Like many of you, I turned to my church for help when I was being abused. Sadly, my church, just like many of yours, failed me. Many of us were We are told to try harder, forgive our abusers, or be a better wife/husband. Our abusers were rarely held accountable for their actions. Our church leaders usually focused on keeping us quiet – not a helpful response. I have written about this many times.
You may be wondering with me, when will the church wake up and smell the coffee?
In the 7 years I have been writing, I have slowly been seeing signs that the church is indeed waking up. Leslie Vernick is a Christian counselor who writes about domestic violence, Karla Downing speaks and writes Christian relationship advice and often talks about domestic violence. One of the loudest voices comes from the blog Crying Out For Justice.
A while back, Barbara Roberts posted a blog about an event called Time to Listen which was held in North Sydney Australia on September 6, 2017. This event hosted several pastors who talked about domestic violence. She summarizes the article written by Eternity News about the event: Churches ‘should unite’ to fight domestic abuse.
Pastor Graham Hill
senior leader within the Baptist Association NSW/ACT and Founding Director of The Global Church Project, speaking to abuse victims said, “Some people say ‘wouldn’t it be nice if instead of justifying and excusing and denying, we just said <we were> sorry.
I’m sorry that we haven’t listened. I’m sorry that our systems and our cultures and our language and our theology has silenced you. 
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I’m sorry that when you come to ask for help that we’ve told you that you need to practice more forgiveness or you need to be more submissive. I’m sorry that when it’s come to our attention that there are men behaving badly, that we’ve exonerated or we’ve colluded with those men in some way or we’ve allowed them to charm us. I’m sorry that instead of actually seeing a moment when we can make a difference we’ve resorted to excuses and denials rather than actually embracing the moment and choosing to change and make a difference.”
Pastor Donna Crouch
from Hillsong Church who has worked in the domestic violence area for a long time, gave some practical tips for churches trying to work out how to respond.
“I think to start with we’ve got to change our language in church, that domestic violence is ‘out there.’ It’s not ‘out there;’ it’s in here, it’s everywhere – and not be ashamed about that … how to own that without being embarrassed. Of course it’s going to be in our church because our churches are a reflection of the community we’re in – so let’s get on with it!” Crouch said her team focused particularly on how to intervene during the critical period when a woman is about to leave an abusive husband. “The break-up is most critical period for a woman to be killed; that means our response before, during or after is also critical,” she said.
She said there had been cases where the first instance of physical violence was murder. Tweet This
“That only heightens our responsibility for all this intervention with all these other symptoms of family violence.” She said her team had been working on developing relationships with the local police domestic violence liaison officer, and finding out who the professionals and counsellors were in the community. “We’re not going to do a Christian version of the professionals; we can use the trust that people put in us to refer them and do the journey with them. If that means sitting with them, calling the DV hotline, if it means going to the police, we do that.”
Pastor Michael Jensen
said it was really important for pastors to have the knowledge of the dynamics of domestic violence to be able to see through deception on the part of the perpetrator.“ To see where I’m being buttered up is really important, just to even see that as a possibility that by his charm he’s actually trying to win me to his side is extraordinary,” he said. He also said churches had an important role to play in speaking differently about masculinity.
“Jesus is an interesting guy, you know – humility … not exercising his muscle to assert his masculinity, that kind of taking the anxiety out of being seen to be a man, I think, would be something that in church communities could be revolutionary, could be a real change in the balance.”
Bruce Chan, Domestic Violence Specialist
with BaptistCare, has called on churches to band together to fight the scourge of domestic and family violence. Chan [said] the Baptist church in NSW was developing a pilot programme on domestic violence, More than Skin Deep, that would be trialled in churches this year, and rolled out to 1000 churches next year. It’s not restricted to Baptist churches, so any other church can contact BaptistCare who are interested to find out. … Common Grace, a movement of Christians passionate about Jesus and justice, will launch a package of resources, called Safer, in November. …
In the United States
I am excited that the Australian church is talking about domestic violence. What about the American church? The American church is also beginning to wake up to the reality that domestic violence is rampant in the church, and that church leaders need to be educated about it. A few church leaders have come together to create ChurchCares.com. Their site says, “We believe every church must be equipped to respond well in the initial stages of learning about instances of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. That is why we created Becoming a Church that Cares Well for the Abused. This training curriculum of a handbook, an introductory video, and 12 lesson videos brings together top experts from various fields to help leaders understand and implement the best practices for handling the variety of abuse scenarios at church, school, or ministry.”
What Next?
From what I have seen, ChurchCares is a great resource, and it does my heart good to see a resource like this available to all churches. Does this mean every church in the US and Australia will respond appropriately to a DV victim seeking help? Sadly, no. This kind of social change takes a long time – look at how long it has taken us to end racial injustice. We are nowhere near done with that work that has been going on for over a century. However, the more people who stand up and refuse to be silent, the sooner we will improve our response to domestic violence, not only in the church, but in all of society. If you have been speaking out, keep it up! Lend a helping hand to the victim who comes to you for help. Speak to your church and government officials about becoming educated about domestic violence. I truly believe that together, we can make a difference.
Jesus cared for the downtrodden and stood against the “righteous”, and the church that represents him should do the same. In Luke 11:42, Jesus says:
“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.”
My prayer is that the church will begin treating abuse victims with the justice they deserve.
Caroline
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