This is a question I’ve been battling for many years now. But it came rushing back after a few comments over at Gentle Wisdom between Peter, Sue, and myself, which led to this post by Sue: What was going on in Ephesus, and other good stuff.
And then Saddleback church and pastor Rick Warren came into the mix because of the handling of one particular abusive situation, which led teaching pastor Tom Holladay to say:
“There’s something in me that wishes there was a Bible verse that says if they abuse you in this and such kind of way then you can leave them,” said Holladay, but sadly, he concluded, there wasn’t. “It’s not like you can escape the pain,” he said, since the “short-term solution” of divorce leaves the “long-term pain” of a failed marriage. Holladay further qualified that domestic abuse meant regular beatings, not simply a spouse who “grabbed you once.” (read more…)
And leading evangelical voices seem not to be helping:
Some conservative churches push submission teachings to an uncomfortable degree. In 2008, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Bruce Ware said that when male headship is challenged by women seeking to “have their way, instead of submitting to their husbands,” husbands may “respond to that threat to their authority” by becoming abusive. James Dobson argued in his marital therapy book, Love Must Be Tough, that abused women shouldn’t divorce but separate and try to change their husbands’ behavior. He also warned against women who bait men into abuse to gain the “prize” of bruises to display. (read more…)
Physical and emotional abuses against our sisters in the Lord need to stop. How can we think they’re okay?
But I don’t think these abuses are the logical outworkings of a complementarian reading of the sacred Scriptures.
And I too wish the Bible had been more specific in situations like these…
I’m not sure how popular this comment is going to be but here it goes…
If a man is beating a woman, the woman should let a few men know about it. They should set up a sting operation to obtain eye witness testimony.
If eye witness testimony is obtained, the men should beat the living hell out of the abuser. After the beating, they should inform him that the next time he will forfeit his life.
The abuser should be kicked out of the house and be given an opportunity for repentence.
The woman should obtain, and learn how to operate, a firearm.
Stan, perhaps the Saddleback victim tried to do something like this. But the man she was probably counting on to at least spiritually beat up and kick out of the church her abusive husband in fact told him about the conversation. Are there any men such a woman can trust?
Stan, you’re right. This comment is not going to be popular. But where the Christlikeness is all of this beating?
Good question, Peter.
LOL
Peter, Are there any men such a woman can trust?
People can contact me via email.
TC, But where the Christlikeness is all of this beating?
In protecting his bride.
If the woman is willing to go to someone for help and protection the police are there. 3 guys “beat the living hell” out of an abuser and when files a complaint for felony battery, for some of the guys (and often the abused woman herself) conspiracy charges; and if this were church policy that’s racketeering. Then of course there is a likely civil suit. The abuser could end up, rich, with the good samaritans in jail and as president of the church he now owns.
While that solution romantic, if those men actually want to help what they could do is open their homes to the abuse wife and her children when she decides to leave and help set her up with her own place soon thereafter. Doing things like getting her a job will far do far more good then giving her X a few broken ribs.
I agree with you on the gun though I’d throw in a restraining order so that if she has to shoot it is going to be seen as self defense.
But the real issue is in most churches in most situations the church leadership sides with the abuser not the abused wife. Just having the church not make things worse would be a massive improvement.
CD, your solution is a preferred one for me.
But the real issue is in most churches in most situations the church leadership sides with the abuser not the abused wife. Just having the church not make things worse would be a massive improvement.
I’m afraid so. Sometimes due to misreading of the text and much to do about politics.
Just press charges against the man and then file for divorce. Why keep treating the NT like another Torah so that we have to come up with crazy exegetical arguments just to support a position that we already know is right?
Stan, I don’t think that’s a very good solution.
BTW, neither complementarianism or egalitarianism encourages or prevents a man from beating a woman. They’re either that type or they’re not, and if they are then they need the power of the Holy Spirit to change their hearts and help them to see women in a new way.
Bryan L
Bryan L, you’re really onto something with that concept of treating the NT like just another Pharisaical Torah approach.
Well, I believe some think a complementarian reading of some texts often contribute to such (consider the second quote above).
‘In 2008, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Bruce Ware said that when male headship is challenged by women seeking to “have their way, instead of submitting to their husbands,” husbands may “respond to that threat to their authority” by becoming abusive. James Dobson argued in his marital therapy book, Love Must Be Tough, that abused women shouldn’t divorce but separate and try to change their husbands’ behavior. He also warned against women who bait men into abuse to gain the “prize” of bruises to display.’
This probably happens seldom enough that it isn’t even worth mentioning. How many men are going to suddenly become an abuser because they have a bossy wife? Or women who are willing to get bruised but somehow just enough to show but not enough to get sent to the hospital or killed? Dobson sure is popular for a guy who hardly ever talks about Jesus.
Jeff
Jeff, not into Jobson at all. Only read one book of his about ten years ago, The Strong Willed Child.
My feeling is that a lot of abuses are covered up for altruistic reasons. Just me!
I agree with Bryan L about pressing charges. It is a sad day indeed when the secular world care more for the poor and the oppressed than churches do.
Interestingly how quickly a pastor will change his opinion when he finds out that his own daughter are beaten. Suddenly abuse is a valid qualification for divorce.
Why don’t the leaders start preaching about humility and submission to each other for both parties?
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There is some good practical advice in tghis thread. I do, however, think that some complementarian teaching prevents women from addressing the situation as early as they should. Specifically male authority doctrine teaches that the male is entitled to have his way, and the female is not. Here are some other pointers.
1) A woman needs to realize that submission reinforces abuse. Submission will not help out in an abusive situation.
2) She needs to know that she is equally entitled to make decisions for her own life, as her husband is.
3) She needs to realize that she is in no way the cause of the abuse.
4) She needs to make decisions that directly counter her husbands tendency to control, isolate, threaten and denigrate.
5) She needs to have a plan for how to survive single.
6) She needs to accept that divorce can be a good thing.
7) Then she is ready to press charges and file for divorce.
It is typically a very long journey out of the male authority environment for an abused woman.
Sue, thanks for the advice. I can live with every one of them.
I didn’t want to believe a complementarian reading of the text could lead to abuse, but it appears so, even from the admission of prof. Ware and Dobson in the above quote.
CD, yes, good advice for churches.
TC,
I am not sure that a complementarian reading of the text *leads to* abuse. Some women feel that the submission doctrine is, in itself abuse. But others can point to happy complementarian marriages.
However, a teaching of male authority deprives a woman who is abused of all intellectual resources for dealing with her situation. It also buttresses the sense of entitlement of the male.
The worst part is that a non-Christian woman who is abused can express her anger and resentment, can feel justified in fighting the situation. But a Christian woman in this situation feels that, God, the scripture and the church are all stacked against her. She has to fully reject male authority before she can get help.
I do know that other women who have come out of these situations are adamant that the teaching of male authority was destructive. A couple of women who write about this at length are Waneta Dawn, and Jocelyn Andersen.
I personally feel that assigning greater authority on the basis of gender is counterproductive to moral decision-making and responsibility.
“Dobson sure is popular for a guy who hardly ever talks about Jesus.”
Jeff, I laughed out loud when I read this.
Maybe not the response you were looking for, but I get your point as well.
“Dobson sure is popular for a guy who hardly ever talks about Jesus.”
Priceless. I am stealing that one.
>>“Dobson sure is popular for a guy who hardly ever talks about Jesus.”<<
Jeff, I laughed out loud when I read this.
Maybe not the response you were looking for, but I get your point as well.
If you’re familiar Dobson I can understand.
To be more clear I should have said Dobson sure is popular among Christians for a guy who hardly ever talks about Jesus.
I used to listen to his show all the time while driving and he hardly ever talked about the Bible or God in a relational way. Maybe that’s why he has such wide appeal.
Feel free to take it Dan.
Jeff
Restraining orders sometimes work and sometimes they get women killed. Sometimes they lose women custody of their children.
I’m not saying that a woman being beaten should not get a restraining order. I’m just saying not to take that solution so far as to criticize a woman for “not wanting to get out” if she doesn’t take the obvious solution of pursuing a restraining order.
The suggestion about opening your home to an abused woman is what actually saved at least my sanity and who knows, maybe my life. But I lived, with my four children, with the other family for a whole year, before I was able to begin to make it on my own. That’s a huge commitment, but it is probably the main reason I did not return to my abuser at all–I didn’t have to worry about being homeless with my children in order to keep myself safe.
Another reality I’ve experienced is that the option of divorce does not end the abuse. So, again, I would advise respecting a woman’s hesitancy when it seems to a pastor or counselor that if she would just get a divorce her life would be easier. It’s the option I chose, and while I have no regrets about that, I think it’s important that women understand and are equipped to deal with (esp. if they have children) the abuse continuing in even smarter, more “socially acceptable” ways). In some ways (at least in my state) divorce adds the weight of legal power to the “socially acceptable” forms of abuse, especially as pertains to the children.
I am right now struggling with incredible discouragement, because no amount of honest, loving, human parenting seems to be able to counteract the attitudes of disdain, entitlement, disrespect and self-grandiosity that my children’s abusive father feeds in them. The mind games are awful, and when they resist (only one of the four even tries), the mind games increase so that their Dad’s answers to any cognitive dissonance he has created only increases, in the end, the certainty in their minds that he is exactly right, especially as pertains to me. (This is a nightmare for me to watch as well, because unlike women whose abuse got worse because they kept submitting to it, my abuse got worse because I resisted it, even though it was so subtle and “smart” I wasn’t even understanding what was going on. So now I watch my daughter “resist” her Dad’s reasoning the tiniest bit, and then watch her be lured and, in the end, be more convinced than ever that her gentle, sweet, understanding Dad is, after all, right.)
To watch my children develop attitudes that contraindicate the ability to relate healthily is so discouraging, and where it directly affects their abilities to relate healthily to me, their mother, it is crushing and demoralizing. Some days it feels pointless to keep trying to parent and teach them well. It takes so much energy, and it is not only undermined, but actually ups the undermining influences when they are with him (which is a lot).
It also often feels like “the last word” really does belong to the abuser. I can (and did) remove myself from him in every way except the one thing I won’t let go of–the children–and he will use those very children against me. And while that hurts me for me, it hurts like crazy to see it hurting the children. I moved out so he couldn’t have immediate access to me. I gave up fighting for child support because he almost twisted that battle into getting full custody of them and because I didn’t want, in the end, to be that connected to his money and any power he could use that for. But I would not walk away from my children. And so I watch them be his mind game pawns as he keeps on fighting me and my influence on them in incredibly subtle, but powerful ways.
For the first time in my life I actually understand why some abused women seem to “abandon” their children. There is a very real sense in which connecting to the children FEELS like being the catalyst for the husband abusing the children. It’s not the whole truth, and in the end, I believe my children are still better off with me in their lives. But, wow, it’s hard to watch.
All that to say–(1) straightforward, obvious answers really can backfire against a person whose heart is set on destruction, so when you are helping a woman “get out” be aware, trust and respect her hesitancies and resistances to some of your obvious solutions and (2) one of the best things I believe members of a church can do to help an abused woman is to be involved with her, helping her raise her children. Be there to help babysit and the like, but, more importantly, be there to reflect back to her children a different view of their mother than they see in their father’s eyes.
This cannot always happen in words (though it sometimes can, for instance, correcting a child who has just spoken disdainfully of his mother). But I think (hope against hope at least) that my children seeing other people respect me, listen to my opinions, value me, regard me as smart and worthy of consideration, will at least put some little bit of doubts in their certainty that I am a disdainable, disregardable person. I can tell you how hard it is to parent when every single time there is a difference of opinion or they don’t like something I expect of them, their immediate heart attitude is to see me as unjust, ridiculous, unreasonable. I’m not talking about normal teenage attitudes. These attitudes show up even in my eight year old son. I’m talking about attitudes that are there, even when they “condescend” to go along with whatever it is I’m expecting of them. Members of my church can’t step in and parent for me. But they can reflect and affirm to my children, in a variety of ways, my wisdom and value and respect-worthiness as a person and as their mother.
I’m reluctant to get into this, but many responses thus far seem remote from the actual
experience of domestic violence, so I’m going to speak from my own. I spent four years in an
abusive marriage, four years praying for my former husband to change, four years weeping
over my own sins, which I supposed might be in some way to blame, four years in fear, and
four years in intense loneliness, because though I had plenty of friends, this was the deep,
dark secret, the thing I had to hide to protect my husband, who I was convinced was basically
a decent human being. I still think that, even though I couldn’t go on living with him and
even though I eventually concluded I was justified in remarrying after the divorce.
It went on as long as it did because I was naive and didn’t know a few key things about abuse,
and I see some of my former misconceptions reflected in the responses here. So in case there
are any women in abusive marriages reading this, this is for you:
1. By all means pray for the abuser to change and believe it could be possible. But if you stay
in the marriage and wait for this to happen, the overwhelming statistical likelihood is that you
will get seriously hurt. Very, very few abusers ever do change. Sad, but that’s the way it is.
2. Abuse doesn’t happen because of people’s beliefs or their backgrounds. Abusers are found
among people of all classes, all levels of education and all kinds of religious beliefs (from
complementarian Evangelical to liberal atheist). My former husband was not a religious
believer, had a PhD, was the son of two professional parents (his mother was physician), and
in every respect other than domestic abuse, completely without sexism. He didn’t have issues
with anger, was beloved of children and small furry animals. Nothing could have shocked me
more than the gradual recognition (after we were married) that he was doing this over and
over again.
3. Abuse doesn’t happen because women are uppity. The common denominator seems to be
that the man feels powerless for some reason. He can feel threatened by a powerful woman,
but if he’s insecure enough, his little ego can be threatened by someone who’s meek; he can
feel powerless because of his work situation, and seek to wield power in the marriage because
this is the only context in which he can feel powerful. Abuse doesn’t happen because of the
woman, so neither meekness nor assertiveness will help you. It arises from him and his inner
problems. Only he can change those and he has to see that he needs to and he has to want to,
of his own accord. You can’t transfuse your own desire for change into him.
4. The damage done by the abuser is chiefly and most obviously to the woman he abuses. But
that’s not the full extent of the damage. Where there are children, they are not only living
with the anguish of seeing their mother harmed by someone they love, but they are learning
that violence is an appropriate way of living. The abuser is also being damaged. The
argument (to self) that finally got me out of the abusive marriage was the recognition that my
patience, tears and prayers were giving my basically decent husband a context in which he
could continue being the worst in himself: effectively, I was tempting him to a terrible sin. By
saying this, I don’t accept what he often used to say to me (you have this coming because
there’s no other way to make you understand). The alcoholic is responsible for his own
consumption of alcohol–but others aren’t helping by facilitating his drinking. Just so, you
aren’t responsible for the actions of an abuser, but you can limit his opportunities for
deforming his own soul on a daily basis by not providing him with an opportunity to do what
he shouldn’t. Staying in an abusive marriage isn’t helping you or him.
5. With apologies to Stan, whose good heart cheers me ruefully, beating up the abuser isn’t
the answer–it just justifies violence and won’t change the abuser. The answer to domestic
violence is to stop the violence and the only way you can do that without the cooperation of
the perpetrator is to remove the object of abuse from the perpetrator’s grasp.
In my own case, my final word to my former husband was that I wasn’t willing to stay
married unless we got counselling specifically on this issue. He was the one who said he’d
rather divorce. He initiated the proceedings. For several years afterwards I asked myself
whether I would be justified in remarrying if I had the opportunity. For a long time, the
answer of my conscience was no. With time, as I gradually stopped believing all the things he
told me (you can’t understand any other way, you’re ugly, you’re stupid, etc.) I came to feel
that I had done all I could to preserve the marriage, but it takes two to make a marriage, and I
came to feel there was no reason for me to live in solitude because just I hadn’t seen the abuse
coming before the marriage and couldn’t get him to change or seek help after it. I’ve been
happily married to someone else for 18 years now and although it’s still hard to hear Matthew
5 read out in church, I can’t believe that Jesus would fault me, whatever my failings in all of
this. He, more than anyone, knows how hard I tried and his is the only court I’ll ever be tried
in.
Nina, thanks for sharing your testimony and words of wisdom, esp. to anyone woman in an abusive marriage. May God continue to bless you in your subsequent marriage.
I am very delighted to come upon such a discussion! I often feel I am talking into the wind and it is blowing my words away.
“it’s still hard to hear Matthew 5 read out in church, I can’t believe that Jesus would fault me, whatever my failings in all of this.”
Nina, the book “Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery, and Desertion” by Barbara Roberts is an excellent resource for better understanding of Matthew 5. By neglecting to study the context of the time, our churches have put many–women especially–into bondage.
Although I agree with you that men of many belief systems and lack thereof choose to abuse their wives, I disagree about it not being embedded in a belief that they own. Somewhere in your ex-husband, even though he may not admit it out loud, is a belief that he has the right to mistreat a woman. It does not have to be tied to a religious doctrine, to a social strata, or even to extreme stress. Usually, what a person permits himself or herself to do, is seen as permissible by that person. Although, it is very helpful when consequences are in place when we step out of line. One of the big problems with domestic abuse, is that society often fails to apply adequate consequences, or even that the application is so steeped in law instead of in common sense, that the abuser can turn those consequences against his victim and their children.
I am so glad you got out of that situation, Nina, and that you found a loving husband!
Waneta, thanks for your insights and the recommendation of that book.
Nina and Eclexia, thanks so much for your words and your testimonies. As another survivor of abuse I know how true your words are.
I agree with many people here that using violence against an abuser is not the right way to go. Those who do so put themselves at risk of legal penalty.
Romans 13 says in the Church age God has ordained the secular courts to ‘wield the sword’ to restrain and punish the wicked. The church has the power of biblical discipline to admonish and if necessary excommunicate the wicked (1 Cor 5; Matthew 18:15-17). But the state wields the sword.
However, these are the Biblical principles. Getting the secular courts to convict on such crimes is another story altogether. Too often it’s just ‘your word against his’ so there is not enough evidence to convict beyond reasonable doubt. Legal actions may help a victim in some cases, and to some degree, but are certainly not able to solve all the problems. And in certain cases, taking legal action can make some things worse.
And for those who recommend keeping a gun to defend oneself, well here in Australia we don’t have a gun culture like you do in the States so we don’t tend to think that way. But regardless of cultural differences, any weapon a victim has may easily be wrested off them and used against them by an abuser.
The biggest problem (aside from the perpetrators themselves) is the way so many churches fail to exercise biblical discipline properly. So often, as in the Saddleback case, they are great on rhetoric but abysmal at putting it into practice.
The statements of people such as Bruce Ware and James Dobson are another issue. Ware’s view is not explicitly taught by all complementarians (thankfully) but I suspect it’s held subconsciously by many church leaders when they are confronted with allegations of marital abuse. Many leaders make the victim’s problem worse without realising it.
Unlike many victim/survivors of domestic abuse, I’m a complementarian. I am this way not because I have found joy in a new, respectfully complementarian marriage, but because I see complementarianism taught throughout the Bible. But I also see complementarianism being sometimes used to give extra justification to abuse, and to intimidate and lay false guilt upon many women victims.
And to make one more thing clear, I know some victims are male and some perpetrators female. But the majority of cases have male perpetrators.
A helpful resource for broken relationships:
http://thinkpoint.wordpress.com/2007/07/28/forgiveness-is-one-thing-reconciliation-is-another/
Pingback: The Reality is that Divorce Does not End Abuse « A Wife’s Submission
Excellent advice. Churches could help with
#1,2,6 by switching to egalitarian.
#3,4 by education
I’d change #6 to “divorce is a less bad than abuse”. I think you are asking a bit much for churches to ever find that divorce is actually good rather than the lesser of evils.
Elna, yes, pastors do have a way of changing their reading of Scripture whenever a matter becomes personal – sometimes this is good and sometimes it’s not. But solid observation, though.