It happened again in a church this past Sunday.

Not mine, but someone I know.

The preacher twisted the David and Bathsheba story so that she became a wily seductress who enticed the powerful king into sin.

His exact words were: Bathsheba knew where she was in her cycle, that she was fertile, and she laid a trap for David.

Never mind that he was the one spying on her, while she was obeying God’s law by bathing after her cycle.

Never mind that the text says the messengers David sent took (לָקַח) her—as in Eve taking the fruit. As in taking in hand. As in seizing. As in carried away.

Never mind that David is condemned roundly by the prophet Nathan for it, and David owns up to it as his sin alone.

Scripture puts the blame squarely on David. Never on Bathsheba.

If this scripture twisting weren’t bad enough (why do we keep abusing this poor woman?!); when my friend (who’s a woman) expressed heartache that scriptures keep being twisted by men to the harm of God’s precious daughters; she was asked: Why does it matter if Bathsheba was in on it or not?

A dude asked that.

Then he added: Why do you hate men?!

That’s not a gentle answer. That’s not loving. It’s abusive.

There are so many the past couple of years who have scolded me for stirring the pot; who have told me not to talk about these things on social media because it’s “divisive” and “not uplifting.”

That these problems are not rampant in churches; to stop being a White Knight.

Listen—I don’t believe my sisters in Christ are damsels in distress.

But I do know this. If you’re willing to throw Bathsheba, whom you’ve never met, under the bus—what’s going to stop you from doing that to God’s living daughters now?

If you’re going to twist her story, why should I—or they—believe you won’t twist theirs?

Most of the godly women I know are not delicate china that breaks easily.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stand around being benignly, harmlessly, neutrally uplifting while a bunch of sanctimonious oafs manhandle them.

This also applies to women who’ve bought into the kind of thinking that blames Bathsheba.

The ones who are constantly gaslighting, mean-girling, bullying, shaming, and scolding other women in the church for not living up to some arbitrary standard.

If you’re one of those women, you may be a bigger contributor to the problem than the men who drag Bathsheba from the pulpit.

Stop it.