By Catherine Clark Kroeger

I once heard Janet Reno declare that some abused women live in a prison far more cruel than any created by a government. They exist within a many-sided trap. Try as they may, they cannot find an opening by which they might escape to a world of safety and sanity. The first side is denial: they cannot believe they are actually being abused, nor can the church believe there is family abuse among its members. Despite research showing that the rate is the same as in contemporary society, we all like to think that our particular church is too spiritual for such an evil to be found within its ranks. Some earnest Christians even go so far as to deny the validity of the statistics coming from police stations, shelters, hospitals and morgues. If the problem doesn’t exist, then it need not be addressed.

The second side is similar to the first: the church’s unwillingness to believe the victim’s story even if there is substantiating evidence. When a victim comes to a realization of the nature of her experience, her disclosure may well draw rebuke and repudiation instead of support. The church that might be expected to help may instead refuse any kind of involvement. Often it is easier to lend credence to the abuser rather than to the victim. Recently, I was told of the wife of an affluent businessman who went to her pastor when the abuse became unbearable. When the pastor proved highly unresponsive, the woman revealed her circumstances to several others on the church staff. Thereafter, the husband made an enormous contribution to the church building fund, and all who had heard the story were dismissed from their positions.

The next side is fear of rejection by her family or her church. A friend of a survivor complained, “Our church sends enormous amounts of aid overseas, but we can’t even spare a basket of groceries for one of our own members who is fleeing severe abuse.” Some women are threatened with excommunication if they do not immediately return to their husbands. Many would rather continue in desperate situations at home rather than be condemned or shunned by their faith community. Yet the Scriptures call upon us to deliver the oppressed from the hand of the violent.

Sometimes we have not been realistic in dealing with a bad situation. Jeremiah said, “They offer superficial treatments for the mortal wounds of the daughter of my people. They give assurances of peace when there is no peace” (Jer. 8:11). Often there has been an idealization and idolization of the family that leads people to believe that God’s blessing is only available when a married couple is living together. Yet, it is clear that Jesus’ followers had left their homes to follow him and that there was a place for this in God’s plan.

There is sometimes an insistence that divorce is never an option, although God declares three times that He has divorced Israel (Isa.50:1; 54:6–7; Jer. 3:8);  Both Old and New Testaments contain provision for divorce in cases that are destructive of the human spirit. It is sort of like a safety hatch, causing many congregations to force couples back into a living situation before it is advisable. God does indeed hate divorce, as do many people, but there are other things that God hates as well:

There are seven things that the Lord hates:  There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family. (Prov. 6:17–19)

“I hate a man's covering his wife with violence, as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty....You have wearied the Lord with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them,” or “Where is the God of justice?” (Mal. 2:16–17)

Another barrier is our conclusion that if the situation is all that bad, the victim ought to help herself. Yet central to all of this is the victim’s inability to help herself. Outsiders may ask why she doesn’t leave the relationship. Often, however, she has been subjected to prolonged psychological warfare that leaves her incapable of constructive action. The director of our local agency recently declared, “Victims of domestic violence are in an altered state. Up seems down. It’s important to understand that if someone is a victim all these years, it’s sort of like she’s been brainwashed. You are in essence a prisoner.”[1] A woman at the shelter added, “They break you down. You feel less than human. They isolate you. They say, ‘No one cares about you. Only I love you.’ And you start to believe it. Then it builds to the physical. It’s worse for people with higher social status. Society puts more pressure on them. It’s more embarrassing.”

Yet another side of the trap is insistence on immediate forgiveness. Forgiveness is indeed a biblical concept, but only after the offender has radically changed his ways. It takes a substantial amount of time to insure that there has been actual transformation. Many a victim is compelled to return to a dangerous situation because the offender has been so convincing in his profession of repentance. Transformation is a long, slow process, as is also genuine forgiveness. Too speedy forgiveness may convince the perpetrator that the problem was not particularly grave and does not require much hard work on his part. It is important to differentiate between forgiveness and reconciliation. There can be forgiveness of past conduct while still maintaining a prudent regard for safety. A precipitate return to the home may endanger the victim and her children,

An extremely insidious side of the trap is the suspicion with which church folk view the services available at community shelters. There the staff, both professional and volunteer, is trained to provide safety and security to those in need. Only the church can supply the spiritual support needed by the victim, but community resources are often far better suited to address other aspects of the total situation. Sometimes the shelter movement has been suspicious of the church because of its disregard for the victim’s needs and safety. Clearly, there is a need for better working relationships, and a good slogan is “From the steeple to the shelter.” This is a good way to break open the trap.

A seemingly insurmountable barrier is that the Bible speaks of the husband as “head” of the wife and instructs the wife to “submit.” In these mandates, both pastors and abusers find justification for the male exercise of power and control. We need always to ask how terms were understood among the people who actually spoke the ancient languages in which the texts are written. In point of fact, “head” was not ordinarily used as a metaphor for leadership or dominance, but rather as source or point of beginning, just as today we speak of the “head” of a river.

It is just this concept of life flowing from a source that we find explicated by the apostle Paul in Colossians 2:19 and Ephesians 4:15–16. In the only two passages dealing with the function of the head in relation to the body, he maintains that the head not only causes growth but causes the body to build itself up. A more expanded paraphrase might read as follows

From the head the entire body grows with the growth of God as it is supplied by the head and held together by every ligament and sinew.  (Col. 2:19)

Paul gives very nearly the same concept when he turns to the relationship of head and body in Ephesians 4—certainly a passage to take seriously when we are considering Ephesians 5. The Apostle wrote:

Let us grow up in all things unto Him who is Christ, the Head. He causes the body to build itself up in love as the head provides empowerment according to the proportion appropriate for each member as they are bound and supported by every sinew.

We cannot do better than to emphasize the interdependence and relationship noted by Paul between head and body. How illuminating to conceive of the husband as empowering the wife to build herself up in love so that she may grow into the person God meant her to be.

Christ declared, “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” Survivors of abuse, along with their caregivers, can step outside of the trap. By God’s grace they can live lives of wholeness, standing in His freedom, affirming the healing power of the written and healing Word.

[1] “This really couldn’t happen to me,” Cape Cod Times, 11 April 2007, p. 12.