Ostensibly, we pay attention to things on at least three different levels. First is the ambient culture in which we live; we can’t escape it completely and being aware of its foibles is necessary if we are to have a witness. Second is our heart-led consideration from the perspective of Biblical Law (the character of Christ). We stand ready to advise folks based on divine wisdom revealed by God for this fallen world. On a third level, we experience an awareness of things in the eternal spiritual realm, where words cannot go. This is the heart and spirit sharing together the ineffable truth of God. It has a powerful impact that results in convictions that often defy reason.
While I developed the habit back in my younger days serving under a legalistic religious context, it turns out that it remains proper for me to avoid situations where I am inside a private space alone with a woman not in my family. I’m reluctant to even be in a car with one. In turn, I would advise all females in my family to reciprocate by avoiding being alone with non-family males.
Our society generally chokes on this, though folks do understand it as a matter of appearances. For example, it shows up in police procedures for giving a civilian of the opposite sex a ride in your patrol vehicle, which requires reporting via radio your destination, starting and ending mileage and time. And if it goes to court, you’d better have a written record of the details noted somewhere. But then, I really didn’t want to patrol with a female partner in the first place unless there was a moral covenant relationship first.
I seldom told anyone the real reason: I trust very few women in our society. Having direct experience with how they can abuse the system for any number of motivations, it only made things worse if I said as much out loud. Now that I’m some twenty-five years beyond those days, things have gotten only worse. I suppose building trust begins with a woman not feeling insulted when I reveal my concerns.
Who hasn’t already heard way too much about the recent public ruckus of women reporting various forms of sexual abuse at the hands of VIP men? The whole business of what is and isn’t appropriate is a moving target, varying greatly from one woman to the next, and sometimes varying between the different men she encounters in her life. It seems as if the whole thing is structured to make men afraid to be men on any terms.
And for those in positions of authority, it’s almost impossible to do the right thing when a female reports something like rape. This is a very bad time to be in such positions of authority, particularly if the authority has any secular component. That means any position of authority exposed to secular regulation. The courts are all over the place on what they view as sensible and appropriate.
Under Radix Fidem, there’s really precious little we can do to help bring sanity. Any of us could pray and seek the Lord on what might be sensible in a specific case, but nobody in our society will like our more substantive moral answers. Our world is so remote from Biblical Law that it’s like being in different galaxies. I’m reading in religious news how various mainstream religious institutions are also all over the map, so it’s no safer with any organized church. You can’t afford to be relaxed and friendly outside a genuine covenant community.
This is a part of the madness, the symptoms of demons set loose in American society as God’s wrath falls on us. You shouldn’t expect much sanity any where.
I adopted the same policy years ago, as a matter of fact the last non family female to ride alone with me was my wife in my rickety old truck before we got married. She didn’t like it much, every time we stopped I had to jump out of the cab and grab a piece of firewood to chock the wheel, it had a broken parking brake. Now that’s some slick courting.