Conservatives, generally more informed than their liberal counterparts, have long known of the evils of Jeffery Epstein. Back when Trump was a Clinton donor and Clinton could still get it off the ground in Epstein private jet without medication. It became obvious that people with unlimited resources, political connections and evil desires had both motive and opportunity to abuse young women. It is interesting to see the way attempts to bash Trump have led to the metoo movement. An attempted undermining which ended up going full circle a roundhouse kick to the face of every powerful Democrat. But while the media is still looking for Russians under the bed they miss the perversion taking place on the bed. Democrats have wanted to take some moral high ground of the type they often accused Republicans of being hypocrites for failing to hold. But they don’t have any moral high ground, they are immoral in one and all areas of life. It shouldn’t be surprising when a group of people who profit by lying about helping the poor are found in bed with their underage daughters. But the current iteration made me think of a few issues being brought up.
A Rabbi tying the Phylacteries to the arm of a boy. Obermüller, Franz (1869-1917)
What is an adult? Today we seem to like prolonging adolescence longer and longer. In the cased of women we seem to prolong the period of innocence all the way until death. And so we must always believe the woman, because she is always right, according to the metoo movement, presumably because she is always innocent. But even the idea of adolescence as a period from puberty to adulthood, is strange. Historically the preparation for adulthood was before puberty, and puberty was the entrance into adulthood. Bar mitzvah was the celebration of a boy’s entrance into adulthood, happening at age 13 which coincided with puberty for most males. But before it was an arbitrary age it used to carry with it training, and engagement. It began the Jewish man’s participation in public worship and the world. And don’t think the females were free of a similar public ceremony. On the day a girl first has her flow of blood, she begins going to the temple, every month, for purification(Leviticus 15). Which seems pretty public to me. Obviously there are gradations of adulthood and the next stage of life biblically was the gray hairs of the wise. But what else does the Bible say about when someone is an adult, especially as it pertains to sexual matters?
In Ezekiel 16 the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob tells the story of how he chose his people Israel. Since this is God describing his actions, thought it is a metaphor, I think we can take this story as instructive. He describes his love for his people Israel as an adoption/love story. He rescued her as an abandoned baby, and raised her up to maturity.
And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare.
But then he passed by again and something was different.
Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.
He goes on to detail the way he adorned her as a queen and provided for her every need. A good model for every husband though hopefully without the later adultery on the part of his bride. But that phrase “the time of love” seems pretty relevant to the discussion. He takes it as a given that everyone knows when this is. There is a major shift here from the role of a father to a lover, which I think is present in every husband wife relationship. Women are handed from their father to their lover in marriage because there is a relation and connection there. But if we are looking for help on figuring out when this is, it’s right here. “Her breasts are fashioned her hair is grown” she suddenly has something which must be covered.
If we try to remember way back to 1950, before the pill when marriage was still connected to procreation. We can see that marriage is only possible when procreation is possible. After puberty, which seems as biologically obvious as what a male and a female are. Even virginity is biologically established in Scripture. But in our day of mass immorality, we like to muddy the waters. As evils increase we increase rules to try preventing evil. But do our laws, based on our cultural sensibilities, whims even, lead to a more God honoring culture? I don’t think so. We can see the recent slippery slope of keeping children immature longer and longer. They never grow up. Children didn’t used to be a state to be admired even for children, much less for 35 year olds(Eph 4;14, I Cor. 3:2). Children are adults in training, maturity is the point.
It used to be that most people only got an 8th grade education. Which coincided roughly with puberty, then you were off to the real world. Today high school graduates are less capable than many 8th graders of a century ago. Is this a good trend? Do we justify this by our extended life expectancy? Fifty is the new forty so it’s ok for forty year olds to act like children? And so it seems to me that questioning our social construct can only be productive. Why do we arbitrarily make 18 the cut off point? Many early Americans had lived a whole life by the time they were 18. And the same goes for much of the rest of the world. Is our system really better than the two books, the book of nature and the Book of Scripture.
More and more young people from puberty to 18 are losing their virginity. We throw them in hyper sexualize environments known as public high schools and almost dare them to make it through. Most don’t. Which means that even those who waited for the culture-appointed-day of adulthood, are coming to the marriage with unnecessary baggage. By any measure this makes less stable marriages, and families and undermines everything human which we value. It is not given to human flourishing. So why do we hold on to it so religiously? We could follow Paul’s advice and use marriage as a remedy to burning. Or we could reduce the sexualization of our high schools. I doubt the latter is possible since we can’t even seem to get the three R’s in there, and Christians can’t seem to get their kids out of there. But why are we so afraid of 13-year-old adults? Why is maturity so scary? Why don’t we try something different?
By culture’s rules, having sex with an immature woman is wrong. And having sex with someone who likes it is right. Which means that right and wrong are up to the whims of however a woman feels now or whenever she decides to change her mind decades later. And so Epstein is now wrong. According to God’s rules Epstein is wrong not because the girls were 16, but because it’s sex outside of marriage. And many of the women are wrong for seeking power, or affection outside of marriage.
The other aspect of this situation that I think worth thinking about is prosecuting Epstein after his death. On the one hand it’s pretty lame that that justice system couldn’t keep him alive. “You had one job.” But on the other hand the taxpayers are spared millions of dollars. Trying to prosecute him afterwards or go after his estates seems a little like race reparations. Which is in vogue, but is also crazy. We want to blame the British Empire fore it’s nasty empireness hundreds of years ago. We want to prosecute the Spanish for conquering the Incas. But it always seems to stop at whitey. We don’t really give a damn about the people the Incas conquered. If you really loved all of humanity, you would want it all straightened out. But the fact is that reaching back in time is beyond your grasp. It is beyond our collective grasp too. That is just the way it is. Human justice can only go so far. It is only mandated by God to go so far. After that we must look to the final judgement.
Dante and Virgil in the Ninth Circle of Hell. Gustave Dore 1832-1883. Oil on Canvas.
Real love is to hate those who cause harm. We should hate what Epstein and Weinstein and all the Democrats have done to people. We should want them to be charged and weighed fairly by a court. And then the victims should be made whole and eye for an eye, and the perpetrator punished. But it might also be that some of them are looking to exploit the situation for fame and cash. We should hate this too.
But I think rather than lament that Epstein got away with it, we should take joy in knowing that vengeance belongs to God. While God clearly says that he appoints instruments of vengeance on this earth, Romans 13 et al., there will be an ultimate day of reckoning. And I think rather than being more lenient, God’s wrath will be worse. I get the idea that waiting for God to sort it out is because his wrath is far worse than anything we can do on earth. In Matthew 6 Jesus says a number of time “they have their reward”. Their deeds done in public resulted in cultural affirmation. And the matter is settled. But to those who wait for ultimate reward, for good deeds done in secret, their reward will be unfathomable(Mat. 6:4, Mat. 19:7). And also you have that verse about not gloating over a evil person when they come to ruin(Prov. 24:17:18). God will have compassion on them. And so what we do here has eternal consequences and when people “get away with things” here it will only be that much worse for them in eternity. So rest contented that Epstein will have his place in the torment hierarchy, a little lower than the Clintons.