A little background. I suffered childhood abuse from my father, and watched him also beat and abuse my mother. I have been a Christian all my life, and am now in my 30s. A few years ago, I read a church history book for the first time, and realized that I had been told a lot of lies and quacky stuff. Thinking that sticking to a thread of Tradition would keep me safe from the quacky stuff, I joined an Anglican church.
Then last year, I made a huge mistake. I wondered how the church traditionally handled domestic violence. I had caught wind that maybe they did more than tell sufferers to just "stay and pray" as is so common today. That they granted separations. So I read, and read, and read. Barabara Hanawalt, Sara M. Butler, James Brundage, just to name a few. To my horror, I found out that Christian clerics from late antiquity all the way through the Modern Era (including a lot of Reformers) taught that some wife beating was okay because it was the man's job to maintain order in the home.
In other words, husbands could employ physical chastisement of their wives and have it be church sanctioned. And back then, corporal punishment wasn't so nice (it makes spanking a kid look darn right cuddly). Very few and far between are the John Chrysostoms of the world, who forbid any and all verbal or physical correction of wives. Canon law and ecclesiastical court cases reflect women having to prove that they weren't scolds or disobedient to their husbands before they could even hope for a separation, if one was granted at all and the husband wasn't just slapped on the hand with a "don't be that severe again" warning.
I have suffered from horrific depression over this. The last 8 months especially have been a nightmare. I've had a complete mental breakdown. I feel so betrayed, angry, and despairing. It's all I can think of, now. It's burned my mind.
If you were to ask any Christian today, they would say that of course any abuse of a wife is wrong and that the Bible does not support any wife beating whatsoever. But it wasn't obvious just even a few hundred years ago. They didn't even say "wives submit", but rather, "wives obey". And what really spooked me, is how the justification for physical chastisement of wives was eerily similar to those reasons that typically argue against women's ordination, including in my own Anglican denomination (which I have since fled once the dots connected). Basically, that women are stupid, easily deceived, etc., and need to be led by men. (Yeah, complementarians put flowery language around it now, but it's still the same train of thought.)
And the question I keep having is why? Why wouldn't God write the Bible more clearly and explicitly forbid any and all wife beating? How do I stop seeing God as negligent and uncaring at best or at worst downright cruel and hateful towards women? How can I ever trust again? If God loves women, why would He allow this, or leave the Bible so open ended to where very few men got it in their heads that they shouldn't ever strike their wives? I feel like my brain is on fire trying to resolve this information, to make sense of it, so I can finally let it go. I keep searching and searching, hoping I'll find a different set of information to counteract the bad I've read, but this has only reinforced what I've read. I never fathomed that the church could be even worse at handling domestic violence than it is today with the typical "stay and pray"/"be a martyr" mantra. That it could proactively teach something so diabolical as the physical chastisement of wives.
I've tried counseling with a qualified psychologist. All CBT did was make me cry worse. I'm getting treatment for perimenopause, but so far it hasn't helped my thought patterns or fear. It's only relieved my anxiety. The depression is still there. What can I possibly do the undo the hurt to my brain? I feel like my head is spinning like a top. I dread waking up in the morning. I can't get the image out of my head of Russian serfs hooking their wives or daughter-in-laws up to their carts and whipping them like a horse. All with the church looking the other way, uncaring.
How do I get my trust in God back? How? Nobody has an answer that I can swallow. How can I know that God loves me, a lowly woman? I feel like He made us to be chattel and gave us little protection. I used to not be scared of men, but after reading what I did, I now am. I don't want to be. I know there are nice guys. And yet I think, how many nice guys are there really if so few stand up for the abused? Especially over the vast majority of Christian history?
Somebody please help me.
Is there anything that can counteract what I read? Does God hate women? Are we really chattel? Why has the church so persistently messed up over this? Where is the Holy Spirit to guide the church? Wasn't He supposed to do that? What happened? Where is the Good News? I feel like the Gospel is just more bad news, now. How do I get my faith back and not live in such constant terror of both God and men?