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Friday, June 30th, 2017

The Silence of the Lambs

Author:     KATHRYN JOYCE
Source:     New Republic
Publication Date:     June 20, 2017
 Link: The Silence of the Lambs
Stephan:   As social scientists and physicians dig deeper into child abuse the correlation between conservative religiosity and the sexual abuse of children becomes more and more pronounced. But, of course, no one wants to talk about it; particularly in the Fundamentalist Protestant and Orthodox Jewish world it is a taboo subject. If we can't tell ourselves the truth about something we can't fix it, and religious child abuse is an  issue that definitely needs to be acknowledged and addressed. The Roman Catholic aspect of it, which has received world attention, shows how difficult that is to do. It has damaged the lives of hundreds of thousands of children the world over, including several I have personally known.  

Kim James and her younger sister Anne
Courtesy of the James Family

It was a hot day in July, a Saturday afternoon, and Kim James was bored. Her older sisters had taken her to a church event in their small hometown in Indiana, where the girls were spending their summer. Her parents were back in Bangladesh, working at the remote Baptist missionary compound where the family had lived, on and off, for five years. For an adventurous and high-spirited 13-year-old like Kim, Indiana seemed dull compared to Bangladesh. She missed her friends, the dozen or so missionary kids everybody called “MKs.” She missed the menagerie her parents let her keep: goats, cows, a parrot, a monkey. She missed the jackals that called in the distance at night, and the elephants that sometimes crashed through the compound fence.

As she thought about the mission, though, Kim felt troubled. Something was weighing on her mind. So she decided to skip out of the church event—it was for little kids, anyway—and go see the pastor. […]

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2 Comments

  1. sam crespi on Friday, June 30, 2017 at 8:04 am

    This story breaks my heart. As a woman, with all the cases of sexual abuse of girls and women being exposed in the news, it’s hard to fathom what seems like an abnormal amount of anger and or a desire to keep women and girls in their place. At the very least, the lack of respect is stunning. Not saying there are no abusive women, but the law, religious and secular, for the most part do come down a very basic support that continues to uphold partriarchal beliefs.

  2. Mike Scir on Friday, June 30, 2017 at 1:17 pm

    Jews talk about it all the time, it’s allowed in their primitive, self-serving religion.

    “[the] Talmud to be a valuable source of historic and homiletic keys to understanding our Messiah.”

    Apparently you have not read the Talmud because this is what it says about Christ and non-Jews:
    Jews talk about it, you just aren’t paying attention.

    “A Jew may have sex with a child as long as the child is less than nine years old” (Sanhedrin 54b).

    “When a grown-up man has intercourse with a little girl it is nothing”
    (Kethuboth 11b).

    “A woman who had intercourse with a beast is eligible to marry a Jewish priest. A woman who has sex with a demon is also eligible to marry a Jewish priest” (Yebamoth 59b).

    “All gentile children are animals”
    (Yebamoth 98a).