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Article: The worst sexual sin: sexual violence and the church. (Cover Story)
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- January 6, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ABOUT ONE IN every four women is raped during her lifetime, Last year more than 4,000 U.S. women died from conjugal battery alone. One in four girls and one in nine boys is sexually molested. One in 20 girls is molested by her father or stepfather.
In the face of such statistics, the church must take some responsibility for the ethos in which such violence occurs. Our society tolerates sexual violence in myriad ways. As theologians Beverly Harrison and Carter Heyward suggest, we have eroticized domination. It is sexy for a man to be bigger, older, stronger, richer and socially more powerful than a woman; the reverse is decidedly unsexy. Our society incorporates ...