Tamar Summons the Church to Account: Resisting Patriarchal (and Ecclesial) Impunity in 2 Samuel 13:21

Abstract This article documents and reflects on gender-based Contextual Bible Study (CBS) work on 2 Samuel 13:1–22 over more than thirty-five years, much of it shaped by work with Anglican communities. CBS work on the story of the abuse of Tamar provides a shape to the article, beginning with the identification of the Church by women survivors of violence as the silencer of Tamar, then of the Church as the abuser of Tamar, then of the Church as the excluder of Tamar in its lectionaries and liturgies and then of the Church as abandoning Tamar with impunity. The article summons the Church, though a CBS on 2 Samuel 13:21, to hear the summons of Tamar to change.