Christianity’s Evidence-Based Approach to Sexual Abuse Accusations Against Moore, Weinstein, Matthews

MSNBC host Chris Matthews at the 2012 DNC.
This wave of exposure (and yes, hysteria) about sexual misconduct among leaders is a tremendous opportunity for us. The Biblical tradition breaks from much of the ancient world by introducing an evidentiary approach to accusation rather than a mimetic one. The pagan world used imitation (mimesis) to justify accusations. If you could stir the crowd up enough to imitate your accusation against some outsider, you could form unanimity minus one (as Rene Girard put it and my friend Gil Baillie taught me). It was like a wave or a flood or a fire. The flood itself was taken as proof that the wanderer or deformed person or foreigner was really a demonic evil-doer. And the fact that after he or she died people felt better was also taken as a vindication of the whole frenzied process of accusation and murder.
The Torah slowed all of that down. Two or three witnesses were required. The witnesses were required to fully bear the burden of their status as accusers by being the first to cast the stones (a legal protection of the victim which Jesus invokes as a strategy in defense of the woman accused of adultery), something much tougher to do if you know you are lying. The Bible also adds consequences for false accusations. Furthermore, it counts all witnesses equally. Female witnesses count as much as male (something I seem to remember the Quran does not do). There is no provision which says that the witnesses must be Israelites or that an Israelite witness counts more than that of a foreigner, which undermines the dynamics of tribalism and identity politics.
The New Testament invokes this principle at several points, extending the standard for criminal sanctions (such as capital punishment) to apply to excommunication.
How such principles apply to other situations which are not matters of physical execution or spiritual execution (excommunication) is an interesting exercise which may be of help to us and to the world. I think it is important to also point out that the Bible implies rather different procedures when it comes to people who are seeking power whether temporal or eternal. I’m not aware of any instances in which the Bible invokes the 2 witnesses standard when it comes to someone who is seeking an office or authority. In those cases, the standard seems to be something more like public reputation.
If we Christians want to live up to our origins, we will be both a city of refuge for the false accused and a city of refuge for the genuinely victimized. We will be a magnet for people who are telling the truth, who will know of us as a place where evidence is weighed. False accusers and false deniers will want to avoid us because we will be known as searchers for the truth, plumbers of testimony, weighers of all the relevant details. Liars will want nothing to do with us. That, and not tribalism, identity politics and hysteria are our historical heritage.
Jerry Bowyer is a Forbes contributor, contributing editor of AffluentInvestor.com, and Senior Fellow in Business Economics at The Center for Cultural Leadership.
Jerry has compiled an impressive record as a leading thinker in finance and economics. He worked as an auditor and a tax consultant with Arthur Anderson, as Vice President of the Beechwood Company which is the family office associated with Federated Investors, and has consulted in various privatization efforts for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. He founded the influential economic think tank, the Allegheny Institute, and has lectured extensively at universities, businesses and civic groups.
Jerry has been a member of three investment committees, among which is Benchmark Financial, Pittsburgh’s largest financial services firm. Jerry had been a regular commentator on Fox Business News and Fox News. He was formerly a CNBC Contributor, has guest-hosted “The Kudlow Report”, and has written for CNBC.com, National Review Online, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as many other publications. He is the author of The Bush Boom and more recently The Free Market Capitalist’s Survival Guide, published by HarperCollins. Jerry is the President of Bowyer Research.
Jerry consulted extensively with the Bush White House on matters pertaining to the recent economic crisis. He has been quoted in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes Magazine, The International Herald Tribune and various local newspapers. He has been a contributing editor of National Review Online, The New York Sun and Townhall Magazine. Jerry has hosted daily radio and TV programs and was one of the founding members of WQED’s On-Q Friday Roundtable. He has guest-hosted the Bill Bennett radio program as well as radio programs in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles.
Jerry is the former host of WorldView, a nationally syndicated Sunday-morning political talk show created on the model of Meet The Press. On WorldView, Jerry interviewed distinguished guests including the Vice President, Treasury Secretary, HUD Secretary, former Secretary of Sate Condoleezza Rice, former Presidential Advisor Carl Rove, former Attorney General Edwin Meese and publisher Steve Forbes.
Jerry has taught social ethics at Ottawa Theological Hall, public policy at Saint Vincent’s College, and guest lectured at Carnegie Mellon’s graduate Heinz School of Public Policy. In 1997 Jerry gave the commencement address at his alma mater, Robert Morris University. He was the youngest speaker in the history of the school, and the school received more requests for transcripts of Jerry’s speech than at any other time in its 120-year history.
Jerry lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, Susan, and the youngest three of their seven children.
Trending Now on Affluent Christian Investor
Sorry. No data so far.
The Affluent Mix
Biden Oblivious To Illegal Immigration Issues... August 2, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Rob Arnott On Bubbles, Inflation, And Once-In-A-Generation Investment Opportunit... August 2, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

The Federal Reserve’s Massive Theft Of Stability... August 2, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

What To Do About This Difficult Market? August 2, 2021 | David Bahnsen

Letter On The Politicization Of Corporations... July 26, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Peak Of The Fake Bull Market July 26, 2021 | Michael Pento

Woodrow Wilson’s Administrative State vs. Gold... July 26, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

Dividends, Energy, And Crypto July 26, 2021 | David Bahnsen

Whose Side Are You On? July 26, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Media, Left Ignore These Dangers July 19, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Mark Skousen On FreedomFest And How To Measure The Whole Economy... July 19, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Quantifying The Quantitative, Or Making Easy The Easing... July 19, 2021 | David Bahnsen

The Gold Standard Means A Rising Standard Of Living... July 19, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

Book Review: Brian Domitrovic Reveals The Monetary Genius Of Arthur Laffer... July 19, 2021 | John Tamny

Steve Forbes: Time To Worry About Inflation, Not Hyperinflation... July 12, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

UFOs Rescue Biden July 12, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

Read This Classical Economist’s 200 Year Old Warning About Paper Money... July 12, 2021 | Jim Huntzinger

How Central Banks Murdered The Markets July 12, 2021 | Michael Pento

Everything There Is To Know About The Stock Market... July 12, 2021 | David Bahnsen

AT&T CEO: We’re Ill Equipped For Politics, And We’re Spending A Lot Of ... July 6, 2021 | Jerry Bowyer

Internet Bias Distorts National Conversation... July 6, 2021 | Frank Vernuccio

The Halfway Point Of 2021 July 6, 2021 | David Bahnsen

Join the conversation!
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.