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Autism is my super blessing! I'm a high-school valedictorian, college graduate, world traveler, disability advocate. I'm a Unitarian Universalist. I'm a Progressive Liberal. I'm about equal rights, human rights, civil & political rights, & economic, social, &cultural rights. I do servant leadership, boundless optimism, & Oneness/Wholeness. I'm good naked & unashamed! I love positive personhood, love your neighbor as yourself, and do no harm! I'm also appropriately inappropriate! My self-ratings: NC-17, XXX, X, X18+ & TV-MA means empathy! I publish shows at 11am! Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonio-myers4/support

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episode 78: #MeToo Jesus: Naming Jesus as a Victim of Sexual Abuse


"An instinctive dismissal is easy enough as a quick reaction to the simple declaration that Jesus was a victim of sexual abuse without further elaboration. But it becomes much harder when the text is read carefully. For those who take the text seriously, the evidence usually becomes compelling. Recent work developing contextual Bible studies on Mk 15:15–24 and Mt 27:26–31 supports this claim. When the first century historical evidence is examined and what is known of sexual abuses in contemporary contexts are considered, the argument usually becomes convincing. This acts as a bridge to a deeper conversation on the difference this makes to how Christians might see Jesus and how churches might respond differently to survivors of sexual abuse. Interviews with a group of male survivors of church related sexual abuse in Peru indicated that all eight of the men interviewed believed that the sexual abuse of Jesus was an important issue for the whole church and not just for survivors of abuse.  Commenting on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) first series of hearings on Child Sexual Abuse in the Anglican Church in England and Wales (5–23 March 2018), Woodhead has argued that although a change in culture within the church is necessary, cultural change will fall short if it does not also extend to theology. Woodhead argues that a theology of forgiveness that supported abuse needs to be reconsidered. Likewise, naming Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse would provide impetus for a more urgent discussion of how other areas of church theology, including a naïve Christology, must be scrutinized and rethought in light of abuse scandals. A potentially positive aspect of these discussions is that the special status of Jesus in Christianity strongly resists the blaming and shaming discussed above. Jesus is the one person who is usually viewed within the churches as faultless and blameless. Likewise, Christians are very unlikely to suggest that Jesus is less worthy as a religious leader because of what was done to him.

Therefore, the suggestion that Jesus experienced sexual abuse is highly disruptive and disconcerting to the notionally respectable Christian view, which so readily stigmatizes victims. Recognizing Jesus as a victim challenges the prejudice that a victim of sexual abuse is somehow at fault and/or spoilt by their experience. Naming Jesus as a victim of sexual abuse therefore matters far more than is obvious at first. It is not just getting the historical record correct, it can make a real difference to how survivors see themselves and how they are perceived and treated by others. Further research is required around survivor response, but many individual survivors have spoken of their appreciation of this reading and the practical difference it has made to them. In the words of one survivor: ‘When I was abused, I never imagined that God could understand my shame’.  Conclusion An understanding of crucifixion as a form of sexual abuse has started to be more widely recognized in recent publications. Whether crucifixion is viewed from the perspectives of torture (Tombs), lynching (Gafney), or sexual abuse (Heath and Trainor), the sexual element in crucifixion is coming into clearer focus. Yet there is still a long way to go for this to become fully appreciated in the church, the academy, or wider society."

https://brill.com/view/journals/ijpt/13/4/article-p387_2.xml?language=en

P.S. I think Jesus loved to party in a self-controlled type of way.

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 February 24, 2022  2h52m