Are There Limits? question 186
This particularly painful email came in at tentpegsquestion@yahoo.com some time ago. I have tried to edit it down to remove all personal identifiers. While it doesn’t pose a single question, it lays a set of issues and questions in front of us. And, sadly, this writer is not alone.
I was raised in the church in an abusive home. We were taught verses like ‘children obey your parents, in the Lord’. Then the explanation part went like this, “What does in the Lord mean? It means if your parents are Christians. Since all you kids here are lucky enough to have Christian parents (meaning members of OUR church) you always need to obey them.” This teaching was compounded by my mom. (My dad’s a subject I don’t want to go into here.) I still struggle every day to fight in my mind to believe God loves me knowing that my parents condemn me. I will never forget the day I realized I was stronger than my mom and that I could have fought back or gotten away from her. I chose not to defend myself out of reverence for God.
Last June a boy I never met was killed by his parents in the name of Christian discipline (actually by his father and new step-mother, his mother had died of breast cancer). He was tied to a tree for disobedience. That night they let him go but the next day he was ‘disobedient’ again and they tied him to the tree again. He died of dehydration and hypothermia. He was 13 years old. He had previously told friends he was trying to be obedient to his parents but was ‘having trouble’. He had also gone to his youth minister for help but the youth minister went to his parents and his parents made him say that he had lied. Tyler’s story haunts me. What happened to him hits way too close to home for me because when I was a kid my parents were also out of control.
This writer went on to discuss the angst and pain her upbringing caused her and how she fantasizes about saving boys like the one who died in her example. As I read it, I remembered times that I have seen the church fail women and children. Sure, it fails men, too, but can we at least agree that women and children have less power in many homes and, therefore, failing them can more easily lead to tragic consequences? I have seen women told to go back home and submit to a husband who is beating them. Since he wasn’t “committing adultery” she wasn’t allowed to consider divorce. I have seen kids lose their personality bit by bit through constant verbal and physical abuse until they were permanently damaged. Sure, some of them could get a measure of healing through therapy and medications, but most wouldn’t avail themselves of that because they had been successfully convinced by their parents that they were worthless, that God didn’t love them, and that doctors couldn’t help “people like them.”
The church has to bear a great deal of scorn for the way it has treated families. It has taught that men have absolute rule in the family and that women who are beaten must have not been submitting properly (and, if their husband has sex with another woman, she must not have been “fulfilling her duty”). Here is good news: in most churches, this attitude is dying.
In our congregation, any hint of abuse of a child or adult would be addressed immediately. Elders and ministers would get involved. If a teen tells a minister or elder something, it is treated confidentially and, if required, professionals and authorities are alerted. Those parents involved in addictive behavior are encouraged to enter Celebrate Recovery (which we have on site) and they are actively mentored, cautioned, and warned. Many of them were, in their time, also victims and it requires an active, firm, disciplined hand to guide them out of their abusive, addictive behavior. If a parent commits what we deem to be a crime, they are reported.
At other times, men of the church will approach an abusive man (also a member) and tell him they know what is going on, they are staying in contact with the wife/child/elderly parent and they will hold him to a high standard of conduct. He will be offered help and love but should he refuse, we will become advocates and protectors for those he harms. We have gone so far as to arm some of our qualified, licensed men and stationed them in the area when a child was getting married under threats of violence by the father.
There is NO excuse for violence towards children or women. Yes, some women are violent towards their husbands (in fact, abused men account for more emergency room visits than abused women. True, but weird) and we don’t accept that, either. Some kids are violent, dangerous kids and we step in to help the family find appropriate professional help. And we have gone so far as to help a family place their teen into supervised care.
But what we do NOT do is excuse violence. I have helped put two men in jail for the “discipline” they put their children through. In both instances, the men were given every chance to repent and change (while the kids were being protected) and they refused. One judge sent one of these men to me as a last resort. When I tried to talk to him about the fact that these children belonged to God, he continually said “No, they are mine, and I can beat them if I want to.” He went further and said that he believed the Bible gave him the right and the duty to beat his kids. I called the judge back and the man was put in jail.
Any church that will not stand up for men, women, and children who are being abused is a religious social group, NOT a called out group of Christ followers. If you are in a religious social group, get out before your life crashes and you find no help among the hymns.
June 10th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Patrick, your comments are right on, especially that last. A friend of mine struggles with this exact issue. Her mother is long deceased, so she remains angry and has no real answers. I try to serve as an example that “not all Christians are bad.”
! Recently she talked with her former youth minister, who expressed regret and sorrow for disbelieving her situation and enabling the mother. While she has not returned to church since college, she is speaking more often with him. I daresay they are learning a lot from each other.
I’m unsure of the origin of this attitude shift, but I am glad to see the old attitude beginning to be replaced. That’s been a long time coming. It was another example of how we allowed the world to invade the church, instead of listening to God and doing what was right by the child or woman.
June 11th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Spare the rod and spoil the child… The rod referred to here is the shepherd’s rod which will “hook” the straying lamb back into the flock, NOT a rod for beating. We need to teach that!
June 11th, 2009 at 6:06 am
Thank you for doing your part to bring this issue to light. Far too many cowards hide behind misapropriated proof-texts from scripture in order to rationalize their abuse. In our failure to address this, the church is guilty of great sin.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:57 am
I can see how individuals can come to such a perverted understanding of the Bible, but when an entire church holds that view, the words it makes me think of are “spiritual inbreeding.”
I’ve heard plenty of ministers’ and counselors’ accounts of how much willpower is required to hold back an act of violence upon a man who tries to use Scripture as an authority for wife or child beating.
When disciplining my children, I try to remember that I was once a child and totally unable to behave when I was bored out of my mind too, or when I was curious about something. I don’t always remember that.
Is it true that most people who abuse were also abused?
June 11th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Right on, Patrick! Nobody abusing a child or a spouse gets a free ride if I can help it.
Wendy, sorry to have to say this, but “Spare the rod and spoil the child” is not in the Bible. It is an adaptation of several verses in Proverbs, some of which clearly indicate not a shepherd’s crook, but a tool used for beating. The real point is that we take Proverbs out of context and use it as a proof text for child and spouse abuse.
What appalls and surprises me is how many people are abused and how many consider it to be pretty much normal. There are several women in my office who think I’m really exceptional because I love my wife and I’m kind and complimentary to women without having an ulterior motive. I’m happy to have this witness, but the fact that it is exceptional fills me with sadness.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
I congratulate the leaders of your church for taking such a stand. Growing up in the deep south, I’ve seen several cases of spousal abuse (on various levels) all because of a complete misinterpretation of the whole wives being in subjection mentality. And I’ve been very frustrated by women who took that kind of abuse because they, too, were taught to just “take it” and love him.
June 11th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
This is one of those issues that makes me so angry and hateful that I just can’t leave a civil comment.
June 12th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
This story is so sad, Patrick. I deeply pray for this young woman and her future.
Having been in a very abusive marriage before for nearly 24 years, in which most of the men of “the church” where we were supported him and became actively involved against ME (even bringing my children into it, trying to turn THEM against me!) at the end, I can understand how this young woman must feel and greatly empathize with her.
Thanks for addressing this painful subject and for the work you at Rochester do to help those in similar situations, Patrick.
Many blessings to you all today!
Dee
June 13th, 2009 at 6:20 am
I just finished an undergraduate field placement at a domestic violence shelter. It has always blown my mind to hear the statistics of DV. 1 out of every 3 teenagers is abused in a dating relationship. 1 in 4 women are in or have been in an abusive relationship. Children who grow up in domestic violence are 80% more likely to be victims of child abuse, and more susceptible to becoming abusers or entering into abusive relationships.
It killed me to hear that the church was the reason a client was returning to their abuser. We have done such a disservice to our families by “sweeping it under the rug.”
You and your church have taken a firm stance against violence. I wish others would follow in your footsteps (and essentially, in Jesus’).
Thank you for speaking out against this atrocity (and for letting me comment, even though I’m a visitor to this blog!)
June 15th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Thank you so much for publishing this! I just wish my former church would wake up and smell the coffee instead of patting themselves on the back for how “biblical” they are.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
I know so many young women who have left the church because of abuse. I’ve heard multiple stories of abusive fathers whose behavior is covered up by the mother. Even events where the youth minister was having sexual relations with teenagers in his own youth group. My husband is a police officer and his least favorite call is always domestic. I know from experience that the family unit can be a good and wonderful thing. But I’ve also seen how something good can be twisted and become a dark place. It makes my heart hurt.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Danny, thanks for the clarification on the “rod”. It doesn’t matter that the proverb is not directly from Scripture – those who justify violence and beating of children use the excuse that the rod is in the Bible. It’s a correcting rod, NOT a beating rod.