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Genesis 34 & 39
In the first book of the Bible, God
directly addresses sexual assault in the community of faith. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the
author of Genesis recorded the stories of a sister and her brother who were
separately victims of the two extremes of injustice in sexual assault cases. Their names were Dinah and Joseph and they
were children of the man God named Israel.
Genesis 34 tells Dinah’s story. She was raped, and the justice system of
village fathers did nothing. Nothing to
give the girl justice. But the powerful men, including Dinah’s
father, who controlled the system did
much to protect and legitimize Dinah’s attacker because he was the son of a rich and
powerful man. (http://andersontgraves.blogspot.com/2017/12/dinahs-story-sexual-assault-of-israels.html
)
Genesis 39 tells how Dinah’s brother Joseph
was sexually harassed by his master’s wife.
Being an honorable man, Joseph resisted and refused the rich and
privileged woman’s advances. Being a
slave, his honor was of little concern to his master’s wife. One day, when the big
house was empty, she physically assaulted Joseph. She ripped off his clothes and tried to rape
him but Joseph escaped. Well, not
really.
Joseph’s assailant accused him of trying
to rape her, and the Egyptian justice system did nothing. Nothing to discover the truth. Potiphar, Joseph’s master exercised the authority
of judge and jury over Joseph, and with that authority he sent Joseph to federal prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
By linking these stories to siblings in
the holy family of the Old Testament, God challenges the church to answer how
we can order our response to accusations of sexual assault so that we don’t
commit the injustice of Dinah or the injustice of Joseph.
In answer to God's challenge, I propose 6 principles:
1. First, call the cops or whatever
legal authority applies.
Christians are commanded to consider
ourselves and admit our weaknesses. We must
admit that no church is properly equipped to handle sexual crime in-house.
If a matter arises which is too
hard for you to judge,
between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or
between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then
you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses (Deuteronomy
17:8 )
Church leaders should consider
themselves mandatory reporters of abuse whether the abuse is alleged to involve
children or only adults.
2. Protect the weak instead
of “protect your own.”
For many reasons, even when the
authorites have been notified, the church may still have to conduct an internal investigation. When that happens, church leaders must resist
the impulse to shield those most like us from scrutiny while exposing the “other” to attack.
Instead we should follow the Biblical principle
of protecting which ever party is less powerful.
Defend
the poor and fatherless;
Do
justice to the afflicted and needy.
Deliver
the poor and needy;
Free them from the hand of the wicked. (Psalm
82:3-4)
Now don’t confuse protecting those with
less power with protecting those with the most to lose. Potiphar’s wife had farther to fall, but
Joseph had less power. A deacon accused of
a sexual crime may risk more status than the anonymous girl making the
accusation, but the anonymous girl is more vulnerable to intimidation,
coercion, and mob justice. So, we who
are strong, must give her the security necessary to complete the process safely
and fairly. This doesn’t mean we decide
whom to believe. It means we decide whom
to shield Protecting the weak from the
strong doesn’t mean believing the weak over the strong. The first
answer is to level the field so that the weaker party has the same security and
freedom to make their case.
By this principle, in Genesis 34, we
would have given extra care and security to Dinah, an unmarried woman in a patriarchal culture. In Genesis 39, we would shield Joseph, a foreign
slave in an aristocratic Egyptian household.
3. Give both parties equal
voice.
Joseph speaks often in Genesis 39 ---
until he’s accused of rape. From then (Genesis
39:14) until the next chapter, Joseph says nothing. Chapter 34 is about what happened to Dinah,
but she has no lines of dialogue in the entire drama. The church should not shush either side of
the case.
You shall not show partiality in
judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be
afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s (Deuteronomy 1:17).
By this standard, we would have given
Dinah’s and Joseph’s words equal space
in the record.
4. Don’t equate class with credibility.
In Genesis 34 & 39 began when the
judges closed rank the party who most represented “us” (wealthy man like “us”;
free Egyptian like “us”).
You shall do no injustice in judgment.
You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In
righteousness you shall judge your neighbor. (Leviticus 19:15)
The church will have to discern truth
from fabrication, but we must never look at their appearance or their past and
say, “You can’t believe someone like THAT.”
5. Keep justice free and
unafraid.
Father Israel failed his daughter
because he was afraid of becoming “obnoxious among the inhabitants of the land
. . . since I am few in number, they
will gather themselves together against me and kill me. I shall be destroyed,
my household and I” (Genesis 34:30). He wanted
to save his hide and his business.
Mrs. Potiphar invoked racial fear as if
it were evidence of wrongdoing. “She called to the men of her house and spoke
to them, saying, ‘See, he has brought in to us a Hebrew to mock us.’ ” (Genesis
34:14).
The truth may cost a church in
donations, membership, and standing in the community. Justice may make us “obnoxious among the
inhabitants of the land” and open us to further claims of liability by those
who “gather themselves together against” us.
A “little” cover-up can be tempting.
It’s tempting to structure the process
to favor whomever can get more donations to their legal fund. A few fees for administrative costs, a choice
of venue far away and expensive, a hearing schedule that requires somebody take
days off from a job and someone may have to drop their case.
God says: You shall not pervert justice;
you shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of
the wise and twists the words of the righteous (Deuteronomy 16:19)
A free and unafraid church would’ve heard
Dinah’s attacker confess to the crime and then turned him over to the
police. A free and unafraid church would
have heard Joseph’s testimony and investigated the whole story.
6. Tell the truth and shame
the devil.
Satan, the enemy of the church, rejoices
when we mishandle sexual crimes. No
matter what the final outcome, the very fact of an allegation means that
something bad has happened. Nothing
short of time travel will undo that bad thing that happened in the church.
The truth starts the process of Christ’s
healing. Anything other than the truth
hands the process over to Satan to use to steal, kill, and destroy the church
from the inside.
Don’t give our enemy the chance.
These are the things you shall do: Speak each man the truth to his
neighbor; Give judgment in your gates for truth, justice, and peace (Zechariah
8:16).
--Anderson T. Graves II is a
writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles Chapel CME Church in
Fairfield, Alabama. He writes a blog called A
Word to the Wise at www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
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