Article: Thursday's in Black

My antidote to rape, violence and discrimination

We are right to grieve, anger, and protest at rape, violence and discrimination.

Rape – is it the ultimate evil? Certainly it is close. There is no excuse. It doesn’t matter that we live in a sex obsessed culture, it doesn’t matter if her dress was skimpy or her actions flirtatious – rape is wrong – always wrong. Thank God we all agree on that – let us never forget.

Violence – painful, destructive, and nearly always avoidable. The final nail in my pacifist coffin was walking through Auschwitz and seeing the piles of human hair – cut off for the stuffing of mattresses. Some violence must be resisted – even with violence. My protest is that we do violence against those we are called to protect and love – our lovers, our children, our parents. Such violence is on the increase signalling that we live in a broken and confused culture … children are growing up seeing violence as a normal everyday thing in their home, as part of their games and on their TV … adults too are confused - many of the same ones who are arguing that using reasonable physical force (a tap on the hand) to discipline one’s own child is an act of violence also willingly support the slicing and dicing of 18,000 children a year whilst they are in the safest room of the house – their mother’s womb. Confusion reigns. We need to reassert the God given dignity of every human being.

Discrimination – comes out of fear. Fear of difference and fear of losing status. It would be a boring world if we were all the same. Our differences can and should be enjoyed. Yet, we must learn to discriminate between the person and their actions. It is not wrong to say to those who are Political opponents, of another religion, or with differing expressions of sexuality – I disagree with you, I do not like what you do. Open and honest debate about what is good or not good for society or about what is right or wrong should be promoted and sought after. However, we must distinguish between someone’s action and their underlying humanity and learn to continually treat them with dignity and respect.

My antidote to rape, violence and discrimination must be in how I view other human beings – all human beings. If I were to view them as merely a collection of biochemicals with conscience a product of a soulless random process that has no ultimate meaning then I have no basis on which to treat them with any form of respect – what we say and do to each other is meaningless – anything goes. If I were to view all humans as mere puppets in the hands of a capricious power or powers such that, if I’m lucky, I may possibly influence the powers for my benefit – though more likely the stars will dictate what happens, then I have no hope as I am always destined to fail and it doesn’t really matter if I am violent or not. No, I take my cue from God – all are created equal in the image of a loving God. When I look upon someone else – I see a being created for love by love, no matter how unlovely they may appear at my flawed first sight. Do I succeed in this goal all the time? Of course not – but I must strive for it, anything else would be subhuman and destined to fail.