Why I don't recommend abused women seek help from pastors or the church

~Zao~ said:

Why wouldn’t another woman go with her? People go to the opposite sex for understanding (which is what is not being offered by the offending churches) but for help they should go to the same sex because understanding is already a given.

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A large part of what tends to happen in abusive situations is that the abuser isolates the abused person, forcing them to withdraw from normal family relationships and friendships. Precisely to limit the number of people to whom she might turn in this way.

Many abused people, when they tell their pastor, are telling someone for the first time. They are hurting, frightened, feel guilty and ashamed. They don't want an audience there if they don't have to have one.

Paidiske said:

A large part of what tends to happen in abusive situations is that the abuser isolates the abused person, forcing them to withdraw from normal family relationships and friendships. Precisely to limit the number of people to whom she might turn in this way.

Many abused people, when they tell their pastor, are telling someone for the first time. They are hurting, frightened, feel guilty and ashamed. They don't want an audience there if they don't have to have one.

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I may have missed it but what do you recommend?

I'm not sure that I was making recommendations in this thread, so much as agreeing with and fleshing out the OP's general point a bit.

Overall I would recommend that training specifically in abuse and handling abuse disclosures should be a mandatory part of every clergy person's training.

Yahkov said:

And this is exactly what I feel like the motive of this thread was in the first place: the church failing to act in situations like abuse. If the church doesn't act or covers up situations like abuse and rape, the church is being disobedient. Responding to disobedience with even further disobedience doesn't seem to be a good idea. Rather, a thread encouraging churches, Christians, pastors, and elders to respond to these situations in obedience to the Lord would seem a lot more beneficial.

The church covering these situations up is a problem. A very serious problem if that is what a particular church is doing. Do we now go to the law to fix improper church conduct? Where is this ever Biblical? When you read epistles like 1 and 2 Corinthians, you see the church in Corinth was all messed up in regards to proper church conduct. You can even take the example of the man who was sleeping with his father's wife (1 Corinthians 5). The church in Corinth was arrogant in the situation and it took Paul to do something about it. This situation of the man sleeping with his fathers wife should've been dealt with already, but it wasn't. Was Paul's advice ever for believers to stay away from the church in Corinth because they didn't act on this situation properly? Was his advice to go to the court to settle disputes before you go to the church in Corinth? It was exactly the opposite (1 Corinthians 6).

Encouraging people to do the direct opposite of what the Bible says to do is where I have a major issue. I get it, there are situations where this isn't always the option. If it's 3 in the morning and a man is beating up his wife, it would be wise to call the police.

I also get the one who is arguing submission in this thread. I am not 100% on board with this and the topic being discussed. Yes wives are called to submit, that is very clearly Biblical. But men are also called to love their wives. Treating your spouse with abuse is not love. With all that being said, there is still an issue that needs correcting.

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Am I to understand that you go to the church for all issues? Would never call the police or go to the doctor?

Abused women need help NOW. Going to their pastor, who often has little experience or expertise in regards to domestic abuse, is no different than calling your pastor when you are bleeding to death or your child has been abducted.

Until the church has a good track record dealing with spousal abuse, women should seek help elsewhere. It is a life and death issue. The church failed my family - advised my mother to submit - and we still have scars.

Yahkov said:

The reason why I brought up the situation in 1 Corinthians 5 was not to bring up a direct related situation. We are acting in this thread the way the church in Corinth was acting. And Paul was literally correcting this all throughout 1 Corinthians.

It is clear that people believe the church isn't doing what it should be doing in handling situations like abuse. That is an obvious problem. So the advice given is to not go to the church anymore for these situations? That's not how you fix a problem. Do we encourage every church everywhere to now tell people in abusive relationships, "sorry there is nothing I can do for you, go to the police. It's the new status quo." We have now become just like the church in Corinth.

We aren't even mourning over the fact that some churches do nothing about it. We just want to make jokes now about pastors teaching martial arts? My goodness 1 Corinthians couldn't be any more louder. The focus is not, the church can't fix this so I am going to fight for this change within the church. Instead it is, the church can't fix this so I am going to court. Literally the direct opposite way to fix this problem from what is given to us in Scripture (1 Corinthians 6).

If we decide to go to the court before the church, it is to our shame. Not because we make the better decision.

As I have said before in this thread...if the spouse abusing his wife is a believer, you go to the church. If the spouse abusing his wife is not a believer, you go to the court. If 1 Corinthians is not enough to convince you of this, then there's nothing I can say to change your mind. Our answer is already in the Bible. A thread about convincing others to do the direct opposite is not the answer I will align myself to.

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Some of us have been talking of reforming the church this way for years. No one here is saying we should stop trying to do so. But if a church hasn’t shown itself to be a safe place to seek help for spousal abuse, of course we should advise people against seeking help there. A pastor isn’t going to do an investigation or arrest an abuser. How will the pastor even know what is happening without training on identifying signs of abuse? A pastor can’t investigate rape. A pastor cannot jail an abuser so that he can’t kill his wife.

What do you tell these women to do while we are “fighting for a change in the church?” Keep getting beaten and raped and watching their children be abused and scarred for life, because one day the church will save them?

People keep talking about "the Church...the Church...." as if the Church is a building with a cross on top with a Pastor. Then we debate whether or not domestic abuse victims should go there for help. That building and that Pastor, ditto most or all of the congregation, may not be part of the Church at all. Why assume that is true? It can be the very opposite of true. For example people have given examples of where people followed so called Biblical directives to seek help from "the Church" and instead they got more abuse. The co-abusers in those situations were NOT the true Church, but its enemies.

Messiah warned us about wolves in sheep's clothing coming into the flock.

The Church, the ecclesia, is the body of true believers. It has been mentioned that Paul and others approached to the "Church" for this and that. But they weren't going to what we call a Church today. No such thing existed. They were going to the body of sincere believers. Period.

There is no Biblical directive to go to what we now call a Church, on Sundays or any other days, or to seek counsel there.. If people can find some true believers in such a building who help, great. But the Bible does not tell them they have to go first to the institutionalized and fragmented (thousands of denominations) Church - as we know it today.

Two things: one, attacking Christians who have different beliefs, customs or practices than yours is off topic to this thread, and flaming.

Two, it is possible for very sincere, well meaning, true Christians to get this wrong out of ignorance. Not everybody who's handled an abuse disclosure badly was some sort of sociopath. But if you don't understand abuse to start with, you're likely to be looking at the issues through an unhelpful lens.

Paidiske said:

Two things: one, attacking Christians who have different beliefs, customs or practices than yours is off topic to this thread, and flaming.

Two, it is possible for very sincere, well meaning, true Christians to get this wrong out of ignorance. Not everybody who's handled an abuse disclosure badly was some sort of sociopath. But if you don't understand abuse to start with, you're likely to be looking at the issues through an unhelpful lens.

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I have not been flaming Christians. By saying that, it seems you are possibly flaming me. This topic is about whether or not women should go to the Church if they have been abused. I presented the belief that "a Church" which victims go to is not necessarily a true Church at all. That is simply true. I said it is not necessarily like the ecclesia of the New Testament, that the real Church is the body of Messiah. I said that anyone who could get help from a Church should go for it,, though, and that Churches have helped many in many ways.

Though I have said over and over that people can get help from the institution that we call call the Church, I also tried to make the point that the place the victims go to for help is not at all necessarily a true Church since sometimes the people there - as other spelled out here, not me - actually can pile onto the women and abuse them further.

I said these things to counteract the belief that a victim's first recourse should always be the institutional Church, per the Bible.

I do not know what you are referring to in "an abuse disclosure". However, I quoted psychotherapists who have said that serious domestic abusers are generally going to be, if not always going to be, suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, sociopathy or psychopathy. One of those quoted was a Christian psychotherapist who has worked with the victims and the abusers for many years. I did say in one of my posts that I felt that someone who acted out of character in abusing someone did not seem to fall into those named categories.

I gave my opinions and cited the research I had done. You are free to have your own opinions.
It was my impression, though for different reasons in some cases, that we both agree that the institutional Church is not necessarily going to be able to help abused women. I did add, though, that they might get some comfort and support in some ways there.

What I'm objecting to is things like celebrating Christmas and Easter are anti-Biblical. That's off topic to this thread and a pretty big swipe at Christians who do celebrate Christmas and Easter.

An abuse disclosure is when someone tells you that they or someone else have been abused.

P.S. And I never once "flamed" any Christian or said one thing negative about any Christian. Real Christians are not the problem but the answer. I did give reasons why I felt the institutional Church can be problematic, however.

When the OP said that she could give thousands of accounts of women abused in Churches, why was that not flaming? (And I don't think it was.) Rhetorical Q.

Paidiske said:

What I'm objecting to is things like celebrating Christmas and Easter are anti-Biblical. That's off topic to this thread and a pretty big swipe at Christians who do celebrate Christmas and Easter.

An abuse disclosure is when someone tells you that they or someone else have been abused.

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You are right that Easter and Christmas were off topic.

I will delete the parts about Easter and Christmas and maybe some other parts that may be off topic.

Thank you, I appreciate that.

Paidiske said:

Thank you, I appreciate that.

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You're welcome. I apologize for offending you, or anyone else.

Endeavourer said:

This was originally posted in the marriage forum but I'm reposting here by request so everyone else may join the discussion too.

There are some good pastors out there who understand the dynamics of abuse. I've found them to be few and far between. Several dynamics are at play:

a) protection of the ol' boys
b) twisting Scripture verses about wives submitting to husbands
c) the outsized influence in the churches of the popular book "Love and Respect", aka "The Husband's Calling to Abuse His Wife" that has made many recommended reading lists and widely adapted by conservative churches; however the book plays on Bible-y phrases and concepts that are unquestioned in the filters of many conservative believers to subtly twist and shift the enactment of submission beyond anything the Bible would recognize.

Here is one story of an abused wife who sought help from the church. I'm so very sad to say this is result is more typical than not. So, so sad.

Women Say Harvest Protected Abusive Husbands, Not Abused Wives, Part Two | Julie Roys

"Love and Respect's" fingerprints are all over this part:

"However, Frers [the abused wife] said in 2012, she told Becky Willey that she was afraid to join her husband who had three months earlier moved to Fairfax, Virginia, to plant a church. Frers said Willey dismissed her concerns, saying that all she had to do was sleep with her husband and things would be fine.

Frers said this answer was typical for Becky Willey. Frers said in meetings with other pastors’ wives, Willey would teach wives that their number one role as wives was to give their husbands what no one else could—sex. Frers said Willey told wives that it was a sin for women to refuse their husbands sexually. This was one of the reasons Frers said she didn’t tell leaders at HBC Davenport about her husband’s sexual abuse. “I feared (my husband),” Frers said, “but I feared God even more.”

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sex is a mans love language, to a man if his wife refuses it, it's like saying. "I don't love you." Now having said that I don't think that abuse should happen. If a woman can't have sex for various reasons she should mention that. But if there is a constant refusal of sex. Then that is a problem. The Bible is very clear that we do not have authority over our own bodies in marriage. We are a unit. To refuse love to one or the other, is wrong. I wish I could agree more here. But maybe I am missing part of this discussion.

"The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." 1 Corinthians 7:4-5

createdtoworship said:

sex is a mans love language, to a man if his wife refuses it, it's like saying. "I don't love you." Now having said that I don't think that abuse should happen. If a woman can't have sex for various reasons she should mention that. But if there is a constant refusal of sex. Then that is a problem. The Bible is very clear that we are not our own, the husband is property of the wife and the wife the husband. We are a unit. To refuse love to one or the other, is wrong. I wish I could agree more here. But maybe I am missing part of this discussion.

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I think you're missing the part that's about power, control and abuse...

Paidiske said:

I think you're missing the part that's about power, control and abuse...

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like I said I just read one article and the pastor seemed to think if she just gave him sex it would all resolve. Which made me think she was holding out. But again if he is beating her, yeah that is a legitimate reason. But it didn't say that.

createdtoworship said:

like I said I just read one article and the pastor seemed to think if she just gave him sex it would all resolve. Which made me think she was holding out. But again if he is beating her, yeah that is a legitimate reason. But it didn't say that.

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The linked article said very clearly that: "for all those years, Frers said her husband abused her—physically, sexually, emotionally, and spiritually."

Paidiske said:

The linked article said very clearly that: "for all those years, Frers said her husband abused her—physically, sexually, emotionally, and spiritually."

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ok, then divorce him. But only on the grounds of physical or domestic violence. Emotional abuse is not a grounds of divorce unfortunately, but grounds for separation and counseling. In which case she did not trust the pastor it sounds. But what I am wondering now is if she refused sex for ten years and you just have one ticked off husband. But I don't know the situation. But when people hurt other people it's rarely completely isolated, and is from some inward trauma. If he was violent, it could be due to alcohol, or some other chemical, in which case the proper thing to do is seek drug rehab. If the violence was from some childhood trauma (being beaten by father), then perhaps a psychiatrist combination with a christian counselor would help. So you can't just go and say the pastors are wrong, without knowing both sides of the story. What did the pastors say to defend themselves, do we even know? pastoral counseling for example gives equal weight to both witnesses as important. Typically if one is in error, it will show up in the counseling session. But it's easy to point to the 'physical abuse' and avoid that the wife was just not into sex (which is very common with women. And the fact that the pastor mentioned "sex" means that the husband felt she was holding out. (I am not saying that she should stay in an abusive situation, but typically an argument involves two people). So if she desires reconciliation, then submitting to him physically would be one requirement for marriage. If she chooses to leave him out of safety of her self and family, that is up to her. But I don't believe she can remarry. I believe the only remarriage possibility is if the spouse cheats on you.


1. BELIEVER & BELIEVER:

Divorce is not right. If divorce occurs, reconciliation must be sought (the alternative is to remain in an unmarried state). If the divorcing party does not seek reconciliation, he/she should be brought into the order of church discipline. If there is no repentance, the divorcing party should be ex-communicated as an unbeliever (i.e., treated as a heathen and tax-collector) and so the situation would change to...

2. BELIEVER & UNBELIEVER:

Divorce is not to be sought by the believer (under the new covenant, the grace of God is stronger than under the old; in the Mosaic covenant the foreign wife made her husband unholy - Ezra 10:2,3 - but in the new, the believing spouse sanctifies the unbelieving). If the unbeliever desires divorce, it can be granted. And then, the believer is free to remarry.

3. IN THE CASE OF ADULTERY:

If the adulterer repents and falls into the grace of Christ, his/her spouse is not obligated to stay, but is not eligible for remarriage (1 Corinthians 7:11). If the adulterer does not repent, he/she should fall into the hands of church discipline by which he/she will either prove Christian and repent (allowing the victim to divorce sans remarriage) or prove unbelieving, by which listing #2 comes into effect."


Remarriage after Divorce - Study Resources



Here are some more links for more studies on divorce from blue letter bible:


Study Guide for Matthew 19 by David Guzik


Study Guide for 1 Corinthians 7 by David Guzik

createdtoworship said:

ok, then divorce him. But only on the grounds of physical or domestic violence. Emotional abuse is not a grounds of divorce unfortunately, but grounds for separation and counseling. In which case she did not trust the pastor it sounds. But what I am wondering now is if she refused sex for ten years and you just have one ticked off husband. But I don't know the situation. But when people hurt other people it's rarely completely isolated, and is from some inward trauma. If he was violent, it could be due to alcohol, or some other chemical, in which case the proper thing to do is seek drug rehab. If the violence was from some childhood trauma (being beaten by father), then perhaps a psychiatrist combination with a christian counselor would help. So you can't just go and say the pastors are wrong, without knowing both sides of the story. What did the pastors say to defend themselves, do we even know? pastoral counseling for example gives equal weight to both witnesses as important. Typically if one is in error, it will show up in the counseling session. But it's easy to point to the 'physical abuse' and avoid that the wife was just not into sex (which is very common with women. And the fact that the pastor mentioned "sex" means that the husband felt she was holding out.

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I don't think you read the article clearly.

She trusted the pastors, and approached them again and again for help (and didn't get it).

There is no suggestion that she was "holding out."

And even if she never, ever agreed to have sex even once there is no excuse for abuse. None. Not at all. Not ever.

You are, however, neatly illustrating the point of the OP; that many Christians are not well equipped to respond to abuse.