Domestic violence in the church

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Paidiske said:

I am still digesting, but I would be interested in others' views of how adequate and helpful this is.

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As far as you personal questions on how adequate or accurate the studies are; the conclusion that "domestic violence in the Anglican church is equal to or greater than the general population"; I don't doubt at all to be true.

Now the Anglican church is more liberal on social issues than a lot of churches. So if the study found that the Anglican church experiences domestic violence issues to a higher extent than the general population: Then churches on the more "socially conservative" spectrum from the Anglican church; likely experience domestic violence issues at a higher rate than the Anglican church.

That would be my hypothesis based on what I know of how conservative churches interpret Bible doctrine concerning gender roles, family structure, views of children etc.

We also know as gathered from external statistics on prevalence of sexual abuse of children; that a large percentage of children sexually abused are sexually abused within the context of "church group" settings. (youth groups, alter attendants etc.) and these kids families may or may not be more involved in "church attendance".

Now is the rate of sexual abuse of children higher in church related groups or public schools / other community run groups like sports teams or bands? That I don't have statistical data on; but based on statistical data I am familiar with; I would not be surprised if that is the case.

Public schools and community groups tend to be more state regulated as per "you need to run back ground checks on staff and volunteers"; than churches tend to be. (At least this is the case in the US.) Now there are churches in the US that run background checks on the staff and volunteers of the programs they run; but generally churches (unless they receive government funding for the programs - i.e. a congregation that runs a public day care); they aren't required by law to run back ground checks. A lot of organizations that run children's programs today also run background checks just for safety precautions. And that's generally seen as a "smart move" or "the right thing to do".

Now prevalence of domestic violence in "church population" as opposed to general population is a little harder to tease out because the studies involving general population also include church populations. As well as there are other populations within "general population" who's domestic violence rates are higher than "general population".

The rate of domestic violence in homosexual relationships is also higher per capita than general heterosexual population. But when dealing with subsets of groups the researchers have to account for the size of the populations they are looking at. There are a lot more heterosexual population couples than homosexual population couples.

And so thus size of "church population" as opposed to "general population" is going to vary by nation too. The numbers of self identifying church attending population in the US is probably per capita larger than Australia. Australia and Europe probably have similar statistics as far as percent of general population that regularly attends church.

Now is the rate of domestic violence in the US higher than Australia? Statistics like that would be another caveat of the comparison studies.

Also, the percent of domestic violence as one gets more into the "conservative" end of church beliefs will be harder to track because particularly the "churches" that fall into the cult category tend to not participate in those types of studies. Although anecdotal evidence from people who've left those types of churches speak of wide spread abuse. Not just of violence in the individual homes; but of violence across those communities. I.E. all the children in the cults tend to be abused by the community of that cult.

So, if the direction of this thread tends to believe domestic violence is higher in church groups than the general population; I wouldn't doubt that.

And why that is the case; would involve a lot of different factors.

It also doesn't surprise me that that clergy feel less equipped to deal with these issues. I believe that would be true for clergy across the board. That is a common thread I hear from clergy that their "theological training" doesn't prepare them for dealing with domestic violence. Which makes sense from a schooling perspective because the clerics who feel most prepared generally have duel degrees in a field like social work.

"Key finding: Most Anglican victims of domestic violence did not seek help from Anglican churches
(88%).
The small group who did seek help most commonly approached clergy and most reported that it either
positively changed their situation, or helped them to feel supported." p. 13

Feeling the support doesn't mean innocent. I'm familiar with a case against a man who was found guilty of serial sexual assault. Both him and his wife felt supported by their pastor and were in very good standing with everyone at their church. God surely is on their side! Up until the time near the end of his trial where he confessed because numerous unrelated women identified him.

My immediate reaction was that any investigation of abuse must not be in house.
I still think that this is correct.

It is clear from the report that teaching on forgiveness and marriage are faulty if not unbiblical.

Forgiveness. Our example is God. He forgives us on our repentance and that is the pattern we follow in life.
Every biblical verse on forgiveness is based on this principal.
Teach that one ' must ' forgive and you are teaching falsehood.

Marriage. The husband must love his wife as sacrificial as Jesus loves the church, giving up everything for her.

Re background checks as Christians we operate by the highest standards.
Pay for regular background checks on all staff or don't provide a children's service.
Post where it is visible the church's procedure for dealing with complaints, making it clear that there are independent third parties involved in investigating any complaint.

Here's what hit the press on the American Anglican scene: 'Beyond Devastated': Anglican report shows high rate of violence towards women partners - Anglican Ink © 2021

Paidiske said:

. Forgiveness is an important discipline in the Christian life

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No it is only ever given when the offender repents.

No repentance, No forgiveness.

Like Jesus on the cross we hand the offender, the incident and our feelings over to God for him to deal with as we cry, " Father, forgive them. "

Paidiske said:

This piece, by a former Anglican clergy wife and survivor of domestic abuse, unpacks some of that:

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Yes, I read this article. There's a couple of other articles listed on the web sight of a similar subject. The whole "headship doctrine" I'm sure you are aware, is not unique to the Anglican church.

Many churches (and individual families) believe some form of it. Although I also tend to think (after much Bible study) that what it tends to be preached as; isn't what it actually is Biblically. How many "headship" individuals are willing to lay down their own lives for those under their authority.

And I don't mean just men either. Biblically speaking; I'm the head of my own household. I'm a widow who's developmentally disabled adult son lives with her.

My son requires a lot of assistance and he's very dependent on me in a lot of ways. I was appointed his legal guardian by a judge, even him now being over the age of 18. And there's certainly a lot of potential for abuse of any relationship where one party holds all the power.

The legal responsibility for making all the decisions for both of us falls on me. But I don't make any decision that would affect my son without getting his input about it. I recently decided to have the house resided; and he basically picked out the siding color. Also, especially concerning his medical stuff; he has to be fully on board with a treatment or medical investigation. He has epilepsy and we've been working on trying to get an answer on what kind it is for more than a decade now. The kid has been through countless tests and trips to the hospital. Which has managed to eliminate a lot of potential diagnosis; but the answer hasn't shaken to the surface yet either. (That's frustrating for both of us.)

The other aspect here; particularly in this relationship is my own learning how to train him to be as independent as possible. Sometimes it is "easier" to just "do it for him". But if he does outlive me; he needs to be a prepared as possible for "life after mom"; and so he will need these skills.

So for being a good steward of the household God gave me; I pray a lot for the wisdom of when to push as opposed to recognizing when he legitimately needs my help. His epilepsy affects his short term memory; so he functions a lot like someone with dementia; but he know he has it.

Yet, I'm to love my son as Christ loved the church and Christ has certainly loved me through an awful lot of pain. So of course; I want to obey and do what's right by my kid!

Which of course leads to my biggest concern. Can he gain enough self advocacy skills and ability for self maintenance to not be exploited in the future? I'm doing best I can to make sure he's provided for. He's going to need trustworthy people to help him navigate it all though.

Which of course; related to the subject of this thread being abuse....

People who lack the substance of character; (for what ever reasons) to lay down their lives for those in their charge, do often become abusive. I came from a family background where there was a lot of abuse and neglect. And it was quite a painful process to learn how to not repeat that pattern.

Personally, I've been through nearly a lifetime of counseling, enlisted the assistance of a lot of professionals, including child and family services. And learning how to become a Biblical head of house is a LOT of work. For me, it has taken a concerted effort to mind issues of my own mental health. Which of course my history has certainly impacted my son. Some for better and some for not so better.

Paidiske said:

What I'm more interested in is the adequacy of the commitments made in response to the findings.

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Thus, I certainly understand your concern here too. In the end, the commitment is going to be more or less affected by the commitment of the individuals in a given congregation. Some congregations are more "psychologically healthy" than others.

There's a family in our church; who are long time friends of mine who came out of at least one very dysfunctional church; who's "brand" of "head of household" did lead to the father being abusive to his kids. And now, he's reaping the consequences of all of this; which hopefully to the outcome of genuine repentance; he's being confronted with his sin. The elders of our current church basically told him that he needs professional help. (Which I sincerely pray that he gets.) Which thus, if he's going to restore his relationship with his kids (most of whom are adults now); he's got a lot of wreckage to clean up.

Paidiske said:

I'm not sure I agree with this. Outside the context of ongoing abusive relationships, forgiveness can be our liberation from hurts that have been done to us. But forgiveness should never be used to prolong abuse.

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There is a difference between forgiveness and turning over past hurts to God in the absence of repentance of the perpetrator.

My brother is basically a pedophile; who believes there's absolutely nothing wrong with himself. He actually sat in a therapist's office with myself and our father and attempted to justify sexually abusing his sisters when we were all younger. The therapist even looked at him and directly said: "That is not normal." Then he proceeded to "burst into tears"; claiming that I've done "all these things" to "destroy his life". (Yeah, a classic narcissist who's unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions.) That was almost 20 years ago and I basically exited the family after that. I did maintain contact with my dad. He died in 2006.

But yes, acknowledging that my brother will likely stand before God on Judgement Day and be cast into the Lake of Fire to pay for his sin. My only obligation before God is to let God determine what God will do with him. (Let God be God.) It's sobering to consider what he will face at death. Again though, Let God be God.

Jesus didn't actually "forgive" the Jewish leaders who had him killed either. "Father forgive them for they know not who it is they do this to." was actually directed at the Roman soldiers; not the people who demanded of Pilate to put Him to death.

I'd encourage you to do some digging in the Bible to know what Scriptural forgiveness actually is. "Forgiveness" is actually a judicial term which means to not punish someone who rightfully deserves to be punished for their crime. (Theologically their pardon was bought on the price of Christ's blood. Which of course gets into another aspect of theology; in that Jesus didn't pay for the sin of every human being that ever lived. He only paid for the sin of the elect.) Thus why God doesn't actually ever forgive the unrepentant.

Thus which could be the subject of a whole other thread - but anyways!

Paidiske said:

I'm not sure I agree with this. Outside the context of ongoing abusive relationships, forgiveness can be our liberation from hurts that have been done to us. But forgiveness should never be used to prolong abuse.

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Our example is God/Jesus, none of us became a Christian without repenting of our sin, it was only then that God's forgiveness became fact in our lives.
As in Luke 17:3+ we Must forgive when the offender repents.

In a domestic abuse or any abusive situation, repentance involves the abuser recognising they are being abusive and seeking help to stop it.
It is not merely saying sorry for punching you.

Any theology that says we must forgive regardless iof any repentance, is a crude distortion of what the whole Bible teaches about forgiveness.

Tolworth John said:

No it is only ever given when the offender repents.

No repentance, No forgiveness.

Like Jesus on the cross we hand the offender, the incident and our feelings over to God for him to deal with as we cry, " Father, forgive them. "

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Didn't Jesus seek forgiveness for those who were actively crucifying Him ?

P.S. Forgiveness doesn't mean continuing a relationship where you are the recipient of abuse. It can be argued that forgiveness is having the personal freedom ... to move forward in your life unburdened by past hurts ...

A_Thinker said:

Didn't Jesus seek forgiveness for those who were actively crucifying Him ?

P.S. Forgiveness doesn't mean continuing a relationship where you are the recipient of abuse. It can be argued that forgiveness is having the personal freedom ... to move forward in your life unburdened by past hurts ...

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He asked his Father to forgive them.
That is totally different from his saying ' I forgive you.'

I really do think that care needs to be taken here. Forgiveness does not equal trust. Or reconciliation, especially if there has been sexual abuse or physical violence, and no apparent contrition.

Even if a person seems sorry, a victim choosing to be near them could trigger further incidents. Human nature is often weak, weaker than our wills. I am concerned with models of forgiveness which equate forgiveness to friendship. It is not a good idea to try to be friends with an emotionally and morally weak person who has abused you. That’s not a good idea.

The Righterzpen said:

Now the Anglican church is more liberal on social issues than a lot of churches. So if the study found that the Anglican church experiences domestic violence issues to a higher extent than the general population: Then churches on the more "socially conservative" spectrum from the Anglican church; likely experience domestic violence issues at a higher rate than the Anglican church.
.

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While I am not familiar with the specifics of the scenario in Australia, I would say in the US such an assumption would be a dangerous one to make, based on my own personal experience, in which a female relative of mine was the victim of physical violence in the form of manhandling by a male clergyman one of the more liberal mainline churches in the US, and that church, which shall go unnamed, has, to this day, despite being one of the first to ordain women, not done anything either to make amends for that incident or in my opinion done very much to ensure such incidents do not continue to occur.

The context was a bereavement scenario; for some reason the minister did not want my relative to see the body (I saw the body and there was no reason I could fathom, why I, an adult male, should be allowed to see and indeed touch the body, while the clergyman was permitted to grab by the arms and shoulders to the extent bruising occurred a female relative to prevent her from doing the same). Unfortunately no charges were filed; I was in shock, and had I not been, I would have summoned the police, who were there as required because my relative who had reposed in the Lord at done so at home and not under direct medical supervision (but their presence was not intrusive as it can be in some scenarios, because the relative was terminally ill and the incident was anticipated). And after the fact, the female relative was not interested in pressing charges.

We like to dismiss the early church as being patriarchal and primitive, but one of the most important canon laws of the early church, which is still theoretically in effect in some of the eastern churches, was a prohibition on clergy physically assaulting laity or anyone else, so if this minister had done that in the fourth century and been caught, they would have been deposed, whereas at present, in the absence of any legal action, I doubt the denomination in question, unless it has changed its rules substantially from when I last looked into it, would do anything.

Now is this incident per se domestic violence? From the perspective of US law, probably not, because we define domestic violence narrowly based on the duration of the relationship between the persons involved, whether or not they live together, are intimately involved, or have a child. But I would consider it an incident of violence by a clergyman of a trusted mainline Protestant denomination in a domestic setting.

I don’t want to publicly say which denomination this was, because it was a decade ago, times have changed, it is not greatly relevant and so on, but I will say it was neither the Episcopal Church, nor the UCC, simply because I am known for having qualms about how these denominations are run; I have what one might call a love/hate relationship with them, whereas in this case, it was a denomination I do not normally encounter, but a very large, very mainstream denomination that is considered to be very progressive on social issues.

Paidiske said:

That might need teasing out a bit. In Australia, for example, the diocese of Sydney (our largest in terms of numbers, and the wealthiest) is more conservative on most social issues than the rest of Anglicanism. So - for example - a lot of the informal discussion I'm seeing online here is looking to blame Sydney and its influence for the high prevalence reported.

This piece, by a former Anglican clergy wife and survivor of domestic abuse, unpacks some of that: Anglican church must rethink doctrine that has left a trail of devastated lives



In Australia, rigorous child safety standards apply to churches as to every other organisation and community group.



No, seminary doesn't even touch on this, really. I've done specialist training on responding to disclosures of abuse, but I had to go and do that on my own initiative, and the programme was run by the health system. The people who ran the training told me I was the first clergyperson they'd ever encountered doing their programme. But I think more clergy would be willing if it were more publicised and we were made aware of it as an option?

What I'm more interested in is the adequacy of the commitments made in response to the findings.

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I think the program you did was very excellent. Have you thought about developing some online continuing education curricula for that for the benefit of those elsewhere in the world, or was it very specific to Australia from a legal and situational perspective?

Paidiske said:

No, seminary doesn't even touch on this, really. I've done specialist training on responding to disclosures of abuse, but I had to go and do that on my own initiative, and the programme was run by the health system. The people who ran the training told me I was the first clergyperson they'd ever encountered doing their programme.

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This is a sad commentary, Paidiske, and unfortunately, it is probably all too true across the board for various churches of whatever denomination.

For myself, I need no survey or panel to discuss this dilemma. I literally lived in it for a total of 16 years while our family were members of an independent church in the US that was cult-like to the core in its spiritual abuse. The men's meetings on occasion gave advice to other husbands on giving corporal punishment to their wives if they did not toe the line. The "pastor's" wife even wrote an editorial to our local paper, offering a defense of this. One member gave out samples of "dowry kits" for how to arrange marriages for their young daughters - of course, to other members' families of the same church. Members were strongly warned against sending their sons into the military. They were also strongly encouraged to purchase homes close to one another, so they could maintain close contact.

Attendance at every meeting was required, or the member was considered to be "forsaking the assembly", and could potentially be disciplined for it. No deacons were ever chosen who could have potentially challenged the one "pastor". If any matters of procedure were brought to a vote, every member had to give unanimous consent, or they would be accused of creating division among brethren. Fathers who had teenaged children members that voted against the church's decision were themselves accused of not keeping their children in proper subjection, and could be disciplined for improper parenting.

Eventually, the "pastor" fell into sin in the typical fashion, but after a period of a few years was re-instated in his position again. If any members objected to this, they were excommunicated.

A couple decades ago after our family got out, I heard of one young woman who barely escaped this church, and who had gone through a program for those who have suffered from abuse by cult leaders. She started a website that offered a connection for all those who likewise managed to finally get out or who were excommunicated and "disciplined" by being "handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh". Some of these had other family members that were shunning them and not allowing contact with grandchildren, children, etc. who were still trapped in it. This church is still in operation, with the same leader at the helm.

The purpose I believe God had in allowing me to wade through all that mess was so that I would never... NEVER... NEVER AGAIN trust a man in the pulpit against what my own conscience led by the Spirit and the Bible in front of me is telling me.