Mike Novotny - How Should Christians Respond to #MeToo
As a Christian church, how do we respond to the #MeToo movement? I'm a guy who lives with three females and I cannot imagine how my heart would be broken if anyone hurt any three of them. And if God has a fatherly heart that's way more compassionate than mine, when any of his daughters gets hurt, man, our first response as Christians should not be to critique a movement or wonder if there are false accusations.
I think just to listen and to have, to know that, what is it, is it one in three or one in four women will be violently assaulted before their eighteenth birthday? I mean, according to the odds, I'm living with three women, one of them, statistically in America that's happening to. So when Jesus looked at the crowds, I think in Matthew 10, it says he had compassion on them. Because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And I think compassion. I think we should (1 Corinthians 12) "weep with those who weep". I think we should stand up and we should fight and defend.
Now are there false accusations in our world? Sure. Remember Genesis 39? Potiphar's wife accuses Joseph of rape and sexual assault and he didn't do it. Does that sometimes happen? Yes. Yeah, sometimes people lie about things, but if I'm walking into a situation and like that's my gut reaction to things? Man, I'm really going to wound and hurt someone who might have really been hurt and needs a Christian like me to show intense compassion. So I think we should weep, I think we should mourn, I think we should be happy that a lot of the wickedness that's happening in our culture and that powerful people can get away with, it's being exposed.
So despite its many, many flaws, I'm very happy that we're taking some sins way more seriously than we used to. If you want to see me get kind of ticked off, tell me how great our country used to be 75 years ago. Christians do this all the time, right? Things are going to crap in America. Well, I'd be really glad if I was a black woman now compared to 75 years ago. When many, many people went to church and racism was 50 times as bad, like don't, no, no, no. Sin is sin. Every cultural era has to battle its own sins and it's really good that we're starting to realize some of that, especially as a Christian church. So let's take the side of those who've been hurt and oppressed and damaged. Let's stand up for truth but let's be filled with grace, too.