Wheaton College Football Hazing Fiasco

 In September of 2017 I learned about this:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/documents-show-wheaton-college-doubted-story-alleged-hazing/story?id=50023705

I’m not surprised that a football team included some assholes. When young men have spent their entire lives being rewarded for aggressive behavior on the field, it’s not surprising that some of them forget that it’s not okay in the real world.

I’m also, sadly, not surprised that a group of professing Christians committed assault, kidnapping, and gang rape. I’ve known too many Christians whose beliefs made them LESS moral, rather than MORE moral. When you’re told all your life that you’re just the best and the special-est because you’re part of the RIGHT church, and therefore one of the lucky few that God likes enough to let into Heaven (as opposed to everyone else, who piss God off so much that He’s going to torture them in fire forever… in His infinite mercy…) it carries the risk of making you LESS compassionate and aware of others’ needs and feelings. People find what they look for in their religion. The same Scripture that inspires some to be saints, inspires others to start “holy wars”. People who are raised reading the same Bible can become Mother Theresa, or Adolf Hitler. (Godwin’s law be damned – both people were professing Christians, it’s just a fact.) If you want a reason to be kind to others, or if you want a reason to harm others, you can find it in your religion. So it’s certainly no surprise that these dudes could consider themselves Christians and yet behave in such an un-Christlike fashion.

I’m not surprised in the least that a college’s response to such allegations was to merely assign an essay and brief community service to the perpetrators, rather than kick them off the team or out of the school – after all, sports are a money-maker for a school, and they’re reluctant to lose their top athletes even if it means knowingly exposing the rest of their students to violent sex offenders. Particularly since one of them is the son of a former NFL player and current Fox News sports commentator – exactly the kind of dude who is likely to be a donor, as well as having pull with other potential donors sympathetic to the College’s religious and political leanings. This shit goes on at colleges all the time – even the coaches get away with sexual abuse for decades, because football is more important than little things like “the law” and “not tolerating assholes who violates others’ bodies and boundaries”.

What does disappoint me is that this place, which has the motto “For Christ and His Kingdom”, is supposed to be better than this.

This place professes to live by a higher standard than the rest of the world.

This place forbids frats and sororities, forbids drinking, forbids sex outside of (heterosexual) marriage, forbids DANCING for God’s sake, in order to set the expectation that students avoid anything that could even TEMPT them into CONSENSUAL sex, let alone rape. People can get kicked out for getting drunk, or pregnant. People can get kicked out for being gay (unless they repent of their “sin” and get conversion “therapy”.) Because it’s so important for Christians to be pure, to live by a higher standard than the morally bankrupt world that surrounds them.

Unless they play football. Then, “For Christ and His Kingdom” takes a backseat to “For the donors and their contributions”, apparently.

What Would Jesus Do? The Jesus who told people not to even fantasize about sex with anyone but their own consenting spouse… the Jesus who violently attacked people for profaning the holy place… what would He have done when told that a group of people had, in a place dedicated to God, tied up one of His children and then shoved unidentified objects up his ass, and THEN beaten him up for protesting? “Naughty boys, go think about what you’ve done and write an essay”? I had harsher punishments in fifth grade, WHEN I HADN’T DONE ANYTHING WRONG, just for being present when other people were disrupting class by talking too much. The Standard of right and wrong would have been more tolerant of gang rape and assault in a place dedicated to Him, than my elementary school teachers were of talking out of turn? The Defender of the defenseless would have let the perpetrators stay and continue to be a potential danger to other innocent people?


Oh, by the way... All the perpetrators got off with pleading to a misdemeanor, none of them faced any serious consequences or ever will, because OF FUCKING COURSE THAT HAPPENED.

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