Apparently today, all that is needed for acceptable sexual activity between two persons is consent.

Numerous universities have instituted official policies that outline the requirement of verbal consent, “Yes,” or “Uh-huh,” or the like, at each stage of a sexual encounter, before progressing further, in order to ensure that the encounter continues to be desired by both parties. Nowhere in this new, warped morality is there any condemnation or even admonition against such an encounter outside of marriage. It doesn’t matter if two people are dating or just met at a party that night, if both parties consent, then whatever the want to do is a-okay within the expectations of academia.

There is so much to say on that alone, but my main focus is on the news coming out of Stanford over the last few days were star swimmer and olympic hopeful, Brock Turner, brutally raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster in January 2015. Two Stanford PhD students happened upon the scene and pulled Turner off of the woman in the midst of the attack, one of whom was moved to tears by the horror of the scene.

Turner’s father submitted a letter to the court seeking leniency in sentences as his future shouldn’t be severely due to, what the father called, “20 minutes of action.” A measly 6 month sentence for Turner has created out outcry by the whole community as well as the victim, who wrote her own letter in response, read here by CNN news anchor.

Turner’s father makes an amazingly disgusting attempt at minimizing the reprehensible actions of his son, while ignoring the impact that those actions had on the victim. His father highlights the negative impact an extended prison stay would have on his golden child and adds details about how easy going Brock is, and the kinds of snacks he has after swim meets.

The Defense attorney, in defense attorney style, bombarded the victim with questions about what she was wearing, what she drank that night, anything and everything that would position her as being at fault for having this stranger assault her.

There are so many levels of wrong in this case. So many levels of sin, as the Bible would categorize it. She was drunk, so it was her fault. She shouldn’t have put herself in that situation, so it was her fault. She was at a party, so she was asking for it. All the while, the person who COMMITTED the act is let off the hook as having little to no guilt. And if any guilt is assigned to him, it is justified and minimized.

I have reached a point in life where I have no tolerance left for blame shifting, and between Brock himself, his father and the judge, it’s about as disgusting as it can get.

So many people want to comment, sure, he was wrong, but if she didn’t do x, y, z, it wouldn’t have happened.

How about this, if Brock Turner didn’t think himself invisible, and didn’t have a belief that he could do what he wanted, when he wanted, so long as it benefited him…then it wouldn’t have happened.

It can be dangerous to judge a parent based on an adult child, as parents only have influence for so long. But the letter sent in by Turner’s father makes it rather evident that the problem started at home – a belief that he was above consequence due to his athletic skills, surely, his affluence, maybe, and any other number of factors. It can’t be Turner’s fault because he’s an overall nice guy.

20 years of living an upstanding life surely should be taken into consideration when looking at the measly “20 minutes of action.”

Rape happens because a rapist chooses to rape; he chooses to violate another person for his own personal pleasure, ignoring the Imago Dei (image of God) of that individual, choosing to see them as a source of personal pleasure, not as a person to be treated with respect. Rape doesn’t happen because someone wears a skimpy outfit, or drinks too much or goes to a party at night: rape happens because someone chooses to rape. What people wear and what the imbibe and where they choose to be at certain times are all factors for another discussion; but none of those factors are a reason or an excuse for rape.

“But they contribute to the problem.”

No, the rapists contributes to the problem. The rapist chooses to rape.

If there are behaviors that are not wise or are outright sinful that needed addressing on a 1-on-1 basis, then by all means, approach your friends and address them. But they are a separate issue from the one in which a man thinks he has any dominion over the body of another.

I see a parallel in stories of adultery – the one who chooses to stray from their marriage and have sex with someone other than their spouse is the one to blame for the adultery. Choices were made leading to that outcome. The shortcomings of the other spouse is not the cause of the adultery – those shortcomings may need to be addressed, but they are not to be blamed for the choice of the other to break the covenant of marriage and stray.

If every male at a party, seeing the same scantily dressed woman does not instinctively act and rape that woman, then it is clear that she is not the cause; it is the person with the rapists heart that is the cause.

Please, can we stop the blame shifting. Can we simply look at any rape situation and declare that the rapists acted deplorably. End of story.

So Mr. Turner, how about this instead, “Son, you committed a horrible act, and while I love you, I trust that the legal system will justice. You have irrevocably tormented that woman and she will forever bear scars as a result of your actions. You deserve punishment. That does not alter my love for you, but there are consequences to your actions and at 20 years old, it is beyond time to learn that reality.”

There is also a moral lesson here for what justice should look like. There has been great outrage, rightfully so, over the lenient sentence. He has no priors. He isn’t deemed a danger to society (I think the victim would loudly contest that). He is overall a swell guy. And surely the good he has done for 20 years outweighs the 20 minutes of bad. The outrage people feel over that is right and good. When we stand in a court of law, our good doesn’t get (or shouldn’t get) compared against the bad we did…and if for 20 years Brock didn’t rape, he only raped for 20 minutes of those 20 years, so surely the sentence shouldn’t be that bad…if that causes us moral outrage, then we have a small glimpse into the reality of judgement before a holy God.  As horrible, and reprehensible, and every other word that relates, as bad as is what happened, our sin, our crime against a holy God is far worse. That by no means reduced Turner’s crime. But it should magnify ours in our own eyes.

We all have committed reprehensible crimes against the Lord, and yet many of us think that God will see that our good outweighs our bad, so we’ll be alright.

NO!

The world is crying for justice in this case. Californians are signing petitions to get this BAD judge out, because he has failed to mete out justice. How much more should we expect the Judge of all the world to mete out justice, and not compare our good to our bad (as if we are nearly as good as we’d like to think), but for Him to mete out justice based on the laws we have broken and the crimes committed.

So Christian, as we rightly respond in horror to this story, let it remind us of the gift we have in Christ, wiping out our crimes so that we do not receive our just punishment.

Non-Christian, evaluate your concept of God, and the questions of “If after you die, God asks you why He should let you into His heaven, what would you say?” Are you counting on your good outweighing your bad? Can you yet see that it’s not a comparison, and that justice MUST be served, if God is a Good Judge?