There are some subjects which the Church finds difficult to handle. Now, before you leap to conclusions that this is a piece is about homosexuality, let me tell you that that is not the subject I have in mind. I am referring to abuse against women and young girls.

Yesterday was an unusual day at the Lambeth Conference because the Spouses Conference which has been going on at the same time as the Bishops Conference, with a different programme, joined us for a Bible Study. Actually, I have not expressed that very well because, in fact, the Spouses decided to invite the Bishops to share in a bible study with them. They had chosen a passage from the Old Testament for us to study together. If you want to look at what we were studying, turn to the Book of Samuel, chapter !3.There you will find a short and dreadful story concerning the violence done to a young girl called Tamar, sister of David’s son, Absalom. One of David’s other sons Amnon, fell in love with her and laid a plot to bring her to his room where he then raped her. It is a story of a terrible event, a betrayal, an act of brutal violence.

We began our bible-study at 9.15 in the morning and continued with it until lunch time. This was not a small-scale event; all the bishops and all the spouses were seated together in the Big Top and in our serried ranks we attempted to understand not only the story itself but also tried to discuss the ways in which power in the relations between men and women can be abused. It was pointed out by one of the women that, although most abuse is perpetrated by men against women, from time-to-time the violence occurs in the other direction.

As you might imagine, the logistics of trying to do a Bible-study with so many hundreds of people was not easy, especially when you add in the further complexity of a multiplicity of languages.

It was recognised that the story of the rape of Tamar is not often read in churches, perhaps because the subject-matter is so challenging, but what we all acknowledged was that the abuse of women and girls needs to be addressed by everyone, not only in the Church but also in society as a whole.

This is not the place to say much about the levels of such violence in the counties of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire but my links with the Women’s Counselling Service, based in Hitchin, a charity which deserves the fullest support from all of us, leads me to know that abuse of young girls and women is, sadly, not unknown in our own area.

What our bible study sought to do was to put this kind of abuse in a large context without minimising the awfulness of the abuse itself. We tried to see how the abuse that women sometimes suffer at the hands of men may be part of an even bigger picture concerning the use and abuse of power. You might argue that this was to stray too far from the Biblical text but if you read the story for yourself, you will see that the event happened in a royal court where the relations between men and women involved the exercise of power by men over women in many aspects of court life. Let me explain what I mean. Tamar was duped into going to Amnon’s room because he feigned illness and then asked his father King David to order Tamar to make some cakes for him. The women of the Royal household were clearly at the beck and call of the men.

The bible study was a reminder, if such were needed, that the Bible is a rich and powerful resource for helping us to examine complex and powerful issues and that if we avoid exploring them we may be colluding in some very unhealthy and damaging patterns of behaviour. The test, of course, is whether the study results not only in changed behaviour but also in a determination to help society change. But before we start to try to change society we need to bear in mind the parable of the beam and the mote, don’t you think?