Texas Pastor Suggests Publicly Executing A Few Women Would End #MeToo
A senior pastor at Covenant Bible Church in Georgetown, Texas, is making headlines for a controversial statement made during his hourlong sermon, "So The Rest May Stand In Fear," which is viewable on YouTube.
According to Chron, Joel Webbon is a Christian Nationalist and a founder of Right Response Ministries, "which endorses theonomy, or the modern imposition of divine law as portrayed in the Old Testament."
Webbon is no stranger to controversy for his statements; in fact, there is an entire section of Right Response Ministries' website dedicated to them.
Topics range from Biblical Patriarchy (he is very for that) to Christians who choose to live in the Blue States (he thinks they are "foolish" and should move to a red state).
His latest "kerfuffle" as he would call it, arose from statements made in this sermon. I dropped the needle right before the statements he made that I'm sure raised some eyebrows- even in his approving audience:
To paraphrase, he clearly states that America should follow the "timeless principle" that was in practice in ancient Israel: that if one were to perjure themselves against another, they should suffer the penalty the accused would have received if they had been found guilty.
In other words, if the defendant is found not guilty of murder, then the person who accused them of murder should be put to death (Webbon was also clear that it should always be a capital crime).
This makes one wonder what would happen to police, detectives, and prosecutors in this scenario.
The biblical text he is referring to is found in Deuteronomy 19:15-21. Deuteronomy is also the book of the bible that states a solution to the rape of a virgin is that the woman must marry her rapist (Deut. 22:28-29).
He continues by saying that if people were publically executed "in these United States" for bearing false witness "#MeToo would end real quick" and "all you have to do is publically execute a few women who have lied."
The implication here is that #MeToo (which arguably ran out of steam years ago at this point) was based on lies and false accusations. The guilty verdict of Harvey Weinstein is just one high-profile instance that would beg to differ.
The National Institute of Health states that, "widespread societal myths" that many women falsely accuse men of sexual assault is what keeps 95% of assaults from ever being reported.
One in four women will experience sexual assault in their lifetime [...] less than 5% of sexual assaults are reported to law enforcement.
Assaults are never reported largely because women fear they will not be believed. This pastor feels that number isn't high enough and would like to add the fear of public death to the mix.
Of course, the result would be that no woman would ever report a sexual assault and that rapists would be free to continue to hurt women indefinitely- or at least until the right man took umbrage to the practice.
"The reason I say the things I do is because I'm convinced there's not a better way to say it," Webbon continues, after he sees his audience visibly flinch at what he just said. "If it doesn't hurt, it didn't hit."
If landing a punch was his goal, he succeeded. I wonder when he'll start throwing stones.
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