I don’t think I’ve done a post like this one before, and I welcome feedback.
I had an unpleasant experience on social media a while ago, and it was… well, unpleasant.
I want to tell of the events and explain myself more fully that I could at the time. As is my usual practice in such matters, I don’t intend to identify the social media or the people involved; I want to discuss the events.
One more thing before I begin; it has always been my habit to evaluate statements to assess how true they are. Usually, I only respond if I think that my post might be helpful — and most of the time, I don’t think it will, and so I don’t. Obviously, that was not the case this time.
The event
Someone I know from another church posted picture from somewhere that stated: A girl’s body is not responsible for a boy’s thoughts.
I understand the point of the quote: there is FAR TOO MANY TIMES that a wicked man will blame his disgusting/illegal/immoral behavior on how the a girl dresses or acts, and this is just wrong. Period. I understand this and agree with that idea behind the post. In fact, had the post said “A modest girl’s body…”, I would have had no issue with it.
However, it doesn’t change that fact that the statement is not always true: There ARE such things as temptresses and seductresses (Delilah in the Bible was one such women). Women like this specifically dress in such a way and use their body in such a way as to put thoughts in men’s minds, and such women ARE responsible for those actions. I didn’t think anyone would argue this point; it seems so obviously true.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember exactly what I wrote in response: I didn’t intend to write a dissertation, or even as much as the previous paragraph. I assume whoever posted it copied it from somewhere without thinking it through, so I think what I wrote back was something like “While I agree with you in general, this statement is not always true. Her dress and behavior may have some influence.”
The results
As you might expect, that erupted in a flood of hateful posts, with people accusing me of things I did not and have not said (you can imagine). Some told tales of their own experiences with wicked men. Most seemed to think I was taking that the wicked men use of blaming the woman. No one bothered to ask for clarification. I was even threatened by a man I consider to be a friend. Note: I kind of expect that behavior from the overly-sensitive world (the kind of woke feminism that hates men and blames everything on them), but I was disappointed in fellow Christians — people who claim to follow truth.
A friend told me that I just should not have said anything, and he may be right. After consideration, however, if we allow inadvertent false statements to pass without challenge, we are opening the door to give a pass to false statements made on purpose. In hindsight, my judgment was faulty: I assumed people would see the error with the blanket statement made, but that was wrong.
This has been good for me to write about… and I’ve learned a lesson: if such an occasion occurs in the future, I will have to write more fully and explain instead of being quite so terse.
With this written about, I’ll get back to the series about Despised Bible Characters (hopefully another one by the end of the week).
rlosey 