{"id":30016,"date":"2017-11-17T06:00:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T11:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=30016"},"modified":"2017-11-20T08:35:04","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T13:35:04","slug":"the-connection-between-domestic-abuse-and-church-shootings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2017\/11\/the-connection-between-domestic-abuse-and-church-shootings\/","title":{"rendered":"The Connection Between Domestic Abuse and Church Shootings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"fear-1131143_1280\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Officials said that religion was not a motive for Devin Kelley when he murdered 26 people as they worshiped in Sutherland, Texas.\u00a0<\/a> Rather, his motive was a \u201cdomestic\u201d conflict with his estranged wife\u2019s parents.\u00a0\u00a0As I commented<\/a>, any such attack on a church has to do with religion.\u00a0 Nevertheless, research does show that a large percentage of church shootings do also involve domestic violence<\/a>. The question is, what\u2019s\u00a0 the connection?\u00a0 Why do men who abuse their wives sometimes shoot up her church?<\/p>\n

\n

Kelley\u00a0was thrown out of the Air Force and imprisoned for 12 months for\u00a0repeatedly beating, kicking, and choking\u00a0his wife and\u00a0fracturing the skull of her toddler, his stepson.<\/a>\u00a0 His wife divorced him, but after getting out of prison, he married a second time and abused his second wife also.\u00a0 She left him, though they were not divorced, and Kelley began threatening her parents.\u00a0 They sometimes attended First Baptist in Sutherland Springs, though not on the day of Kelley\u2019s attack, when he massacred the congregation anyway.<\/p>\n

On that same day, there was another church shooting that did not attract as much news coverage.\u00a0 In Fresno, California, a gunman killed his estranged wife and her new boyfriend as they left a Catholic mass.<\/p>\n

It turns out that church shootings are not all that uncommon.\u00a0 In 2016, according to security expert Carl Chinn,<\/a> there were 65 violent deaths at church.\u00a0 Fifty-two were homicides, with seven suicides, and six were \u201cperpetrators\u201d killed as they were committing their crimes.\u00a0 Of the homicides, 25% were \u201cspillovers\u201d from domestic violence.\u00a0 (Takeaway:\u00a0\u00a0Chinn says that churches with members going through this should take precautions.)<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the connection?\u00a0 If a man decides to kill his wife, why does he do so when she is in church?\u00a0 And why does he sometimes take out innocent members of the congregation who have nothing to do with his marriage?<\/p>\n

Maybe the twisted psychology of the perpetrators goes something like this:\u00a0 A man who is violent against his own wife must realize on some level that\u00a0he is being bad<\/em>.\u00a0 But he is so angry.\u00a0 Her very innocence enrages him.\u00a0 He resents her goodness, which condemns him further.\u00a0 And if she goes to church<\/em> that only adds to his fury.\u00a0 \u201cShe thinks she\u2019s better than me!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cShe\u2019d rather spend time with all those holy rollers than me!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cShe probably complains about me to those church people!\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll show her. . .I\u2019ll show them all!\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe striking at her church is an attempt to hurt her on a deeper level than he has hurt her before, not just attacking her physically, as he has been doing, but attacking her in her spiritual life.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 (Feel free to add your own thoughts about this.)<\/p>\n

But it occurred to me that there\u00a0may be a deeper reason, a profoundly spiritual reason.\u00a0 And it has to do with vocation.<\/p>\n

God is in vocation, and, according to Ephesians 5, marriage embodies the relationship between Christ and the Church.<\/p>\n

Husbands are enjoined to love their wives, \u201cas Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her\u201d (Ephesians 5: 25).\u00a0 If a husband rebels against his calling to love and serve his wife and instead harms her, he is refusing to be a Christ to her.\u00a0 In\u00a0his rebellion against marriage, instead of sacrificing himself for his wife, as Christ did for the church, he sacrifices her\u00a0<\/em>for himself<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He is violent against her.\u00a0 And in extreme cases he may be violent against her church.\u00a0 This is because, in vocation, his wife is<\/em> the church!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo by Alexas_Fotos, via Pixabay, CC0, Creative Commons<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research does show that a large percentage of church shootings do also involve domestic violence. Why do men who abuse their wives sometimes shoot up her church?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":30100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,600,16,48],"tags":[5903,5904,5905,5907,5906],"class_list":["post-30016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church","category-crime","category-family","category-vocation","tag-church-shootings","tag-domestic-violence","tag-spouse-abuse","tag-vocation-of-husband","tag-vocation-of-marriage"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Connection Between Domestic Abuse and Church Shootings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some 25% of church shootings are spillovers from wife abuse. But why do men strike out at their wives by attacking her church? 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