Child Sex Abuse: A Social Justice Concern From a Biblical and Civil Rights Perspective
By Rigoberto I. Weekes
“Man can realize his humanity only in community with others.”[1]
From antiquity to present, man has been “caught up in a messed up world…We haven’t learned how to be just and honest and kind and true and loving.” [2] In the “messed up world” that humans cohabit, God has often had to intervene to bring about parity in human relationships. Both, Scripture and non-canonical writings clearly indicate that social injustice was an ongoing social malady. In the latter, Ben Sira counsels his son against active participation in injustice. However, for Ben Sira, it is not enough to keep oneself from practicing injustice. He enjoins his son to take decisive action to free those who are suffering from injustices by another. Ben Sira writes,
Son…turn not away thy eyes from the poor.
Afflict not the heart of the needy, and defer not to give to him that is in distress.
Reject not the petition of the afflicted: and turn not away thy face from the needy.
Turn not away thy eyes from the poor for fear of anger: and leave not to them that ask of thee to curse thee behind thy back.
Deliver him that suffereth wrong out of the hand of the proud: and be not fainthearted in thy soul.[3]
The canonical text reveals that God reproved his people for violation of covenantal living because of their lack of compassion and justice, and the rampant abuse of the community’s socially disabled: widows, orphans, the poor, and foreigners. God repeatedly spoke out against abuse of vulnerable members of the community through prophets such as Isaiah. God brought to the forefront of a covenantal life the importance of justice, relieving hunger, providing shelter for the homeless, food for the hungry, and clothes for the destitute (cf. Isa 58:5 – 7).
As Isaiah, the prophet Amos spoke out against social injustices. Amos polemicized “the cows of Bashan,” the social elite of Samaria for their excesses by the oppression of the poor and cruelty toward the needy (cf. Am 4:1). Amos’ message was clear and concise: “Justice, justice, justice.” He was dismayed by the “in your face” injustices that the elite committed against the innocent and defenseless poor—appalling injustices that had become part of daily life.[4]
A dysfunctional society in which man turns against man in an oppressive relationship in which individuals in positions of power and influence, take advantage or abuse the weaker and vulnerable is hardly a condition that the annals of history have relegated to ancient biblical times. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a twentieth century social justice prophet was right in stating the incomprehensible paradox that with all its technological advances man had made the world much smaller and accessible, a “neighborhood.” [5] Yet, with all its scientific and technological advances, Dr. King rightly concludes that man is still “caught up in a messed up world.” [6]
While Amos, as other biblical prophets, did not address sexual abuse of children in their day, this does not say that children were not the victims of adult misguided ideations (cf. Jer 7:31; Ezk 16:20). Similarly, while child sex abuse was not at the forefront of societal problems during the Civil Rights Movement era that cried out for redress, the hideous practice of using children for sexual gratification by adults, had already inserted itself into society. Pederasty, the term used to describe the decadent sexual attraction and sexual acts of men with children was a cultural reality in the First Century, when pederasty was normative. In addition to this practice, temple rituals allowed for the use of girls as temple prostitutes.[7]
However, an enlightened society no longer considers pederasty or the use of young girls to satiate the sexual desires of adults as accepted practice but a deleterious deviant behavior. Moreover, society considers this behavior as abusive and criminal, as substantiated by a firestorm of litigation against members of the clergy and churches who have misused their position of power and influence to coerce children into satisfying their deviant sexual desires.[8] Society’s reaction to pedophilia is evident in the numerous sub-orbital judgments reaching into the millions,[9]against churches and clergy who have committed these heinous crimes against defenseless members of society—children.
Indicative that crime against children by illicit sex is a maleficent social malaise with dysgenic properties, Glover shares that, “In 1976, in California, the cases investigated rose from 110,000 to about 475,000 in 1988.” Today, authorities investigate more than 300,000 child sexual abuse reports annually in the United States.[10]
While man as a whole has not risen from its innate proclivity to harm each other and form a world “brotherhood,” through out human history, men and women such as St. Francis of Assisi, Dorothy Day, and Garfield Bromley Oxnam have responded to the clarion call of Social Justice—and have challenged humanity to do better. The Social Justice Tradition of Christianity is “a life committed to compassion and justice for all peoples.”[11] As such, it calls all followers of the “Way”[12] to advocate for the protection of children from sexual abuse.
During the 1960s, acting in his pastoral role as a “community prophet…against the powers that be,”[13] Dr. King injected into the Social Justice movement in his time the overarching need to love. He saw the Civil Rights Movement as a struggle against oppressive forces. Dr. King contended that the existence of injustice derived from man’s lack of understanding that the imago Dei, the image of God, resides in every man, and that when men see God’s image in every person man begins to love his fellowman.[14] King saw that if man came to this understanding all men will see that “God made us to live together as brothers and to respect the dignity and worth of every man.”[15] The high incidence of child molestation in this country [16] indicates that some members of the clergy do not consider the dignity of children as constitutive of the “dignity of man.”[17]
The problems that this country faced during the years preceding and following the Civil Rights Movement did not include sexual predation of youngsters. Nevertheless, the Social Justice principles of the Civil Rights Movement, mainly that all men have dignity in that man is the bearer of God’s image, are transferable to this burgeoning genre of social injustice. The premise for a new social justice movement in behalf of children finds its basis in that all humanity, to include children, are created in the imago Dei, therefore all children have dignity and deserve treatment as fellow human beings, and not sexual objects. Moreover, children represent the closest representation of the image of God in that Jesus declared that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, adults will need to become as children (cf. Mt 18:3).
Moreover, Dr. King sought to show that social justice was in society’s best interest in that he saw all of society intertwined in the same fate—that what was for the good of one man will ultimately serve another, and that which was detrimental to another will in some way negatively affect someone else. Dr. King wrote, “All men are caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”[18]The sexual abuse of children has a serious dysgenic effect on society in that often, child sex offenders were themselves victims of this crime[19] therefore robbing society from the contributions that these affected individuals may have contributed to society and potentially diverting them to an alternate destiny. Dr. King would support the idea that pedophiles may deprive their victims from contributing to society in that he saw that a victimized segment of society deprives the whole from achieving its ultimate potential. He added, “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.” [20] The subjugation of children to sexual abuse with its corollary deep psychological scarring,[21] and negative outcomes for victims, such as “inability to trust, inability to love, isolation, drug abuse, social withdrawal, depression,” [2 and becoming sexual predators themselves, [23] may rob society from future contributions from these individuals. Unrelated to this topic though instructive, Pannenberg states that, “Man can realize his humanity only in community with others.”[24] However, this is only true when “community” with others has Christian love as the foundation of any “interrelated structure of reality.” [25]
While it is true that many of society’s problems are complex and beyond one individual’s ability to address, when people open themselves “to the possibility that God may want to use them, people will come to realize that there is much that they can do in the cause of Social Justice” on behalf of children.[26]
Rigoberto I. Weekes is a student at Houston Graduate School of Theology
25 Martin Luther King Jr. The Man Who Was a Fool in Strength to Love, 69.
26 Richard Foster. Streams of Living Water. 181.
