Jane Austen and #ChurchToo ;
How ‘Pride and Prejudice’ gave me a framework for spotting sex predators in church

A thread/1

@KSPrior @R_Denhollander @sheilagregoire

Pre reading: Ty’s thread below https://twitter.com/tyfgibson/status/1362572308045586435

That there is indeed nothing new under the sun is proven by how accurately Jane Austen describes the lures of a predator.

Meet Mr Darcy and Mr Wickham. The former a stiff and proud landowner, whose manners fail to impress the lovely and smart heroine Elisabeth./2

The latter, Mr Wickham, a charming, captivating, gentle and well liked army officer. Elisabeth is shocked to find out Darcy prevented him from becoming a minister, and did not allow him to have the parson’s house and income that Darcy’s own father left him in his will./3

She despises Darcy for this injustice. She is quite taken in by Wickham although she cannot marry him because neither of them have the fortune to support themselves. Darcy meanwhile falls in love with Elisabeth and proposes to her./4

She angrily rejects him and accuses him of cruelty to Wickham. He then writes her a letter explaining he knew of Wickham’s immoral behavior and understood he should not be a minister. So he compensated him generously for the house and job he could not have./5

Wickham gambled the money away and then tried to seduce Darcy’s 15 yo sister to elope with him so he could have her fortune. He almost succeeded.
After reading all this, Elisabeth has to revise her opinion of both men. She realizes two key things/6

1. That although Wickham was captivating and widely liked ‘she knew of no actual good from him’. She wrecks her brain trying to remember anything he did which could vindicate him from Darcy’s charges. But she sees that all favorable opinion of him was based on his manners alone/7

2. Although she disliked Darcy from the very first, and people generally despised his proud manners, she has never seen him do anything unethical and later learns how his employees value him greatly and he is a very good brother to his orphan sister. /8

Wickham on the other hand, seduces Elisabeth’s sister Lydia to run away with him, without marrying her, bring shame and ruin to all the family. Darcy finally bribes him to marry Lydia, saving her and the family’s reputation./9

The newly married couple then visit Elisabeth’s home and he shows no sliver of remorse or shame, but is equally charming and confident. Elisabeth decides to in the future set ‘no limits to the impudence of an impudent man’.

Sounds familiar? /10

Wickham was a predator, and was about to become a minister, had not unpopular mr Darcy prevented it. Because Darcy did not inform wider society of Wickham’s evil, Wickham was able to prey on Lydia. Darcy and Elisabeth both blamed themselves for their silence. /11

Austen, through her marvelous tale, makes many important points.
1. Predators can be ‘uniformly charming’ without any actual character to back it up
2. Clever people like Elisabeth who ‘prided herself in her discernment’ are fooled./12

3. The world at large will be more impressed by manners than by character, which takes longer to discover
4. Exposing a predator is necessary to prevent further abuse
5. Lack of sexual and financial integrity go often hand in hand/13

6. Very little stops predators from becoming ministers
7. Predators have friends who cover for them (Mrs Young, Denny)
8. People don’t believe how bad predators are until personally confronted with it (Mr and Mrs Gardener)
9. Predator don’t change after marriage/14

All this I learned from Jane Austen before I met my first ‘Christian’ predator. When I did, I was primed to recognize the pattern.

Predators in the pulpit are actors, like Mr. Wickham. Good actors, fooling many.

Thank you Jane./ end