Monday 17 June 2013

For Nigella


It was with a sense of pure disbelief, then outrage, that I viewed the photographs of one of my favourite TV chefs apparently being publically assaulted in a posh London restaurant. The person dishing out the pain and humiliation was not some ‘drug addled crazy person’, but wait for it....................yes it was none other than her husband, Mr Charles Saatchi, millionaire art collector.

Writing in the Telegraph yesterday, Alice Arno put this question: “Let’s just suppose you are in a restaurant. It’s lunchtime. It’s broad daylight. There are many other diners about and you are in a well-populated area. Then all of a sudden you see a couple clearly having a bit of a row. The argument gets a little heated and you notice the woman looking fearful. The man then puts his hand on her neck. What do you do? ........................The answer, apparently, seems to be nothing.

While people on the street walked past and a member of the paparazzi was in the vicinity taking photographs, no one thought it might be appropriate to intervene in any way.”

I listened to a debate about the issue of intervention on Radio 2 yesterday afternoon.

 Apparently there are two schools of thought:

The first says that non intervention should be followed on the grounds that information about the background to the incident is unclear and that any intervention might actually make matters worse for the (alleged) victim..............Sorry..... as a Christian I can’t buy that !!!

The second view is that fellow diners and waiting staff should have intervened. Indeed there was a moral imperative for them to do so.

As a Scot I like to think that the assault of a woman in a Glasgow or Edinburgh restaurant would be promptly opposed and faced down by fellow diners and waiting staff.

Polly Neate, the chief executive of Women’s Aid had this to say: “While it is shocking to see someone as high-profile as Nigella Lawson linked to an alleged attack by her partner, it is vital to remember that domestic violence is actually extremely prevalent, with one in four women being abused by a partner at some point in her lifetime.

Many women do not tell anyone because they feel embarrassed or ashamed. Having this story in the news is likely to resonate with many women currently living with abuse, and it is important to remind everyone that there is help and support out there.”

While women sometimes don’t speak up preferring to suffer in silence, their pain and anguish is noticed by God ! The Bible gives very clear advice to husbands concerning the treatment of wives.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus, husbands are exhorted to: “love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.”

Charles Saatchi take note.......you may be rich and powerful, but the living God who judges the living and the dead always has the last word....so wise up, repent and start acting like the husband God intends you to be. Prove to the nation that you are a worthy husband for Nigella rather than the ‘prat’ that’s starring in the newspapers.

 

No comments: