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The Victim Beside the Road ... (page 3)Catherine Clark Kroeger
 Catherine Clark Kroeger But let us return to the conditions on the Jericho road. It led down through a deep ravine with high cliffs on each side, and the wild terrain offered excellent opportunities to those willing to take advantage of an unwary traveler’s vulnerability. Have we developed such an unsafe environment within our churches? Along that Jericho road, there are towering crags behind which an abuser can hide. There are ideologies that can predispose to abusive behavior. For instance, Elizabeth Hanford Rice, in her book Me?Obey Him, maintains that a godly wife must submit to her husband’s authority even when it comes to wife swapping, domestic violence and child abuse. Dorothy McGuire, Carol Lewis and Alvena Blatchley commended a wife who submitted to her husband even after he had been tried and convicted of trying to murder her. Their book Submission: Are There Limits requires that a wife submit to physical abuse, sexual abuse and going to an x-rated movie. I once sat in a crowded auditorium and heard a highly influential speaker illustrate that the husband was a hammer, pounding down on a chisel (the wife) that was in turn hacking away at the children. He later went on to say that a wife was to praise God for her husband even while he was beating her. Yes, sentiments such as these, absorbed by the Christian community, provide the climate in which abuse can easily happen. All too often the church has contributed to the problem rather than providing solutions. The problem of domestic abuse is not confined to evangelicals. However sociologist Nancy Nason-Clark, finds not a higher rate of occurrence but of more severe situations among earnest believers. In a paper given at the Evangelical Theological Society last fall, Steven Tracey wrote: It is widely accepted by abuse experts (and validated by numerous studies) that one fourth to one third of North American women will be assaulted by an intimate partner in their life time and that evangelical men who sporadically attend church are more likely than men of any other religious group (and more likely than secular men) to assault their wives. Evangelicals are exceedingly reticent to disclose the reality, even when it reaches life-threatening proportions. They fear that this will damage the testimony of their church and of their spiritual convictions. They perceive marriage to be a replica of Christ’s love for the church and they dare not reveal the terrible travesty of what goes on in their own home. In point of fact, such a perception reverses the biblical image: Christ’s love for the church is supposed to be a paradigm for the love of husband and wife. This cannot possibly be mirrored by an abusive marriage. One endangering issue is that of insistence that a family stay together even when the situation is unhealthy or even dangerous. Another is an insistence on secrecy, even when this only serves to perpetuate the problem. Our testimony is not damaged by the admission of a difficulty but rather by silencing, denying, ignoring, or minimizing it. Sometimes we have idealized and idolized the family in ways that have blinded our eyes to the ugly realities. We as evangelicals stand upon a biblically based affirmation of the integrity and importance of the family, but this then requires not that we turn away but that we address the problems with prayer, scriptural resources, informed response and caring concern. In terms of abuse prevention, we have splendid resources that are critically underutilized. In the first place, we have the power of the Scriptures. If we believe that they are our only infallible rule of faith and practice, then we must heed their manifold injunctions against physical, verbal, mental, emotional and sexual abuse. The Bible condemns such conduct vehemently, and it is our duty to be faithful to what we are being told in the Word of God. There are some hundred biblical passages addressing battering, violence, rape, incest, stalking, lying in wait, twisting the words of another, threats and intimidation. If this is what the word of God says, then we must be faithful in proclaiming it. Let us remember that what is taught in the church permeates large sections of our society far beyond the walls of the church. Lamentably, many church members tell researchers that they have never heard a sermon on domestic abuse. The ancient prophets viewed things quite differently. Ezekiel specifically condemns shepherds who allow the more powerful members of the flock to butt and mistreat the weaker members. – “Hear indeed, O shepherds, the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God: I am going to deal with the shepherds! I will demand a reckoning of them for My flock.(Ezekiel 34:7-9) If the shepherds have failed, then God will assume direct supervision. And as for you, My flock, thus said the Lord God: I am going to judge between one animal and another. To the rams and the bucks: Is it not enough to you to graze on choice grazing ground, but you must also trample with your feet what is left from your grazing? And is it not enough for you to drink clear water, but you must also muddy with your feet what is left? And My flock graze on what your feet have trampled and drink what your feet have muddied. Assuredly, thus said the Lord God to them: Here am I, I am going to decide between the stout animals and the lean. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder against the feeble ones and butted them with your horns until you scattered them abroad, I will rescue My flock and they shall no longer be a spoil. I will decide between one animal and another. . . . (34:11-22) May God make us faithful to respond, to bring our congregations to a place of zero tolerance for abuse, to develop a protocol that can be used uniformly when there is a disclosure by a victim, to listen careful to those who dare to tell their story, to bring offenders to accountability, to become agents of healing rather than condemnation, to become spiritually informed and faithful in prayer. There are many wounded lying along the road, and will you indeed love these neighbors as yourself? |
