Pastors, church, and ministry leaders: Please refrain from ever using the Bible as a means of keeping women in physically or emotionally abusive relationships.
If you believe in hell—that working in direct opposition to the will of God means spending eternity roasting alive—then, on behalf of the abused women who’ve written me in response to my Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships, please consider that Jesus—hero of the oppressed, champion of the meek, defender of the weak, Deliverer, Lamb, Advocate, Protector, Chief Shepherd, Prince of Peace, giver of the Great Commandment—reserves a place in the lowest reaches of hell for anyone who uses His good and honorable name as a justification for evil.
And make no mistake: a stronger, more powerful person emotionally or physically beating a weaker person is as evil as evil gets.
You might, through your arrogant, morally misguided perversion of the Bible, be able to talk a woman who is weak and afraid into believing that God ever supports and desires that evil. I wish I could be there when you try to talk God into the same thing.
![John Shore on The Huffington Post](http://johnshore.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/huffpost.jpg?w=120 "John Shore on The Huffington Post\")
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I wish that anyone in the church had been sympathetic or supportive of me 23 years ago. Fortunately, I did not stay in the marriage a very long time, but it could have been almost a year less. I had one minister tell me that my husband’s salvation and redemption depended on my submission to him. That my love and endurance would be the example to him and give him the reason to change. Another minister completely ignored my admission about the abuse that was occurring and lectured me on the importance of marriage and the sin of divorce (as if I had told him nothing). A Christian counselor (which we both went to see) told me that my son’s misbehavior was the cause of the problems in our marriage, this was after I had expressed my concern that the abuse I endured would also eventually be inflicted on my son. With each one of these people, I had hoped that they would help me escape from the marriage and offer me assistance to start over in my life.
When we focus only on the end result we miss the insidious causes of the problems.
There are so many patriarchal and authoritarian attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and practices that are condoned and even promoted within churches. It’s only in the last decades that anything much has been done about church awareness and action relating to child abuse. Now the focus is moving to domestic violence. But the most significant changes will come when we identify, highlight, create awareness of the underlying factors (which are often condoned, accepted or promoted) and bring about change at the emotional, attitudinal, mental, spiritual and social levels.
Perhaps then we might truly see Jesus reflected in Christianity!
The Faith Trust Institute has been working tirelessly for over 30 years to educate religious leaders and faith communities about what they can do to stop being part of the problem and start affirming the power of faith to support and transform the lives of DV victims/survivors.
http://www.faithtrustinstitute.org
When you look at the types of people leading the types of churches that advocate this sort of behavior, it’s not difficult to understand why spousal/child abuse is so pervasive among this lot. They’re usually self-educated and grew up in households where the female presence was often maligned and abused in front of them. If they aren’t gay, then they’re the ones advocating this behavior is in keeping with the teachings of the Bible.
There should be an extremely high standard of education for people who want to open up their own church, and they shouldn’t get tax exempt status until they pass a barage of psychological and theological tests to determine if they’re fit enough to lead a congregation responsibly.
Along these lines, my daughter was forced to endure several years of verbal and emotional abuse from her alcoholic mother. She was thrown out twice and the second time came to live with me. Both of her pastors convinced her to return to her mother’s home where she continued to be abused. Fortunately, she is now in college but is still often reminded by her mother that she, apparently, is the worst daughter in the world. My two colleagues will never admit to having made a mistake.
God that’s so awful.
Perfect. Now can your next blog be: “Christian Leaders: For God’s Sake Stop Empowering Parents to Abuse Their Children”? Just a thought.
@Laura: AMEN!
Fantastic post, John.
Thank you, John. The world desperately needs more men who are willing to speak up for abused women. Right now, it’s far too easy for the Powers That Be to claim we’re all a bunch of hysterical liars… the lengths that abused women need to go through to be believed and protected can be unreal.
i am glad there is a person like you in the world who writes things like this. thank you.
I agree with the original post wholeheartedly, and would like to add that not only should NOBODY (pastors or otherwise) accept and/or support physical abuse but it should also include a refusal to accept and/or support emotional and verbal abuse. There is much in God’s word that speaks with contempt against the damage done by the tongue.
Thank you so much for saying this. My friend was in an abusive marriage, and her pastor knew about it. and did nothing. I thank God that she was strong enough to leave on her own.
I can’t thank you sufficiently for doing all the work you do in advocating against domestic violence, especially with reading the last round of letters and columns. When I finally got the courage to file for divorce from my abuser, I was told by my pastor-father and organist-mother that if I had tried harder, if I had been a better wife, things wouldn’t be this way, because of how frustrating I can be to live with. Even then, as weak and beaten down as I was, I knew/felt that was wrong. They knew so much of what had happened (tho not all) and they only encouraged me to “repair my marriage” and “be a better wife.” When he started lurking around again in spite of the restraining order, they thought it was a great opportunity to “work on my marriage.” The end result of that was I moved clear across the country and speak to them rarely at best. I understand how completely warped their thinking is now. I wish I had the strength then that I have now, but they too did everything they could to weaken me. (My mother told me once when I was a teenager that the first thing you have to do in raising a child is break their spirit. They almost succeeded.)
“(My mother told me once when I was a teenager that the first thing you have to do in raising a child is break their spirit. They almost succeeded.)” I’m glad they didn’t succeed. Unfortunately, I’ve heard that POV expressed by Christians writing about parenting before. In fact, I think that might have been said by James Dobson. Certainly, it was implied in his books.
To all of you in an abusive relationship: Remember that {GOD loves you, God LOVES you, God loves YOU}
You are His Precious Child! Any guilt you may feel in leaving this abusive relationship does not come from God but from the father of lies. God has a plan for you – plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
In an abusive relationship there is also a lot of "brainwashing" going on…the abuser will, over time, convince the abused that they are worthless without (the abuser), that they are incapable of doing anything on their own & that no one else will love them as they are. This is so very wrong. I only wish I could give strength to all of those people to resist that systematic brainwashing & love themselves as they should. They are NOT worthless, and they CAN be a whole person without someone else controlling their very lives. The key is self-empowerment for the "victims"…once they can achieve that, they are no longer "victims".
Having seen and heard about so many abuses of various churches it would be my wish, you actually NAME NAMES!
Shine God's light on these churches, these ministries, these pastors and practices. It is all well and good to post anomously about a church but that does nothing for all the little girls being brainwashed into believing that divorce is a sin and abuse is a god given right to males. ONLY the light of day can begin to wash away the evil taints on these pastors, clerics, priests.
Make these abusers defend themselves in the light of day and the press and court systems.
An individual may escape but what is left behind? All that happens is the problem is passed onto another generation of young girls to accept and deal with it.
Name those people and make THEM defend themselves in the press, put THEM on the defensive to defend their positions PUBLICALLY. I like a lot of what I am reading but it is all defense AGAINST them… it is better to make them defend themselves to the school board about abusing their kids, defending themselves as reporters dog THIER trails.
I am highly proactive in this area and the first thing I ALWAYS recommend is SHINE THE LIGHT on it .. sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Exposing this evil to ‘the light of day is the best advice of all!. This is how the FDLS and other abusive cults have managed to be so secret about their illegal practices and keep women and children captive and hidden.
This is NOT religion.
Organized religion is the longest-running con of them all. There are other (not so easy) ways to lead a full life without buying into all the fantasy. Just because it has been around for so long doesn't make it true. Christianity and most other faiths are dangerous when they blind their followers to reality.
Thanks for clearing that up for us in one fell swoop. Comments like this that are dismissive and sweeping only serve to make people defensive and identify you as someone who’s not invested in real dialogue that honors the actual complexity of most things that are institutionalized, powerful and catalysts for both good and evil. Consider actually *thinking* prior to commenting on something so important.
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