Good news from Cleveland this week. Maybe, we can make it even better.

Well, it’s been nearly a week since the news broke that Michelle Knight, Gina Dejesus and Amanda Berry had been found and released from hell. I was in the kitchen when my wife started to carry on about something. I walked to the living room and she said that Amanda had been found. We watched intently as the story of horrific imprisonment and abuse began to unfold before our eyes. Relief! The families’ hopes had been realized. Gina’s mother had been the ‘point’ of years of hope for her daughter. “Never give up hope!” became a rallying cry for her and the countless others who supported her and Amanda’s families.

But, for me, something wasn’t quite right about how the story was being told by the local media. Everyone on air kept talking about the ‘good’ ending to this decade long ordeal. Yes, every year that passed dimmed the hope that the girls would be found at all, let alone alive. And, here they were! Yet, there were years unaccounted for. There was the loss of innocence. There was the loss of family and friends. There was the loss of self as each of these young women became the ‘property’ of one deranged individual Man. And, this is the story that is missing from all of the good news. One human male thought that he had the right to abduct, imprison and abuse these women. One man, Ariel Castro, took his male privilege to the extreme and subjected three young women to inexplicable horror. But, is he only one man? What is it that causes a person like Castro to consider for even a moment that he has such ‘rights’ over other human beings? Why did he think that it was ‘OK’ to take girls for his own twisted pleasure?

A person whom I have come to deeply respect for her views on issues of sexuality and abuse of privilege, Jennifer D. Crumpton, blogged the day before these young women were found and released. I had read her post and viewed a linked video that night. She wrote about the ‘rape culture’ that is so pervasive in our society. I’m not going to tell her story, but she talked about how male privilege covers up male abuse of others. We live by a double standard in which an abuse victim is re-victimized by media and peers while the male abusers are referred to as ‘boys being boys.’ How ridiculous and perverted! We allow male privilege to rape, imprison and kill, then we all act horrified when an Ariel Castro appears. Ariel Castro, who was embodying the very ‘rape culture’ that we allow to flourish in our midst.

Yes, it is great news that Michelle, Gina and Amanda have been freed. It gives hope to the thousands of other families who have missing children. I hope and pray for all of these that they, too, can be reunited with their loved ones. But, the awful truth is that we continue to allow our culture to embrace gender violence in the name of male privilege.

Please read Jennifer’s post:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/femmevangelical/2013/05/you-are-the-voice-to-call-the-divine-into-our-rape-culture/

And, take 20 minutes to  view the linked video of Jackson Katz, PhD.

Perhaps, if we can use the God given minds that we have, and open our hearts to God’s Spirit and to one another, there may be a truly ‘good’ ending to this story.