A young woman is suing Cornell and seven men. She says they raped her in a fraternity house two years ago, when she was 20. Much about the night is disputed, and every version of the story is grievous.
By her own account, she got drunk on vodka at her sorority house and drank more at a bar though she was underage. Her complaint puts it at about 10 drinks in three hours. She walked to a fraternity house around 11 p.m. She arrived drunk, took ketamine, and had sex with two men she knew. She told police she was willing at first. Her lawsuit says she was too drunk to consent to any of it, and that the men who came in afterward raped her.
She did not call it rape at first. Within three weeks she did, and went to campus police. The district attorney read her sworn statement as describing consensual sex and declined to bring charges. Cornell expelled two of the men and suspended two. Now she is suing the university, the fraternity, her sorority, a bar, and the seven men.
Her story has been conscripted to serve political narratives, leading up to the midterm elections. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told a town hall, as settled fact, that seven men “took turns gang raping her for seven hours.” Pundits have made Jane Doe an avatar of #MeToo.
Others online have tried to unmask her. Her lawyer says she has been threatened with harm unless she drops the suit, and that women mistaken for her have been threatened too.
In the coverage of the story, Jane Doe has been treated more as an object than a person. And the seven accused men have been condemned on social media as guilty without trial.
If her allegations are true, they would not be surprising. Sexual assault is common in American universities. It’s especially common during the first months of each school year, and many assaults are related to the culture of wild partying that’s grown up around fraternities and sororities.
This party culture is nothing new. Fraternities and sororities took Greek names and built themselves on the pattern of Greco-Roman mystery cults. Think: Bacchanalia and the cult of Dionysus. Hence the vows of secrecy, initiation rites, and symbols. “Greek life” is not a misnomer.
It’s not surprising that wild, drunken parties take place in fraternity and sorority houses. That is the highest expression of their culture.
The problem with this culture is that it’s degenerate. And Christians, at least, used to know this.
There was a time when a story like this would have led to the round condemnation of the whole system of “Greek life.” But it is now taken for granted that such a system must exist, that it can be reformed. A few more mandatory trainings about sexual consent, and all will be well.
This is foolish.
Mystery religions will not be reformed. They must be abandoned. And it is a sad commentary on the church today that few Christians are willing to say so.
Such cults start with false worship and end with the ritual abuse of men and women. Solving the problems they cause means getting to the root.
God created man and woman in His image. This is where our dignity comes from. But the woman was deceived by the serpent and ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The man, who was with her, sinned with his eyes open, and in him we all fell. This is where our sin comes from.
Woman is the glory of man, and he was made to guard her, as Adam did not. In a godly and loving marriage, their sexual union is a beautiful and often fruitful thing.
But we are fallen, and our desires are sinful. They run quickly toward worship of false gods like Dionysus.
Dionysus promises freedom. He claims to liberate. His followers drink wine and dance to escape from their limits. And while intoxicated, they are indeed freed from inhibition and restraint. But this freedom is license only to sin.
The Christian account is otherwise. We are born in bondage to sin. True freedom comes when God breaks that bondage and grants a sinner repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. By His blood, we are spared the punishment we deserve for our sin. And His Spirit enables us to live in freedom.
This freedom is no license. Sinful desires remain in us after we are saved. Christ frees us from bondage to sin and from death, and for something: to love God and neighbor and to keep His commands.
If it sounds strange to speak of Christ in response to an alleged gang rape, it is only because the church has retreated from its prophetic task.
A silent and hypocritical church cannot witness to the world. The church must first root out its own tolerance of sexual sin.
But then it must call a spade a spade. Greek life is a good place to start. It’s a knockoff mystery religion. It celebrates drunkenness, riotous living, and freedom from restraint. It is not Christian.
But Greek life appeals in part because Christians offer nothing better on most college campuses.
Many churches live next door to universities. They send missionaries abroad while ignoring the opportunity to evangelize next door.
Mystery cults are a pale substitute for true religion. They offer brotherhood for four years and a drunken feast on Friday night. Christ gives His people a family that does not end and table fellowship every Sunday.
The late Voddie Baucham said, “If we continue to send our children to Caesar for their education, we need to stop being surprised when they come home as Romans.”
And if we send them to the Greeks for their brotherhood, they’ll come home as Greeks.
Author Sterling Higa can be reached at hello@sterlinghiga.com.
For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up here for our free Daily Edition newsletter.
