Domestic Violence and the Church

There’s a truly sad story about domestic violence and the church in the SMH.

Ten years ago I was in the middle of a situation that an anti-domestic expert called “intimate partner terrorism” on Q&A this week. My then husband was supposedly a Christian, a very pious, rather obsessive one. He was a great amateur preacher, very encouraging to his friends and evangelistically inclined. He led Bible studies. He wanted to train for the ministry. He just had one little problem. He liked psychologically torturing me. And dragging me by the hair around our apartment. And punching me – hard, whilst telling me how pathetic I was. He gave me lists with highlighted sections of Bible passages about nagging wives and how I should submit to him. I was subjected to almost the full catalogue of abusive behaviour.

John Harrower, Anglican bishop of Tasmania, has a good response to this issue from all the way back in 2004, which is still worth reading (see here).

According to Harrower, some mistakes Christians have made:

• We have fooled ourselves that domestic violence does not happen in Christian homes – thus we have failed to hear and failed to believe.
• We have clutched at simplistic tools.
• We have wrongly applied ‘forgiveness’
• We have overestimated the power and influence of our having a ‘word to the offender.’
• The tools we have given perpetrators have been inadequate.
• We have assisted him or her to evade reality or the need to do the deep work of change.
• We have short changed on what repentance needs to look like.
• We have underestimated the grip wrong behaviour has in lives.
• We have failed to direct to professionals who may be able to assist in the hard work of change.
• We have been tempted to collude that this behaviour is just a matter of private morality for the offender, under-emphasising the fact that the behaviour is also a crime, and that there are very long term consequences for victims.
• The tools we have given victims have often been simplistic,
• Often advocating forgiveness prematurely.
• Often implying that forgiveness only has one shape – the automatic reinstatement of someone back to the same position from which they can still harm others.