In the wake of worldwide furore over revelations of US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments concerning women, NILS VON KALM says it is the responsibility of men to follow the example of Christ and tear down the “entrenched wall of mistrust” between the sexes…
The recent revelations of Donald Trump’s boasting about sexually assaulting women have caused a firestorm of outrage, denial and pain as millions of people the world over make their views and stories known about his vulgar comments.
What concerns me most about the conversation we are having about this is how far we still have to go to tear down the walls of prejudice against women that exist in the 21st century. Let no one tell you that Trump’s comments were “just locker room talk”. He was talking about the abuse of women. When you touch someone’s private parts without their consent, it is sexual assault. That is why literally millions of women have since come out telling of their own harrowing experiences of unwanted sexual predation by men.
ENTRENCHED MISTRUST? Nils von Kalm says the entrenched walls of mistrust between men and women will only come down whe men take up their responsibility to say “no more” to any form of abuse against women. PICTURE: Edwin Pijpe/www.freeimages.com
“Men need to realise that it falls upon us to make the necessary changes to our attitudes and behaviours so that women are not sexualised, either verbally, physically or in any way at all. And for Christian men, this means realising that the kingdom of God which Jesus brought in means that the onus falls on us right here and right now.”
The outrage over Trump’s comments has been loud and strong, as it has had to be. But the fact that there are many Christian men who still support Trump after this says a lot about how far away we still are from the example and attitude of Jesus to women.
In my own country of Australia, abuse of women is at epidemic levels. One woman is murdered every week in this country, often by someone known to them. Despite much that has been said in recent weeks, many men do talk about women as if, as men, they are entitled to women’s bodies. Our culture is saturated with the objectification of women to the point that the most well-known department stores have had to be stopped from selling underage girls’ underwear with sexualised messages on them. In such a culture, walls between the sexes go up, relationships break down, and society is the worse off for it.
If there are any positives to come out of what is surely the darkest election campaign in US history, it is that the destructive power of hatred and division is being openly talked about. Recent comments by former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard about daily rape threats, and US First Lady Michelle Obama lamenting our leaders’ standards when boys are looking for male role models, are just a few pointers to the walls that exist between the sexes. As Mike Frost said in a recent blog post, “there’s something fundamentally evil about a man who takes something designed to express love, intimacy and devotion – intercourse – and shapes it into a feat of viciousness, control and subjugation.”
Men need to realise that it falls upon us to make the necessary changes to our attitudes and behaviours so that women are not sexualised, either verbally, physically or in any way at all. And for Christian men, this means realising that the kingdom of God which Jesus brought in means that the onus falls on us right here and right now. When the apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3:28 that there is neither male nor female, he meant that this was how we are to live now. It was not just a statement about how things will be when Jesus returns.
Thankfully, many men are already doing the hard work required to make changes to their own attitudes and behaviours. White Ribbon Day (on 25th November this year) is one such instance where men are taking responsibility and saying that any abuse of women is never OK.
“In ancient societies, boys underwent a rite of passage to become men. We have lost that in today’s society. As a result, men grow up not knowing what manhood is about. Many men are angry, violent, and confused, and six of us take our own lives every day in Australia. There is immense pain in the hearts of modern men.”
Men’s groups are also becoming more popular as men realise that our culture has been hopelessly inept in showing us what it means to be a man. And God knows these groups are needed. Boys growing up in our society have few role models of what genuine manhood looks like. Rowland Croucher, head of John Mark Ministries, makes this point. He has performed literally thousands of hours of counselling of men over more than 30 years. One question he asks men is who the most significant male was in their life when they were entering puberty. Of all the men he has counselled, Croucher says that only two per cent can say that the most significant male at that most vulnerable and impressionable time of their lives was their father. This is a national tragedy. Ninety-eight per cent of men have had an absent father when it comes to having a role model at such a crucial time of life.
In ancient societies, boys underwent a rite of passage to become men. We have lost that in today’s society. As a result, men grow up not knowing what manhood is about. Many men are angry, violent, and confused, and six of us take our own lives every day in Australia. There is immense pain in the hearts of modern men.
What the increasing number of men’s groups are doing is helping these men (often through rites of passage) to learn to face their pain in an atmosphere of rich support and acceptance. This is helping them to be more confident as men and to relate to everyone, including women, in ways that are more loving and wholesome.
We can also look to the supreme example of the man Jesus when it comes to how to treat women. In Jesus’ culture, women were considered second-class citizens and their testimony was not valid in a court of law simply because of their gender. But Jesus turned this completely upside down. His conversation with the woman at the well in John 4, his healing of the woman with the flow of blood in Mark 5, and his appearance to the women in the first instance after His resurrection are just a few examples of how Jesus saw women not as objects for his gratification but as sisters, equal and made in the image of God just like men.
I deeply lament that the recent revelations about Donald Trump have further entrenched the walls of mistrust between men and women. It is the responsibility of men to tear them down. They will be brought down by men taking up their responsibility to say “no more” to any form of abuse against our sisters. Denial will not do it, and giving women the message that they are somehow compliant in the problem will not do it. What will do it for Christian men is to look at the example of Jesus, confess that we so often fall short, and commit ourselves, with God’s help, to following Jesus in his treatment of women. Only then will the walls of division between the sexes collapse into the highways and byways that finally connect us to each other again.
In the wake of worldwide furore over revelations of US presidential candidate Donald Trump’s comments concerning women, NILS VON KALM says it is the responsibility of men to follow the example of Christ and tear down the “entrenched wall of mistrust” between the sexes…
