The response of Tamar and her father, King David, show the personal trauma and alteration of social status that such an event produces. Tamar’s reaction is captured in 2 Samuel 13:19-20 where it says:

“Tamar put ashes on her head and tore the ornate robe she was wearing. She put her hands on her head and went away, weeping aloud as she went... And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom’s house, a desolate woman.”

Tamar had been honored to wear the royal robe of a virgin daughter of the king. A virgin daughter of the king was a valuable commodity that could be used in negotiations with other countries or in political alignments. Tamar had great self-worth and had been prepared for a life of prominence in the royal courts of the Near East. But, now she had lost everything. Tamar’s status had changed forever. She could no longer look forward to being part of international treaties or negotiations. She no longer represent her father’s strength and national influence. She would never be offered in marriage to a prominent leader, a national military hero or an important foreign royal ally to enjoy the eminence and luxury of court life. Tamar would live the rest of her life unusable and unwanted. She had suddenly become a desolate woman who had slipped from great opportunity into obscurity in a brief moment of time.

King David’s response was similarly revealing:

“When King David heard all this, he was furious.” - 2 Samuel 13:21

David was furious, but inactive. David was upset by his son’s actions and the violation of his daughter, but it is difficult to punish or remedy a sin that David is guilty of himself. How could David address his son Amon when David was guilty of the same thing? How could David comfort his daughter when David’s wife, Bathsheba, had, in a sense, been violated in a very similar way by David himself?

The scriptures merely say that when the King heard this report he was furious. David's own sin had multiplied and at the same time left his hands tied. It would be two whole years before another one of David's sons felt compelled to take action in the place that David himself was paralyzed to act. Tamar's brother, Absalom, would kill Amnon.

“The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult
and left untried.”
– G.K. Chesterton

Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) organized the church, centralized its power and worked to gain control of the governments of Christendom. Innocent III said that the pope was more than a man sitting in Peter’s seat, but was the “Vicar of Christ” being “below God but beyond man.” The church council known as the Fourth Lateran Council met in 1215 to accept Innocent’s ideas and ratify hundreds of decrees for the church. These decrees included an annual requirement for each person to appear before a priest for confession and the taking of communion. Also, the council approved the seizure of heretics (anyone who disagreed with the church) by the state governments and they officially accepted the doctrine of transubstantiation.