Acknowledging ugliness in the Bible - Tamar, Amnon, and David

I deeply appreciated Christianity Today's recent article asking whether we can finally break the silence around Tamar.

Jen Wilkin makes the following point about the story in 2 Samuel 13:

"Amnon, one of David’s sons, violates his own sister and then casts her aside. When her brother Absalom learns what Amnon has done, he tells her, “Has Amnon your brother been with you? Be quiet for now, my sister. He is your brother; do not take this thing to heart.” Absalom’s shushing and dismissing are certainly vile, but it is David’s reaction that stuns: “When King David heard all this, he was furious” (vv. 20–21). 

Furious. That’s it. No public denouncement of Amnon, no vindication of Tamar. No justice, no words of comfort or kindness for his daughter, just impotent, mute anger. David is silent. He takes no action against Amnon, opening the door for Absalom to have his brother murdered in revenge. And Tamar is left desolate."

She argues that David's own sin (with Bathsheba) and guilt prevent him from acting appropriately. We, the readers need to acknowledge not only that David's response was deeply inadequate - an anger that goes nowhere, but that we, as God's people, are called to respond very differently: with justice and compassion. Justice to punish those who have sinned and compassion to not abandon those who have been hurt.

Talking about the things that matter

At the recent Christian Reformed Campus ministry association conference we talked about a lot of hard things: racism, abuse of power, and sexuality (and all in one day!). It hadn't really occurred to me that people might perceive this as strange until one person asked me why we were focusing on all these things and another wondered if we'd planned in a drink at the end of the day (pub locations were indeed made public).

The hard conversations were framed by worship and by sharing with each other about how we [campus ministers and students] were doing. That, I hope, helped place the conversations in the right perspective, even as I believe that the conversations were still hard and could potentially have caused people distress and anxiety. I hope and pray that people are still positively working through what we talked about. After all, we have these conversations together because we all need to see how faith relates to all areas of our lives, including and especially the hard things.


Furthermore, I believe these are areas "where a lot of pain and distress has happened and continues to happen,” and so “I’d like to do all I can to be equipped to know best how to bring the hope of Christ to those [who] are hurting.”

cross-posted on the Campus Edge blog