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Hello, fellow wayfarers … Why the Cornell sexual assault case should alert us to what happens when "loyalty" becomes hellish … What an ex-Christian told me about what it was like to love a church that hurt her … A Desert Island Bookshelf from autumnal Minnesota … This is this week’s Moore to the Point. |
The Cornell Seven and the High Cost of Fake Fraternity |
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The "Cornell seven" sexual assault case shocked the nation this week. Americans read and heard about members of the Chi Phi fraternity at one of the nation’s most elite university allegedly raping a young woman—a classmate—who was reportedly under the influence of alcohol and ketamine. Investigations and court cases will determine levels of criminal liability, as well as whether and to what extent university officials were negligent. But even before all that, what ought to unsettle us is the cruelty and degradation not just of what happened in that room but also of what happened in the Snapchat messages between fraternity members. |
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According to both the complaint and additional reporting on the messages, this young woman’s body was a topic of conversation among multiple members of the fraternity, expressed in the crudest way possible as available to whoever wanted it. One man’s response celebrated this as the reason he loved being a part of Chi Phi. The young woman was referred to in these messages not as a person but as a thing. To paraphrase 2 Thessalonians 2:7, the mystery of iniquity runs deep, but we still ought to ask what the cold cruelty of these messages should tell us about what’s gone wrong. |
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When this sort of criminal allegation is discussed, usually our focus is on the sexual nature of it all—and rightly so. After all, sexual violence is especially damaging since it twists something that is meant to be reserved for covenant fidelity, mutuality, and intimacy into degradation, hate, and power. |
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Sexual union is meant to be meaningful and mysterious. To weaponize it and split it apart from love into violence is a perversion. Yet these reports show us that sex was not the only significant matter perverted here. So was friendship. Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of the messages is not just how little the woman was treated as a person but how little she was thought of at all. Most of the conversations seemed to be less about her than about how the use of her would increase the status of each of these fraternity members with each other. Sexual degradation became a vehicle for male approval. |
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The woman seems to disappear altogether in these communications, except as the object around which these men try to establish some sort of solidarity. In fact, one of the values twisted in this story is in the very idea of fraternity. By this, I don’t mean the debatable proposition of whether college fraternities are themselves drivers of toxic behavior. That’s an entirely different discussion. I mean not the fraternity as an organization but the very reason it is so named—the drive for a sense of brotherhood, belonging, and friendship. Like sexual intimacy, this longing is created good and—when rightly ordered—is essential for a good life. We want to belong. And the very goodness of that is what makes it so dangerous when it devolves into something evil. |
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We ought to have seen already how this can work. Few images in Scripture are as powerful as that of the church as family. The mystery of Christ creates this new reality where all of us in Christ—Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female (Gal. 3:28)—are members of one another, brothers and sisters in what’s referred to as the "household of God" (1 Tim. 3:15, ESV throughout). Those of us who have experienced this know it is glorious. And yet, look at how, when this concept is misused, the very power that makes it meaningful can turn it demonic. |
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Churches have used the idea of "we are a family" to suggest that those who speak up about atrocities are disloyal. Such places distort the metaphor of family into the way the mafia uses it. Does this mean we should do away with the language of church as family, then, or as brotherhood and sisterhood? God forbid. But it does mean that we ought to be on careful alert for when that language is hijacked for evil. |
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The forces of this present darkness have always known how to offer a counterfeit sense of brotherhood or sisterhood, of belonging and solidarity. Like any other idolatry, when the community itself becomes ultimate—with nothing above it or beside it to call it into question—then loyalty becomes the unquestionable standard, with few left to ask, "Loyalty to what?" or "Loyalty to whom?" |
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Where in this case were the young men who would say, "What are you doing?" or even, "Is she all right? Let’s get her help," much less, "We need to stop this now"? Maybe further proceedings will show that someone like that was present somewhere that we can’t see right now, but if past horrors are any predictor, that person would have feared being cast out of the group more than he feared being complicit in evil. |
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That’s how a fake kind of "fraternity" works. If loyalty is all that matters, if brotherhood is about merging into the herd, the group trains its members—long before something awful happens—to subordinate the ordinary movements of conscience. If one starts to focus mostly on "Do I fit in here?" it’s very easy to stop listening to the question "Is this wrong?" |
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And if belonging is all that matters, cruelty can become a means of belonging. The brotherhood turns out to be a mob. A man starts to fear the contempt of other men more than he fears becoming contemptible. That’s the formation that precedes the wickedness. |
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Stories like this are about the ravages of vice, yes, but those vices are always empowered by the loss of any virtue that can recognize what’s wrong. Those virtues are often numbed, step by step. And that’s why one of the key virtues that must be recovered is that of courage. |
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But courage, like brotherhood, is perverted. It is often pictured as quarrelsomeness, as the drive to attack the outside enemy. That kind of courage is just another form of cowardice. To prove that I’m "one of us," I need to oppose whoever I’m told to oppose, and I need to mimic the same level of fervor in so doing. Sometimes courage requires solidarity against an external enemy, but that’s the least demanding kind. |
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Costly courage is more often about withstanding the approval of those whose acceptance one wants desperately. It’s when conscience and loyalty clash that courage is found or lost. |
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The Cornell seven allegations ought to anger, sicken, and sadden us. We ought to make sure that everyone who made this happen, and everyone who let this happen, is held accountable. We ought to ask what distorted view of women could allow this to continue to take place. But then we ought to look around at places without keg parties or ketamine hits and ask where our own sense of solidarity is real and where it’s just another prelude to a coverup. |
What an Ex-Christian Told Me About Her Christ-Haunted Life |
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In talking over the years with people who’ve lost their faith, I’ve found a rather dramatic difference between people who’ve done so quietly from those who speak or write about it. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to think that ex-Christians of the latter sort are often trying to fit their experience into a conversion narrative—a kind of Pilgrim’s Progress in reverse. What usually ends up happening is a mirror image of "I once was lost, but now am found, / was blind, but now I see." A few weeks ago, though, I read a memoir about a genuine loss of faith that wasn’t at all like that. |
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Emilee Hackney, in her debut book, All That’s Unseen: An Appalachian Memoir, explores the tension she feels in her life after having grown up in poverty in a Southwest Virginia Pentecostal congregation called "Deliverance." I was struck by how she seems almost to look back longingly at some aspects of that church. She very much depicts it as a deliverance for those searching for a place without judgment to confess that they were, for example, addicted to opioids and in need of help. The emotional worship and open community there truly did, she argues, deliver many people. |
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Yet the story is also harrowing. When she found herself in an abusive relationship, many of the same people—so nonjudgmental toward those addicted to drugs—turned on her, blaming her for her own mistreatment. |
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The church is one part of a larger, nuanced story that Hackney tells about what it’s like to long for a home that one realizes was dangerous. She left Appalachia to find herself an oddity at Harvard, smothered by the class prejudices she felt there. And she learned there that simply getting away does not an exodus make. |
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Emilee was gracious enough to come on my podcast and talk about her experience. We didn’t argue or debate but simply talked about what it’s like to try to hear the voice of God when the people who taught it to you used it to hurt you. Some of you will resonate with Emily’s experience. Others have people in your lives who will. You can listen to it here or watch it on YouTube here. |
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I’m not actually out next week any more than normal, but the skilled editors who get this ready for y’all will be gathering for a big annual meeting, so I’m not going to put anything else on them during that. I’ll be back on Wednesday, October 21, with another Moore to the Point for you. Maybe by then, everything in the world and the church will have been turned around and there’ll be nothing but warm, happy, edifying topics to discuss. I wouldn’t bank on it, but we can always hope. See you then. |
Happy Birthday Christianity Today! |
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Every other week, we ask one of you to show us what books you would take with you, if you knew you’d be stranded on a deserted island for the rest of your life. This week’s submission comes from reader Anne Boemler from Minneapolis, Minnesota: |
- The Complete English Poems by George Herbert: I discovered Herbert in high school, with a shock of recognition: "I didn’t know anyone else felt that way!" Rereading his poems just makes me love them more.
- Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize, ed. John Hollander: A fabulous collection of poems—and maybe on a desert island I really would memorize all of them.
- The Norton Shakespeare: Reading Hamlet in 11th grade convinced me to become an English teacher, and teaching Hamlet to my own high school students keeps me one. There’s something new to see every time.
- The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien: Good for homesickness and new adventures.
- The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis: Maybe cheating, but it’s impossible to choose just one. Rereading these books to my own children leaves me in tears every time.
- The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold: Although the gods in this world aren’t images of the true God in the same way Aslan is, this book has the best depiction of what religious devotion feels like from the inside I’ve found, apart from C. S. Lewis. Also a gripping plot and a rich fantasy world.
- If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino: The first book my now-husband gave me after we started dating. A love letter to books and the beloved Other Reader.
- Poems, Poets, Poetry by Helen Vendler: I thought I knew how to read. Then I took a freshman seminar with Helen Vendler and realized that I didn’t know how to read at all, because she was teaching me how from scratch. I would want to keep learning from her on that island.
- The Book of Common Prayer: As a cradle Episcopalian and current Anglican, I’ve been hearing the words and rhythms of the prayer book since before I could speak. Knowing I prayed along with a great host of witnesses across time and around the world would be a great comfort on my solitary island.
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Readers, what do y’all think? If you were stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life and could have only one playlist, watchlist, or bookshelf with you, what songs, movies, or books would you choose? |
- For a Desert Island Playlist, send me a list of between 5 and 12 songs, excluding hymns and worship songs. (We’ll cover those later.)
- For a Desert Island Watchlist, send me a list of up to 12 movies or TV shows. (Let’s try not to ruin the illusion and think about where the screens and electricity would come from.)
- For a Desert Island Bookshelf, send me a list of up to 12 books, along with a photo of all the books together.
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Send your list (or lists) to questions@russellmoore.com, and include as much or as little explanation of your choices as you would like, along with the city and state from which you’re writing. |
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