Like most of America, I was shocked to see the news about the three girls who had been kept as sex slaves for ten years in a perv’s basement in Cleveland.
I was not, however, surprised.
What happened in Cleveland was a logical progression from the standard narrative our culture feeds us about women: that they are sex objects to be lusted after, used to sell products, or possessed.
Should we be surprised then when we hear that a man has locked up three women in his basement for ten years to do with what he pleased?
The objectification of women is not a new phenomenon; it has been around since the Fall of Man. But the advent of television, movies, marketing, and a willing media has ramped up the intensity of the brainwashing that women are merely objects, products and not persons.
Christianity stands in stark opposition to our culture’s objectification of women, encouraging women to present themselves as persons and not products (I Peter 3:3-5) and requiring men to treat older women as they would their mother, younger women as they would their own sister (I Tim. 5:1-2), and that they be willing to lay down their lives for their wives (Ephesians 5:25-27).
Can you imagine how different a culture would be that actually practiced these principles? GS