Today is the UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This is an issue on which the church needs to speak with both force and clarity. I want to join a number of other pastor-bloggers who are speaking on this issue.
A few years ago I found myself in conversations with a man who was verbally and emotionally abusing his wife. He justified his anger by appealing to Ephesians 5, saying that his fury stemmed from her “unwillingness to submit to him.”
As a Biblical Complementarian, I believe that the Bible means what it says in Ephesians 5, but I also think we (complementarians) face two challenges related to that text: First – there is the husband who would use such a passage to justify being domineering (at the minimum) and abusive. Second, there are the egalitarians and non-Christians who would assert that such abuse is the natural result of a complimentarian worldview.
So with all of this floating in my mind, here is what I’d want to say to a man in my church (“Bob”) who was abusing his wife.
Dear Bob,
It’s come to my attention that you’ve been abusing your wife. As one of your pastors, I want to make a few things very clear.
First – your membership in this church offers you no shelter or comfort. I might come visit you – whether in jail or at your home – but it won’t be to reassure you of anything but a call to repentance. I am encouraging your wife to distance herself from you until you demonstrate repentance. Apart from that, I see no reason to encourage her to get anywhere near you. It may be true that some wife-beaters have sought the shelter of pastors and churches, calling abuse a private matter, and avoiding legal consequences. I have no intentions of allowing such shelter. The authorities will be involved.
Second – as a member in this church, you’ve signed a covenant that invites church discipline in this situation. This means that your pastors are committed to helping protect your wife from you, and we will instigate a process that – apart from demonstrable repentance on your part – will end with you being removed from membership. One who lives in unrepentant sin (like spousal abuse) should take no comfort from the gospel, because their life bears no fruit of the gospel. We’ll invite the church to treat you as an unbeliever, and to call you to repentance when they see you. As a whole community,we are united in believing that your sins are devastatingly dangerous for your soul and for the witness of the church in the world. These concerns are why we would carry out this discipline.
Third –many abusers justify their abuse with a list of their spouses “sins” – nagging, refusal to submit, etc. Some Christian men even attempt to justify domineering and abusive behavior with the Bible. I want to disabuse you of any such justification, starting with a Bible passage that might (at first glance) appear as part of your defense. Ephesians 5:22-28 says:
Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
Ephesians 5 doesn’t appear out of thin air. It comes after a long discussion about God’s grace, his formation of the church, and a call to be compelled by the gospel to a life of love. It’s only after all of this dialogue (and a number of moral imperatives like “Don’t be foolish”, and “don’t get drunk”– all of which stand in stark contrast to a husband that abuses his wife), that the apostle gets to his discussion of marriage.
You see, Ephesians 5 isn’t a standalone defense for a husband that wants to rule over and dominate. All that Paul says in this passage is in the context of a life transformed by the gospel. A life ruled by love. A marriage marked by sacrifice and selflessness.
Do you see what I’m saying? To put it a little differently (and here I acknowledge that I’m borrowing a phrase from another pastor) an Ephesians 5 woman is married to an Ephesians 5 man. An Ephesians 5 marriage is an Ephesians 1-4 marriage. A submissive wife is married to a gospel-changed, sacrificial husband.
Have you demonstrated the kind of sacrificial love that Jesus has shown the church? Have you laid aside your rights and made yourself a servant? (Philippians 2:1-11) Have you worn out your knees interceding in prayer for your wife? (Hebrews 7:25) Have you laid down your life? Are you willing to die for your wife – not in some noble display of love, but in a shameful, cursed, miserable way? (Galatians 3:13) And have you been willing to do all of this even while your wife nags, pesters, throws tantrums, and in all ways otherwise sins against you? (Romans 5:8)
I suspect that the answer is no. Don’t you dare assume any biblical justification of your domineering and abuse – especially one that so corrupts the image of Jesus’ love for the church.
Anything less than that kind of selfless love is unchristian, and calls for repentance. Yes, Jesus leads the church, and husbands are to lead wives, but Jesus’ leadership is a leadership marked by love and sacrifice, selflessness, protection from harm, and mercy. Much abuse has been done in the name of “headship,” and all of it misses the point. Jesus leads his wife in such a way that she is stronger, safer, holier, and lovelier, and so should all Christian men love their wives.
The good news is that no husband can say they’ve accomplished all that Jesus has in loving his church. We all (myself included) fail to varying and sometimes spectacular degrees. My encouragement to you is allow yourself to feel crushed by the weight of this call. That pain is the pain of conviction, and it’s God’s way of reminding you that you need a savior.
This is a call for repentance, and repentance doesn’t simply mean saying, “I’m sorry” and getting the keys back to your home. Instead, you have consequences to face relationally and legally, and you’ll have to walk through those processes. You need help to deal with the emotional and spiritual roots of your abuse. You’ll need to get help from pastors, counselors, and peers who can help you change in a deep and meaningful way, and you’ll need to walk a long, slow, and at times lonesome road on the way to reconciliation.
Such is the consequence of sin. You’ve created deep wounds in the heart of a sacred trust. You’ve taken a lovely child of God, who married you and was told to expect the loving kind of leadership that Jesus shows, and she’s gotten a perverse, satanic corruption. Healing such a wound takes more than words. It takes time, grace, and miracles.
There is no guarantee that you’ll even end this journey reconciled. I’d encourage you to go ahead and start getting used to that idea. “But doesn’t the Bible say she’s supposed to forgive me?” Sure. But it also tells you to give up your “rights”. Don’t demand it. Don’t even expect it. Own the consequence of your sin – which might be that your relationship is broken until Jesus returns.
So yes, there’s no guarantee of reconciliation, but there’s also no other path. Apart from repenting, apart from turning away from your sins and towards Jesus, your future offers no comfort, and dire consequences.
So I appeal to you, Bob. Feel the weight of this. Repent of your sins.
If nothing else, I’ll say it again… Regarding your abuse: take no comfort, no sense of shelter, and no sense of justification in anything you’ve heard at this church or read in your bible.
And if you refuse to repent, know the consequences. The temporal ones involve separation from your wife and your church. The eternal consequences are far, far worse.
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a beautifully well-written letter, and very Biblical as well as wise.
Thank you for taking the time to write it.
Thank you for publicly sharing your response. I hope that this will help other churches and pastors to deal with sin appropriately and inspire us as a church family to take seriously the safety of the women God has placed under our care. I found this to be a strong, loving, un-ashamed call to repentance. Thank you
So do you agree with John Piper that a woman “should endure verbal abuse for a season” or “endure being smacked for a night”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OkUPc2NLrM
No… I haven’t seen the full clip, but based on the exerpts I’ve read, I would disagree with Dr. Piper. The idea of “enduring abuse” under any circumstance seems out of bounds.
Well done! Proud to call you my pastor!
May God grant me the grace to live according to the Scriptures shared and the words written - For if it wasn’t for the grace of God this letter would be written to me. May God’s grace protect Bob’s wife and may it rescue him from himself! Mike, thank you for proclaiming the whole counsel of God’s word. Peace, Rob
My comments will not be politically correct, but here goes. I find it interesting that you want to say this in a letter on a blog after the fact, but if I’m reading your opening comments correctly, it appears that you didn’t follow through with biblical church discipline with the man that you describe in your blog. While you certainly should confront your brother for being unkind to ANY brother or sister, what you call verbal abuse is not a biblical justification for you, especially as a pastor, to tell the wife to separate from her husband. You are in sin if you do so and should be confronted for your unbiblical counsel to the wife. While you appropriately counsel the husband to repent from his unkind behavior towards his wife, you should be counseling the wife to respond to the husband in quiet submission even in the midst of an angry, verbally abusive husband. I know this will not be popular to say, but it’s the only path that is consistent with scripture. The problem in most circumstances is that the first step of confronting the husband never takes place with any serious intent to follow through with biblical church discipline, as it appears happened in the circumstance which you describe.
Hi Jerry - You’re assuming a lot.
In fact, Biblical church discipline was carried out in the case mentioned, following a careful process of action steps. The husband ultimately repented. I mention that test case because of his appeal to Ephesians 5 as justification for anger. Your presumption about lack of discipline is simply wrong.
Regarding separation: First, the hypothetical “Bob” is being addressed for physical violence. (It’s in recognition of UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.) Secondly, I believe that in cases of other forms of unrepentant abuse - verbal, sexual, emotional - there certainly could be cause to separate for a time with the goal of repentance and reconciliation. There is no blanket, pat answer to such a case. Anyone who would offer a blanket statement that verbal abuse is never justifiable cause for temporary separation simply doesn’t understand the harmful, long-term impact of verbal abuse, and isn’t concerned with the best interest of the wife.
“Anyone who would offer a blanket statement that verbal abuse is never justifiable cause for temporary separation simply doesn’t understand the harmful, long-term impact of verbal abuse, and isn’t concerned with the best interest of the wife.”
Well said, and Amen!
“you should be counseling the wife to respond to the husband in quiet submission even in the midst of an angry, verbally abusive husband. ”
Jerry, this is very harmful advice and I do not believe there is Biblical support for commanding anyone to submit to an abuser, verbal or otherwise.
Jerry -
I like your passion for God’s word.
In practice, there appear to be two very common issues affecting church handling of these problems. First, a broken process of church discipline. And, second, a broken view of divorce and remarriage. If we could fix just one of these it would represent monumental progress in the church. I agree that there appears to have been a departure from biblical direction in this case.
True church discipline is rare. This is tragic but yet universal. Abusive spouses, male and female, are experts at minimizing their actions and offering vain confessions which lack contrition or repentance. Even when a pastor confronts the abuser, the abuser offers a verbal apology, and the pastor is quite happy to move on regardless of the sincerity of the abuser. I’m not saying that’s the case with Mike, but pastors need to be courageously biblical in these situations. It’s not easy, but it is their ordained responsibility.
The biblical end of church discipline for those who will not repent and stop hurting others is clear, i.e. they are to be treated as unbelievers (Matt. 18:17). This, of course, puts discussions of divorce and remarriage on another plane. But, even if we agree on this point, it gets no where unless backed by authentic church discipline.
What is a “complementarian”, and what is a “biblical complementarian”? That would help.
Mike, thanks for the post. I am in full agreement with your approach, especially as clarified in your response to Jerry. But I sympathize with Jerry’s interpretation of your original post. Your 2nd paragraph references a man who was “verbally and emotionally abusing” his wife. Then in your 4th paragraph you address “Bob”. I think Jerry and I both read your subsequent “open letter” as a reflection on how you wish you had approached the man in the 2nd paragraph. We thought “Bob” was that man. In your response to Jerry you clarify that “Bob” was a hypothetical person who was *physically* abusing his wife. I agree that this will in general merit a different response from the church. My concern here is that there is are many voices in our culture that would assign a therapeutic definition to “verbal or emotional” abuse that we cannot uncritically adopt in biblical counseling. Physical abuse, however, is much more straightforward to identify and the responses can be more direct and more immediate. Don’t get me wrong, the behavior a woman identifies as “verbal or emotional abuse” from her husband almost always warrants reproof / rebuke of the man, but in my experience there is often a need to explore the depths on both sides before the proper response can be determined in these cases.
Mike I’m glad you see violence against women as an important issue, and that you endorse both legal action and church discipline (removal from church membership) against perpetrators of domestic violence.
However, there are some things in your letter to Bob that I think are inappropriate.
Before I go into that, you’re probably wondering who I am. I’m a conservative Christian, an advocate for survivors of domestic abuse, and a survivor myself. I have been working in this field since 1999 so I have a reasonable amount of experience, and I’ve interacted with probably hundreds of Christian survivors of domestic abuse, most of whom are women but a few of whom are men.
I hope you are open to my comments on your post.
I think your treatment of Ephesians 5 is very good, and you are right to hone in on that, as many male abusers use that passage as justification for how they treat their wives. (“She wasn’t properly submitting to me, so I had a right to set her straight.”)
However, I think you have gone too far in the paragraph where you say:
“Have you demonstrated the kind of sacrificial love that Jesus has shown the church? Have you laid aside your rights and made yourself a servant? (Philippians 2:1-11) Have you worn out your knees interceding in prayer for your wife? (Hebrews 7:25) Have you laid down your life? Are you willing to die for your wife – not in some noble display of love, but in a shameful, cursed, miserable way? (Galatians 3:13) And have you been willing to do all of this even while your wife nags, pesters, throws tantrums, and in all ways otherwise sins against you? (Romans 5:8)
Romans 5:8 says “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” By citing this verse after saying that Bob’s wife nags, pesters, throws tantrums and in other ways sins against Bob, you are clearly indicating that Bob’s wife has sinned and that somehow her sins have led to Bob abusing her. Mike, I want to tell you this is the wrong approach: it is altogether false and it muddies the waters because it implies that the victim bears some of the blame. In domestic abuse, the abuser bears ALL the fault and ALL the responsibility for the abuse. If you utter anything that implies the victim is partly at fault, you are playing right into the hand of the perpetrator.
I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase “Don’t blame the victim!” Do you realise you did this in your letter? You may have thought you were unrelentingly confronting Bob’s abusive mentality, but with those few words, you blamed his victim, and you were taking the perpetrator’s side to some degree. Believe me, any victim would have felt those words like a knife in her heart, and any perpetrator would have rejoiced that you gave him that ‘out’.
The perpetrator loves it when you give even a hint that some of the blame lies with the victim: it feeds right into his mentality of entitlement where he thinks he is justified in mistreating his spouse.
If you are to help victims, you need to avoid even the slightest whiff of victim-blaming. I think you would do well to read some of the posts on the blog A Cry For Justice, where I blog with Ps Jeff Crippen about this stuff. You might find it educational.
Even if you don’t read the posts, please read our Resources page where you will notice that we highly recommend the book by Lundy Bancroft “Why Does He DO That?” That book will give you insight into the mindset of perpetrators, like few other books can. There is even a chapter in the book called The abuser and his allies, in which Bancroft devotes quite a bit of space to the church and clergy. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to inadvertently be an ally of an abuser, would you? So read Bancroft and learn how to avoid being so.
Lastly, I would like to go back to your words about Bob’s wife being supposedly nagging, pestering, and throwing tantrums. Firstly, I would submit that nagging is a verb that is applied in a fairly sexist way against women but is rarely applied to men, and I ask why that is so? If women are asking their husbands to do chores around the home, and the husbands repeatedly don’t get off the couch, then the women are accused of ‘nagging’. But surely such men should be accused of laziness? Why are wives assumed to be nagging when they are merely asking their husband repeatedly and reasonably to do jobs that any spouse of good-will would do readily without having to be asked five or twenty times.
That’s one thing. Pestering might perhaps fall into the same category as ‘nagging’, and it’s very much in the eye of the beholder whether the repeated request is reasonable or unreasonable.
But throwing tantrums is not normal adult behaviour: it is manipulative and abusive when done by an adult. So if Bob’s wife IS throwing tantrums, I would suggest that she is being abusive.
However, you stated in your preface that Bob is the abuser and his wife is the victim in this scenario – so why say Bob’s wife is “throwing tantrums”? Surely that is just buying in to Bob’s (twisted) way of describing the situation? Does that not mean that you are partially being recruited as Bob’s ally by using his language, his derogatory language – the very language Bob uses to denigrate his wife and excuse his atrocious behavior towards her?
Please do not take offence at my long critique. I’ve spent the time writing it because you sound like a pastor whose heart is in the right place but who needs a little more education on this topic. Again, I encourage you to go to our blog and see whether it might not equip you to respond even better to the next case of domestic abuse that comes across your path.
One last word: you didn’t mention the option of divorce for Bob’s wife, but you did say that Bob may never find reconciliation with his wife.
I would encourage you to think this divorce issue through some more, and (shameless plug) you could do no worse than start by reading my book “Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery and Desertion”.
kind regards,
Barb Roberts
Hi Barbara,
You’ve given me a lot to think about. Thank you. I would only want to clarify one element.
There’s a difference between blaming the victim and acknowledging a theological reality. No matter what the circumstances of a particular case may be, there is no doubt that the victim is also a sinner. My point is to say that the sins of a spouse - often used as justification by an abuser - are no justification at all.
The paragraph that you point out - as well as the language that you noted - is an attempt to pull a little bit of Proverbs 26:5 - following the fool in his folly to show him the error of his ways. In other words, it’s a way of saying that even an abuser’s attempt at self-justification fails to hold up to any real scrutiny. No matter what may have occurred, even if the wife is engaged in sinful, conflict-escalating behavior, no matter what the abuser perceives to have occurred - there is no justification for the abuse.
This is all hypothetical, of course, so Bob’s abuse is just an imaginary case. Likewise, the tantrums of the victim are imaginary, and you yourself pointed out that if the wife is throwing tantrums, she’s acting immature and sinful. I think you would agree that even if that were the case, she doesn’t deserve to be hit by her husband.
In my experience, sin begets sin, and it doesn’t do the abuser or victim any good to pretend that the victim of abuse is 100% sinless. It’s crucial to get to the grimy heart of the matter - that marriage is always a union of two sinners, and that there is nonetheless no justification for abusive behavior.
Hi, Mike! I am a friend of Barbara Roberts. I am encouraged by your zeal for victims of abuse and for the humility you reveal when you post comments that may not agree with your premises. Thanks for being this way.
As an abuse-survivor myself (so grateful to be free), I do feel as though I have somewhat of a right to disagree with this statement right here:
“No matter what the circumstances of a particular case may be, there is no doubt that the victim is also a sinner.”
This line of thinking is exactly what contributed to my staying in an abusive marriage for over 11 years. There is a difference between being a sinner and being a beloved, redeemed child of God who sometimes sins. An abusive spouse COUNTS on the victim believing that she is a “sinner”, as well. In fact, I assure you, he quite holds this over her head. Not only is she submitted to abuse in any form or fashion, she is also told she isn’t worth much because she is a “sinner”. Oh, the grace that came that day when I realized that I am loved by God . . . that He sees me as His child . . . and that I do not deserve to be abused. The victim who believes she is “a sinner” is a victim who has little to no self-esteem and does not believe she is worth being saved from an abusive relationship.
I’m not perfect. But, I desire with all my heart to follow Christ. My abusive ex-husband is not perfect, either. And he does not follow Christ. Those who truly follow Christ already know, quite well, that they aren’t perfect. They don’t really need anyone telling them that when they are already hearing it everyday. Let’s stop going after the victims, eh?
Please note that this doctrine is a great tool in the hands of the abuser. Thanks for listening. Meg
Mike,
I am a friend of Barbara’s and she pointed this conversation out to me. I hope that what I say can contribute in a positive way.
“It’s crucial to get to the grimy heart of the matter – that marriage is always a union of two sinners, and that there is nonetheless no justification for abusive behavior.”
I respectfully disagree that “marriage is always a union of two sinners” is the “heart of the matter”. I believe that it is so far removed from the point of a conversation about abuse as to be harmful. The abuser thinks the victim is a worse sinner than he is, and sometimes the victim even agrees. Who are we trying to remind by bringing this up?
The heart of the matter is that the victim is not to blame for the abuse in any way (and I see that you agree with this), the abuser is. He needs to take responsibility for this, full stop. Nothing else needs to be added. We do not need to address and dismantle his justifications. There are none.
I also hang out with Barbara over at the Cry For Justice blog most of the time. I would echo the remark of Jeff S. Turning the situation back on the victim is not fruitful.
Do you interact with victims often? Barbara and Jeff Crippen have gathered a group of deeply devoted evangelical Christians who are also committed to mercy and justice for victims of domestic abuse. I think you could benefit from more fully understanding the victim’s perspective.
Follow the CFJ blog for a few weeks. Read the blog comments carefully. The articles are great, but the feedback from the community of victims is really immeasurable for understanding. Who knows. You might even contribute to someone’s healing in the process.
God bless you for the effort, brother! I know we’re working towards the same cause.
As a survivor of abuse let me describe one scenario that actually happened. My ex asked me to put the seatbelt over the baby from left to right. He was in the front seat and turned around to face me sitting in the backseat. Each of us perceived left and right in a different way. He kept shouting at me, my mind froze, I could not do what he asked, and he slapped me, sent my glasses flying and broke them.
So often I used to cry and say over and over again that I was sorry that i had been disrespectful or not obedient enough or whatever. One time my crime was that I asked my ex to bring a chair from the living room to the dining room so everyone could sit down at the table. I had spent hours cooking. He punished me for days because I had asked him that one little thing in front of his cousin. He refused to bring the chair to the dining room, and we would not have sat down for dinner, except that his cousin brought the chair.
I was not a nagging wife, i never once made a list of things for him to do. If he did not want to do something, I did it myself, or it did not get done. Sometimes, he did do things for me, but it was completely unpredictable.
Ultimately I realized that if i acted submissive, it encouraged him to become more abusive. It was as if he had an addiction to being in control, and the more control he had, the more he wanted. He was remorseful, when he hit me, which was always, but he also needed to explain his behaviour so he pointed out how i was not submissive. Any sermon on submission really ramped up the abuse. I wish we had been non church goers.
Sue,
Your story breaks my heart. Nothing — absolutely nothing — about your husband’s behavior was biblical. His blaming was twisted and manipulative, like the work of Klansmen and nazis who quote scripture. It’s unjustifiable on every possible level.
I’m so sorry you endured this. I pray that you got away from the situation, got help, and found protection.
Praying for you, sister.
I got away eventually after years of violence. But the teaching of the unilateral submission of the wife was a terrible trap for me and exacerbated the violence.
The reality is that some men, those with a need to control, should never listen to a sermon on the submission of the wife - never! These men should never be told that there wife is sinning if she resists his headsip. This is the worst teaching of all. The wife resists because all men are sinners, and some sins are just impossible to live with. Women are sinners too, but nobody puts them in charge of men, nor do I.
Mike, thank you for your kind and thoughtful reply to my comment. I really appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion. And I hope you don’t feel that I’ve bombarded you by inviting some of my friends/colleagues to comment on what you’ve said; it was not my intention to bombard you, but to explore the issue more so that we all may learn.
So, continuing in the spirit of iron sharpening iron I would like to critique your reply to my comment.
You said: “In my experience, sin begets sin, and it doesn’t do the abuser or victim any good to pretend that the victim of abuse is 100% sinless. It’s crucial to get to the grimy heart of the matter – that marriage is always a union of two sinners, and that there is nonetheless no justification for abusive behavior.”
As my friends have noted, talking about or even alluding to the victim being a sinner is highly inappropriate because it mutualises the problem. Likewise you are making a big mistake if you mention any particular sins that the victim may perhaps have committed – I say *perhaps have committed* because those allegations are likely to be untrue: perpetrators usually tell many lies to bystanders about the victim’s conduct, and they leave out the full context of whatever incidents they relate.
The abuser is always wanting to stick to his narrative that the victim is partly or wholly to blame and that her behavior exonerates or minimises his. He wants to talk about his partner’s behavior; he doesn’t want to talk h0nestly about HIS behavior – but of course he’s happy to lie and tell half-truths about his behavior, to make out that he is the good guy and his wife is the crazy one. Perpetrators are very slippery, guileful, cunning and clever.
So if you, as a concerned bystander, are trying to talk to the abuser about his abuse, it is essential that you don’t accept his invitations to discuss his victim’s behavior, or her attitude or her morality. I would like to put this in boldface: ***You need to resist all the perpetrator’s invitations to collude with him.***
The perpetrator will be issuing many subtle and not to subtle invitations to collude with him. Most people are not aware of how many of these invitations they are accepting when they engage in conversation with an abuser. Even giving a slight nod to the abuser when he says ‘You know what women are like!” is accepting his invitation to collude, because with that nod, or with any buddy-like response, you have shown him that you are buying in to his attitude of looking down on women. You have shown him you are partly on his side.
He wants to win you to his side altogether, but if he’s not able to win you totally to his side, he will settle for you agreeing with even a little of his false narrative. He will also settle happily with your taking a neutral stance – such as “both parties are sinners” – because any neutral stance implies that the problem is MUTUAL. If the problem is mutual, the problem is not abuse. Abuse is never a mutual problem. Abuse is wholly and solely the abuser’s problem and he is the only one who can stop it.
Bottom line: Abusers choose to abuse; they need to choose to change their attitude of entitlement and stop abusing. And if they don’t choose that, they need to experience the consequences of their behavior (legal consequences, loss of the relationship, etc.)
Whatever other problems there may be in the marriage (e.g. financial problems) they can never be solved until the abuse problem is solved first. And sadly, most abusers refuse to change, though they are very skilled at performing phoney change for a while.
Mike, I appreciate that you thought you were applying Proverbs 26:5 to Bob … “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”
You seem to have thought that by mentioning Bob’s allegations about his wife’s nagging, pestering and tantrums, and then telling Bob that all those things were no excuse for him to abuse her, you were answering the fool according to his folly.
But I would submit to you any wise answer to Foolish Bob should avoid all mention of his wife’s supposed sin. You need to focus on Bob and Bob alone. The only time you should mention Bob’s wife is if you are asking Bob questions like “How do you thing your behavior is affecting your wife? How do you think she felt when you swore at her? How do you think she felt when you lied to her about where you’d been that afternoon?”
If you are interested to learn more, please visit our blog. We have some posts about men’s behavior change, with some good links to secular websites where you can educate yourself more about how to talk to an abusive man.
But the most important point for you to realise is that working with an abusive man to elicit change is VERY SPECIALIZED WORK and requires extensive training and professional experience. No pastor I know possesses this training or experience, and it is certainly not adequately covered in seminary or even by authors like Tripp and Welch.
One more thing. You said: ‘if the wife is engaged in sinful, conflict-escalating behavior…”
I would like you to know that this expression indicates you don’t know much about the dynamics of abuse and how victims respond to the abuse.
To describe a victim’s conduct as ‘conflict escalating’ shows that you think abuse is mainly about conflict. Abuse is not just conflict, not just arguments or anger or fighting. Those things may sometimes happen in some relationships where one spouse is abusing the other. But an abuser can abuse without raising his voice, without any ‘fighting’, without any apparent conflict. Think gas-lighting, for example. Psychological games that make the victim think she’s going crazy. No obvious ‘conflict’ or ‘escalation’ happening there, but it’s a slow freeze that can virtually destroy a the victim’s personal integrity .
Also, some victims can tell that their abuser is going to explode in violence but the abuser likes to build up to the violence slowly, tormentingly, and in those situations some victims choose to get the violent explosion to happen sooner rather than later.
In ignorance, bystanders might look at such situations and say “the victim escalated the conflict,” but in reality the victim was choosing to nudge the abuser into violence because at least then the excruciating tension-building phase would be over sooner. That is a creative way that victims can resist the damaging effects of abuse, and you should never denigrate the victim by saying that she escalated the conflict.
Thank you for hearing me out. I have lots to say, as you will have noticed! I would love it if you kept in touch, you can email me at [email protected]
Thanks again, everyone, for the comments and feedback.
Barbara,
I think there are some presuppositions (theological ones, in particular) that aren’t shared. I believe in total depravity. We’re all sinners. I don’t see (pastorally) any benefit to denying this reality. I don’t think that acknowledging this reality is “blaming the victim”, particularly in the context of a church that is regularly confessing sin and acknowledging that we’re all sinners.
I understand your point though - that in conversation with an abuser one mustn’t give an inch to his attempts to blame the victim.
As for the specifics of this ***hypothetical*** case, I can only say that I wanted to deal with certain issues in the letter. An actual case would deal with actual events, and would look much different, including (potentially) referrals to specialized help.
Thanks for the feedback. I’m glad to have these links available here in the comments.
Hey, Mike! Meg here again. Quickly . . . I am a firm 2-point Calvinist. I believe in total depravity, meaning that every area of our being has been touched by sin (NOT the common misunderstanding that we are “totally” sinful) . . . and I still believe it is a mistake to pull out the victim’s sin and point it up. I promise you . . . it has been done to her daily. She doesn’t need you or any other pastor pointing it up. In fact, she may not feel she’s worth much already.
I think you have good intentions and truly wanted to speak up for the victim and, maybe . . just maybe, being a believer in total depravity and all, you felt there must be something obligatory in this Bob scenario to show that ALL, indeed, have sin in their lives.
I’m just letting you know that that whole thing was very trigger-some for me (having left an abusive marriage 15 months ago) and, surely, many other women. That, in and of itself, seems reason enough to pull back a bit. Seems like a loving choice. Thanks for listening.
Mike, I believe in total depravity too; I’m on that page with you theologically. Nothing in any of my comments was denying total depravity. So I don’t know why you assumed I was not a believer in total depravity.
Can you explain how you came to that conclusion? Maybe I said something ambiguous without realizing? If so, I would like to know what it was so I can avoid using ambiguous phraseology in the future.
Mike,
This is just a theology question– hopefully you can bear with me going a little off topic away from the issue of abuse
You said:
“I believe in total depravity. We’re all sinners”
Are you suggesting that a regenerate Christian is still totally depraved? I’m Reformed in my beliefs and I’ve not ever heard the concept of total depravity persisting after salvation.
And if you would like to know what kind of sins I think victims of abuse are most likely to be committing when they are living with an abuser, I can tell you: – Most victims probably stay too long in the abusive relationship before they finally leave. Most victims put up with the abuse because it’s like being the frog in the pot, for a long time they don’t even realise that what they are suffering is called “ABUSE”, they make accommodations to the abuser incrementally an they blame themselves –which the abuser induces and encourages – till they almost loose their identity. All this ends up meaning they enable the abuser to continue to abuse.
Usually the abuse escalates gradually over time so that the victim and the children’s health, life and well-being are sorely corroded and almost in ruins before they finally get free.
So yes, I’m prepared to talk about the victim’s typical ‘sins’ - but only if we are talking about the victim ‘enabling’ the abuse by remaining within range of the abuser’s oppression and nastiness.
An example of enabling the abuser: many victims lie to cover for their abusers. They keep secrets about what is happening at home, out of shame. But they end up living a lie – pretending everything is fine when it’s really a living death. We are not supposed to be people of the lie; we are supposed to be people of the truth.
And I would also like to mention that courts and child protection and social workers often contribute to enabling the abuser by making the protective parent provide the children to the abuser for visitation after the relationship is ended, which grievously prolongs the abuse and makes it really hard for the children and the protective parent to recover because they are continually suffering post-separation abuse (re-traumatization) via the visitation. Of course, abusers can practice post-separation abuse even without the assistance of the courts, but the courts often make it far worse.
I could go on but I’ll stop there.
It’s become abundantly clear through the comments here (many of which I haven’t published because of their vitriolic nature), similar comments on other similar blogs, and comments on very different blogs that there are “issues behind the issues” governing these discussions. In particular, there seems to be a concerted effort to make connections between complementarian theology and a culture of abuse.
Based on the anecdotal evidence that some have laid out, I completely understand why. If you’ve been immersed in such a horrible experience, it’s easy to make those connections.
But on the other hand, there is a difference between correlation and causation. In other words – does teaching on biblical complementarianism cause men to act out with abusive behavior, or do men who are abusive use the language of biblical complementarianism to justify abusive behavior?
I want to be clear about what I’m saying. In comments here, at other blogs, and in particular in the comment sections of a variety of blogs, there are anecdotal stories about men who abuse women at complementarian churches. Many of these stories involve the men appealing to headship and submission, and using these doctrines as leverage and justification in their abuse. Such use is always, always, always a corruption of that doctrine. It is co-opting language for the sake of oppression, not the proper application of doctrine or dogma.
It is likewise a mistake to allow someone’s corruption of a doctrine (which isn’t even a corruption of the doctrine so much as co-opting language – i.e. lifting terms and applying them out of context for other purposes) to be the litmus test of the value of a doctrine. This happens all the time in church history, of course, when people have seen a number of issues as slippery slopes for sin and banned them entirely. If the Bible teaches that men and women are equally valuable with different roles to play in the church and home, then it’s our responsibility to understand practically what that means. If an interpretation of that teaching is leading to sin – oppression of the wife or abuse – then the problem is not with the Biblical teaching but with the interpretation.
So by all means, let’s aggressively and discerningly critique the application of this truth, especially when it fails so spectacularly in individual lies. But the truth itself stands.
I can’t comment on what’s happened in other churches, and I wouldn’t dare. But I will say this – the idea that a woman should endure abuse for the sake of the marriage is absurd. Period. That’s a corruption of Ephesians 5 and a host of other passages.
Finally, regarding total depravity. There’s an interesting discussion of that doctrine happening over here at Tullian Tchidvidjian’s blog: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tullian/2012/12/03/sin-remains-my-response-to-rick-phillips/
Without rehashing the particulars, I’ll simply say that I agree wholeheartedly with Tullian. That’s why I’m comfortable acknowledging that sin exists in the hearts all spouses, everywhere.
The reason I brought it up was because of the insistence by some commenters that the sin of the wife shouldn’t ever be mentioned while counseling the husband. I understand that logic from one perspective. But from another, I’ll simply say this: This is a rhetorical experiment, this letter. It’s a teaching device for the broader audience about why – from a complementarian perspective – abuse is always condemned and always unacceptable. When I’ve counseled husbands with domineering attitudes over their wives, this issue always comes up. “But what about submission? She talks back? She nags? She yells? She sins?” I’ve counseled some bitter husbands whose wives did all of this and worse, and my counsel is always the same. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT SHE’S DONE. Her sin, even her escalation of a disagreement or a fight, is never, ever justification for a man to abuse, threaten, or domineer. Some have accused me, in this line of argument, of blaming the victim. That’s simply misreading the piece and/or pulling comments out of context. I have not - and would not - do that at all.
My point in dealing with the biblical passage is to make that as clear as possible – that in Ephesians 5, we see a shocking metaphor. In the history of Christ and the church, the church is the abusive one, not Jesus. Christians fail and disappoint all the time, taking part in institutional and individual sins that are heinous — and yet Jesus lovingly, relentlessly pursues us, washes us with water, and forgives our sins. Any husband who would twist that metaphor into justification for violence against his wife is an idiot.
That’s why I wrote this piece. That’s why I dealt with the issues I did. That’s why I reacted to rhetorical questions about the other spouses’ sin. An actual counseling case would look very different, and couldn’t possibly be explained in a blog post.
So with all this said, I PLAN ON SHUTTING OFF COMMENTS TO THIS THREAD.
I moderate comments on this blog, and have grown increasingly convinced that it’s unhelpful to leave this dialogue open — largely due to comments that I haven’t posted by people at one extreme who think I’m a feminist, and at the other who think I’m a misogynist. If you’re offending everyone, you’ve probably hit a good spot.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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