When she left Peter, Sally also left her church parish, feeling isolated and unwanted as a single mother. Ten years later, she is still shattered.
She wishes she had heard just one sermon on domestic violence, or had one supportive ear. The fact that domestic violence occurs in church communities is well established.
Queensland academic Dr Lynne Baker's book, Counselling Christian Women on How to Deal with Domestic Violence, cites a study of Anglican, Catholic and Uniting churches in Brisbane that found 22 per cent of perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse go to church regularly. But American research provides one important insight: men who attend church less often are most likely to abuse their wives. Regular church attenders are less likely to commit acts of intimate partner violence.
Those who are often on the periphery, in other words, who sometimes float between parishes, or sit in the back pews. For these men, the rate of abuse committed is alarmingly high. As theology professor Steven Tracy wrote in :. Some attribute these findings to the conservative denominations and churches that preach and model male control, with male-only priesthoods and inviolate teachings on male authority.
Adelaide's Anglican Assistant Bishop Tim Harris says, "it is well recognised that males usually seeking to justify abuse will be drawn to misinterpretations [of the Bible] to attempt to legitimise abhorrent attitudes. Stressing that his diocese "strongly rejected" any teachings on male superiority, he told ABC News: "This has been a particular concern for those coming out of evangelical and fundamentalist backgrounds.
In Australia, it is widely accepted that gender inequality is a contributing factor to violence against women. The Australian Institute of Family Studies probed this question and concluded: "The vital element to consider is the gender norms and beliefs surrounding male dominance and male superiority, created by power hierarchies that accord men greater status.
This is confirmed by global research. A study published in the Lancet in analysed data from 66 surveys across 44 countries, covering the experiences of almost half a million women. It found that the greatest predictor of partner violence was "environments that support male control", especially "norms related to male authority over female behaviour".
The past two decades of research has also shown women in religious communities are less likely to leave violent marriages, more likely to believe that the abuser will change, less inclined to access community resources and more likely to believe it is their fault; that they have failed as wives as they were not able to stop the abuse. A culture of victim blaming or shaming can cause women to exit the church entirely. The most common story in the dozens heard by ABC News is that when marriages break, the men stay and the women leave.
The CEO of Safe Steps Family Violence Centre, Annette Gillespie, says that in 20 years of working with victims of domestic violence, she found it was "extremely common" that women will be "encouraged by the church to stay in an abusive relationship". Women in faith communities where divorce is shunned, and shameful, often feel trapped in abusive marriages. In a submission to the Royal Commission on Family Violence, one Victorian woman wrote that five different ministers had told her to remain with a violent husband.
This is particularly true in the Catholic Church, where divorce is forbidden, as will be explored in greater detail in an upcoming instalment of this series. If pastors prevaricate, or fumble, it could be too late. New research finds women in the church usually only go to their pastors when partners do something so violent they fear they will die. After year-old Wubanchi Asefaw was told by her church leaders to return to her husband in early , he stabbed her to death in their western Sydney home shortly afterwards.
Unlike the Koran, there are no verses in the Bible that may be read as overtly condoning domestic abuse. To the contrary, it is made clear that God hates violence and relationships must be driven by selflessness, grace and love. There is no mainstream theologian in Australia who would suggest that a church should be anything but a sanctuary, or that a Christian relationship be marked by anything but love.
But church counsellors and survivors of family violence report that many abusive men, like Sally's husband, rely on twisted — or literalist — interpretation of Bible verses to excuse their abuse.
Baker, whose book on counselling abused Christian women sprang from years of doctoral research, writes: "biblical principles and scriptures may be used by the perpetrator as a point of authority to condone his actions, or perhaps to 'prove' to the victim that she is not fulfilling her marital obligations.
First are the verses — cited by Sally's husband Peter, above — telling women to submit to their husbands and male authority, under the doctrine known as male headship. And third are those in 1 Peter that tell women to submit to husbands in a very particular way, as they follow instructions to slaves to submit to even "harsh masters". But Denis Fitzgerald, executive director at Catholic Social Services Victoria, says it is crucial for the Bible to be read in light of the culture it was produced in.
And Simon Smart, the Executive Director of the Centre for Public Christianity points to "what [Croatian theologian] Miroslav Volf describes as the difference between 'thin' and 'thick' religion — where thin religion is stripped of its moral content and used as a weapon for goals completely unrelated to the faith. The doctrine that is most commonly, and controversially cited by abusers is male headship, where a husband is to be the head of the wife in marriage and the wife is to submit, and men are to be head of the church.
What submission means takes many different forms. At its extreme edge, it is complete subservience. In the s and s, literature coming out of the United States suggested it meant putting up with every possible harm. According to Elizabeth Hanford Rice in her book Me? Obey Him? Three female authors — Dorothy McGuire, Carol Lewis and Alvena Blatchley — even praised a woman for staying with a man who tried to murder her.
Correct interpretations of scripture are debated in ways not dissimilar to those in the Koran; there is disagreement over translation, hermeneutics, exegesis, the relevance of the culture in which it was written, the then-radical attitudes of acceptance Christ expressed towards women and the role of women in the early church. These debates hit peak expression in the latter half of the 20th century as most mainstream Christian denominations moved to ordain women to the priesthood, to equal positions to men.
Today, those churches in Australia that do not have women priests include the Catholic, Lutheran and Presbyterian churches, and the influential Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church. Some of these groups have responded to the expansion of women's role elsewhere by restricting it further in their own ranks. Today, it is clear proponents of headship intend to teach a form of self-sacrificial love — for a man to be head of his wife like Christ is head of the church, and to sacrifice himself to his wife in the same way.
In , prominent American evangelical pastor John Piper, a frequent visitor to Sydney, was asked, "What should a wife's submission to her husband look like if he's an abuser? His response was that if he was "simply hurting her", then she should "endure verbal abuse for a season", and "endure perhaps being smacked one night", before seeking "help from the church".
Almost four years later, he issued a " clarifying statement " in which he called on men in the church to discipline abusers, and uphold "a beautiful vision" of marriage where men lead with gentleness. Another influential pastor James Dobson has in the past advised women to bait their abusive husbands to goad them into behaving badly, which he believed would shock them into realising they had a problem and agree to counselling.
In , American pastor Steven J Cole concluded in a sermon that "a wife may need to submit to some abuse". My view is that a wife must submit to verbal and emotional abuse, but if the husband begins to harm her physically, she needs to call civil or church authorities. In , American evangelist Kirk Cameron told the Christian Post : "Wives are to honour and respect and follow their husband's lead, not to tell their husband how he ought to be a better husband.
Time and again in evangelical literature, marital success is predicated on female submission; it is the basis on which women are judged or praised. In Sydney, as recently as , David Ould, the rector of Glenquarie Anglican Church — also active in the conservative Anglican Church League — asked if it might be "a Godly wise choice" for women to stay with abusive husbands given the Bible teaching in 1 Peter 3, telling wives to submit to their husbands.
These verses follow on from those in 1 Peter 2 that tell slaves to submit to masters — even those who are harsh, or, in other words, physically violent. Ould, who now works to protect women in his parish and region from domestic violence, later clarified his comments. He told ABC News his central message was: "I would understand how women would read that passage and choose to stay, but I myself would be urging them to get out and work out what it means from a safe position.
Today, a growing number of counsellors, psychologists and welfare workers are reporting that abusers cite the idea of male headship to sanction violence. Anglican counsellor from Charles Sturt University Nicola Lock, who has been working with domestic violence cases for 25 years, says the use of headship theology in spousal abuse is "very common".
As Dr Johanna Harris Tyler, a lecturer at the University of Exeter in the UK who was brought up in Sydney Anglicanism, argues: "While male headship may not necessarily trip the switch of abuse, it can provide the wiring.
This is a particularly sensitive point in the Sydney Anglican Church, which is known for its robust advocacy of male headship. Any suggestion of its abuse usually evokes vehement rebuke and defence from senior clergy. Ministers who uphold headship say their teachings are just being confused with patriarchy, and twisted by those who abuse power.
Those who uphold "egalitarian" views of marriage in this diocese report being sidelined, overlooked for jobs and ostracised. Some told ABC News they could not publicly state that they believed in equal relationships between men and women, for they would lose their jobs. And as domestic violence advocate Barbara Roberts points out, in conservative churches women are often taught that desire to overthrow male authority is a sign of sin — thereby making feminism innately wrong.
In other words, if male authority and leadership is from God, any challenge to that is from women's sinful natures — or the devil. Kara Hartley is the Archdeacon for Women in the Diocese of Sydney and deputy chair of a taskforce looking into church responses to domestic violence. She stresses there is nothing whatsoever in the Bible to condone abuse, and that men and women just have different roles.
But actually when they're put together, a woman's voluntary … willing submission to her husband, in his loving sacrificial care of her, there's a beautiful picture there. Sydney Anglican Archbishop Dr Glenn Davies agrees, telling ABC News "submission is never coercive, it's always voluntary, so the wife offers herself in that relationship. It is important to understand, he says, that "there is no way in which we countenance domestic violence in any form be it spiritual, emotional or physical, in our church, we are absolutely opposed to that".
In February , Catholic bishop Vincent Long cautioned that literal interpretations of the Bible "provide the basis for systematic oppression or structural discrimination of women and lead communities — even church communities — to protecting perpetrators of domestic violence while simultaneously heaping shame and scorn upon its victims".
Sydney psychologist Kylie Pidgeon, who also works with perpetrators and survivors of family violence, wrote in a recent paper that women are more vulnerable in churches where only men lead:.
Women usually fill 'support' roles, such as teaching kids' church, reading the Bible, or preparing morning tea. While the intentions of men in positions of leadership are often good; to exercise their authority with love and care, and while a male-led structure by no means guarantees that women will be abused, it is apparent that patriarchal structures place women at greater risk of abuse.
By failing to pastor women, or encourage them to lead or speak, Pidgeon says, male leadership may unwittingly be "giving 'silent permission' to male congregation members to similarly rule over and neglect their wives".
In churches where women are not allowed to speak or preach, they may also worry that they will not be believed. Erica Hamence, assistant minister at the Anglican St Barnabas Broadway in Sydney, wrote recently that in male-led churches, "women have as much room to speak as the male leaders allow.
That's a profoundly vulnerable position to be in, and one which I suspect some male ministers are not always able to empathise with. Almost all-male hierarchies are common in many conservative congregations across denominations — Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican and Pentecostal — as are poor responses from pastors.
Susan, a student and mother, went to a Pentecostal Church in Adelaide for most of her married life. She describes her marriage as akin to a horror story.
She says she was "repeatedly raped" by her husband and was continually unnerved by strange incidents that kept happening to her children in her absence. Bruises appeared, faces were bloodied, weak excuses were given. One day her husband was rebuking his daughter for wearing a revealing top when "she ran and hit the wall" and lost a tooth.
Other enemies were known tyrants who viciously oppressed and exploited people. But one man, Noah , God saw to be righteous, and so He chose to restart the world with the one salvageable human family in existence. He is a God of many chances, offering grace and mercy even toward great evildoers. He told Jonah to go preach His word to the city of Nineveh, warning the people God was going to overthrow their city because of their awful wrongdoings. However, the threat of impending doom woke the people from their evil ways, and they repented their sins.
God offered them grace and did not destroy Nineveh Jonah In 1 Kings 21 — after His prophet Elijah told the bloodthirsty King Ahab that God would bring disaster upon him, wiping out his descendants, whose remains would be devoured by dogs and birds — Ahab tore his clothes and fasted in repentance. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? While the violence peppered throughout the Old Testament can be troubling and confusing to believers, we are to take heart and know that God loves us.
He hates evil and will punish when necessary. But take heart! Jessica Brodie is an award-winning Christian novelist, journalist, editor, blogger, and writing coach and the recipient of the American Christian Fiction Writers Genesis Award for her novel, The Memory Garden. What do you say to a girl in elementary school about a text with which you have such a complicated relationship? One all too common way that Christians have responded to such questions is to talk about the difference between the Old and New Testaments, point out that this text is part of the Old Testament, and then talk about how superior the New Testament is.
I refuse to go that route. Rejecting the Old Testament closes readers off to the first three-fourths of the Bible. It means disowning the very Bible Jesus used. It increases the shameful distance between Jewish and Christian communities of faith—between our theological grandparents, our theological neighbors, and ourselves. I hate that. The Old Testament is where I learned my pacifism, and the Old Testament says every bit as much about loving enemies as the New Testament does.
Proverbs tells people to feed and give water to their enemies. He was simply a really good interpreter of the Old Testament. In Isaiah, God transforms the most violent beasts into friends of young, vulnerable animals. A consistent theme in the Old Testament is that people should trust in God, not in weapons. Horses were military animals. Imagine the US Congress outlawing the army from having tanks. No way! Recently escaped slaves, the Israelites wander across the Sea of Reeds like a group of homeless refugees.
Egyptian chariots bolt across the landscape in hot pursuit. But amid the muddy bottom of that sea, chariot wheels become stuck in the mire. When the waters come crashing down, armor weighs the soldiers down. Every sign of military strength ends up working against the Egyptians. In another time and place, long after the monarchy has been established, the Assyrian war machine encircles Jerusalem.
Brutal war criminals of the ancient world, the Assyrians appear ready to torture and kill the people of God. I could go on. Few things are more contentious today than the question of who has the right to which land in the Middle East.
Isaac could respond with violence.
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