cormarieh Offline

Precious Pea: This might be an interesting read just for some insight

https://www.amazon.com/Battered-Into-Submission-Tragedy-Christian/dp/1579101992

Precious Pea in reply to Precious Pea: This is the Audio

http://www.preachingtoday.com/sermons/sermons/2007/september/batteredintosubmission.html

Not long ago, someone said to me, "I've never heard a sermon about violence in the home. I've never heard the preacher pray about it. I've never seen an education class about it—and I've been in the church my whole life." I took that challenge to heart.

What's wrong with this picture?

A woman had just recovered from a brutal and bloody beating at the hands of her husband. After years of violence, she was left with a deep despair she could not overcome. In spite of marriage counselling, threats on her part, and tearful promises on his part, the beatings continued until she no longer had any place to turn.

As she pondered the hopelessness of her situation, she remembered an offer a friend had made: "Come to our Bible study," the friend had said. "Our pastor is wonderful. He's so close to God." It was a glimmer of hope, an avenue of help she had never explored.

That night she attended the Bible study and heard the preacher say that every problem could be solved through prayer. She wanted to believe that, and she wanted her husband to believe it, too. She wanted to believe that she could rid their home of the terrible violence that had dominated their lives. She hurried home and pleaded with her husband to attend the next Bible study and to come under the counsel of this godly pastor. Wanting to please her and win her favour, he agreed. They attended the Bible study the following week, and the next day they confessed to the pastor the violence that had been so much a part of their married life.

The pastor listened carefully. Then he turned his chair to face the wife and directed all his counselling to her. He told her it was God's plan that the man should be the head of the home.

He reminded her of Ephesians 5:22–24: "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. … As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands."

The pastor told her she must submit to her husband in everything, and that she must learn to view her sufferings—her beatings—as her cross to bear, an opportunity to be closer to God and to the angels.

The abuse continued until, finally, she packed her bags and her children into the family car and made her way to a battered women's shelter operated under the auspices of the Michigan Department of Corrections.

On the night of her escape, her pastor telephoned the shelter and demanded to speak to the escaped wife. The director of the shelter refused. After a heated conversation, the pastor told the director to pass along a message to the wife: "Tell her if she isn't home by morning, I'm going to excommunicate her from my church."

There's a lot wrong with that picture, isn't there?

The images of a husband shoving, slapping, slugging, and kicking his wife do not fit into the family-values frame. A pastor trying to solve complex problems with simple answers does little to bring the evil of spousal abuse into focus. Building one's entire theology of female-male relationships around one verse or set of verses, while ignoring the rest of Scripture, serves to sharpen one image as it distorts the entire picture.

Placing the victim in the centre of the picture—as if the solution to the problem was within her control—does nothing to force the offender to come out of the shadows and face his consequences.