my hope that the church will actually model after Jesus and be courageous enough to protect women and girls. To not excuse the behavior of men on the altar of loyalty, to not spread lies about men as the default when it comes to authority, to not protect those who have assumed power and shame those who are vulnerable. This kind of heresy clouds justice. And when the church cannot be seen as the light of solution, it becomes part of the dark problem.