The advocate for victims of domestic abuse, Sally Hope launches a new Christian educational resource for promoting healthy relationships.
Sally who owns the “Always Hopeful” website claims that not enough is being done to address the underlying mindset that leads to sexual assault.
Hope reportedly spoke to Premier Christian News about Russell Brand’s repeated denial of sexual misconduct allegations. Russell, a comedian and broadcaster, said according to Premier that despite his reputation for promiscuity, he had only ever entered into consensual relationships.
“Research from an organization called Safe Lives found that only half of young people consider that to be adequate in teaching them about toxic unhealthy relationships. Only 24 per cent of people recall being told about coercive control. And then worse, nearly a quarter of boys are saying that they’re turning to pornography for education about sex. So essentially, if we don’t teach our children about healthy relationships, then the porn industry will do it. So, where do we want them to learn from? Do we want them to learn from the church? Or do we want them to learn from porn?,” Hope said.
“So we’ve got this gap. Children are saying that they’re not learning enough from the sex education that they get in school; they need to learn more about relationships, not just the sex part. They need the whole picture. And you know, we’ve got the answer in the Bible, we’ve got Jesus.”
He used the contrasting figures of Adam and Jesus to develop a model of what a good relationship looks like “in practical terms.”
“So the way I positioned it is, you can behave like Adam in your relationship, who introduced sin into the world and wants power and control. Or you can behave like Jesus, who is love incarnate. So the resource looks at how Jesus behaves, [asking] how do we know what how Jesus behaves? Well, we know because we can look at 1 Corinthians 13 because Jesus is love.
“So a healthy relationship is patient. It’s kind, it’s truthful, it’s protecting, trusting, it’s hopeful. It’s persevering, and it’s consistent.”
The resource is available for free download.