This year saw the launch of a new resource to raise awareness of
domestic abuse happening both within the church and outside.
It’s still
early days but Peter Grant, co-director of Restored, says that a lot of
churches are getting onboard and recognising that domestic abuse is
happening in their midst.
The resource pack is simple.
It includes a charter that churches can
post up on their notice board stating that violence against women is
always wrong. It also provides them with guidance about how best to
respond to a woman who turns to them for help.
“Restored is driven forward by two questions,” says Peter. “Where is the church and where are the men?”
The resource, Ending Domestic Abuse, is an attempt to answer the
first question. It’s still being drafted and the final version is
expected to come out sometime in 2011.
The answer to the second question is a new campaign to be launched in
the next few months, First Man Standing. As the name suggests, the
campaign is challenging men to be the first man to stand up in their
church, in their sports clubs, in their workplace, or whatever group
setting they may be in, and speak out about domestic violence.
“A lot of the messages around violence against women are aimed at
women – like not taking illegal cabs for example. But we feel there
also needs to be a campaign aimed at men saying ‘please stop’,” he says.
Peter shares the belief of other campaigners who say that the
attitudes and actions of men must change if violence against women is to
be ended.
First Man Standing is about challenging the behaviour of peers,
modelling good behaviour and speaking up for positive relationships.
Peter continues: “There is a lot of peer group pressure to behave in a
certain way. If you look at stag nights, the behaviour on these nights
is all about what’s acceptable in a group and you need to be a
courageous man to stand up in that group. There are other issues like
language and jokes demeaning women. It’s about changing culture and
challenging what is acceptable.”
The statistics are horrifying.
In the UK, it is estimated that on
average 167 women are raped every day, while two women a week are
murdered by a partner or former partner.
In the US that figure rises to
three a day and in Russia one every hour.
A recent sample survey by the Evangelical Alliance suggests that
violence against women is just as prevalent in UK churches as in wider
society.
Right now a lot of churches just aren’t equipped to respond, says
Peter.
Statistics suggest that a woman might experience 35 incidents of
violence before reporting the abuse to outsiders and coming forward is
especially difficult if the victims are the wives of clergy.
Natalie Collins, 25, managed to escape an abusive marriage after her
husband violently assaulted her, causing her second child to be born
three months premature.
She says that a lot of people in the church simply don’t understand
what domestic abuse is.
It’s not about anger but control and power, and
the abuser will use all manner of tactics to dominate their partners
and weaken their self esteem to the point where they feel that they are
so worthless that they deserve the abuse.
It may be physical or
psychological, but regardless of the form the abuse takes, it could
happen to anyone. Abusers come from all walks of life – and so do their
victims.
The Christmas period will have been particularly difficult for women
suffering domestic abuse, explains Natalie.
The festive season means
that the men may be at home more than usual and therefore more likely to
turn violent, expecting the women to wait on them hand and foot and
lashing out when they don’t, tipping over the Christmas tree, or
destroying the children’s new toys when they go on a rampage through the
house.
Abusive men always try to isolate their wives or girlfriends but with
the constant stream of visitors to the house over Christmas and New
Year, the men will typically play up in front of visitors – ignoring the
guests, watching TV really loudly, walking out the room, burping or
farting are some of the ‘tactics’. The effect is that loved ones will
think twice about visiting again.
In the Christian context, abusers may use Scripture or theological
positions to justify their behaviour, while the women may believe that
the permanence of marriage, the importance of forgiveness, and the
headship of the man in the family means they must simply accept it.
That’s why the resource pack includes a theology table that breaks
down what certain verses mean and what they definitely don’t mean.
“This needs to be talked about and what forgiveness means needs to be
explained because people don’t realise that it is not being a doormat,”
says Natalie, who is helping to draft Restored’s resources.
Leaving may seem the obvious or easy choice to those looking in from
the outside, but in reality women in abusive relationships are more
likely to be murdered by their partners at the point of leaving than at
any other time in the relationship.
“We’re scared,” says Natalie, who left after enduring four years of
violence at the hands of her former husband. Some women remain in the
relationship for decades and sadly there are those who never manage to
leave.
She continues: “If I ever did try to leave he would become the
‘persuader’ and that is the key to why we don’t leave. He becomes the
person we first fell in love with. He might have just beaten us black
and blue but he’s telling us he’s going to change, he’s going to get
counselling, he’s never going to do it again. And we’ve got kids and we
believe he will change and we believe ‘my love can change him’. But it
doesn’t.”
Natalie, who has since remarried, grew up in the church and remains
in it to this day, but she agrees with Peter: right now churches just
aren’t equipped to respond to domestic abuse and other forms of violence
against women.
Christian women, she says, find it very difficult to confide in the
church about what’s happening to them.
They have a feeling that the
traditional Christian notions of men and women in the family and, of
course, divorce mean they have no choice but to accept what is happening
to them.
If the abuser is also a member or leader of a church, the
decision to seek help is made even more difficult for the women by the
recognition that doing so will almost certainly be dire for the church.
Even when they do manage to come forward, sometimes the only answer
they receive from the church is an offer to pray for them or counsel the
abusive partner, an action which could create even more problems for
the woman when he hears what she has said about him and returns home to
confront her.
The challenge for the church is manifold.
“It’s just not talked about in the church,” says Natalie. “It
generally doesn’t support divorce and if you are going to tell the
church that you have to leave an abusive relationship in order to save
yourself, they’re not going to support you or you don’t think they are. I had this belief just from growing up in a church setting that
forgiveness meant just accepting any behaviour and that if my husband
said sorry then that was repentance and I had to forgive him, and if he
wanted sex then I just had to say yes because that was what submission
meant. I didn’t get that from one sermon. It’s not like one person stood
up and said ‘this is what it is’ but the problem is that no one stood up
and said ‘this is what it isn’t’.”
Natalie sees the resource as the starting point in turning around the
church’s response to violence against women. It is there to help
churches send out the message that if women come forward to them, they
will be taken seriously and receive the support they need, primarily
through putting them in touch with the local organisations that are
already doing great work and have a track record of helping women.
“At the minute, the church isn’t the answer for people suffering
abuse,” says Natalie. “The pack can’t do everything but it can be a
resource and a tool for the church to use to start thinking about the
issue and what they need to do and for them to realise that it is an
issue. It will help them to understand what domestic abuse is and
recognise when it might be happening to someone in their midst. And it
can create a culture and environment where domestic abuse is always
condemned and the support of women is always enabled,” she says.
“If you aren’t aware of domestic abuse it can be daunting for a
church leader to know how to respond,” adds Peter.
“The church pack
won’t make them an expert but it will offer them some practical guidance
and help them to make that initial response and refer women to the
organisations that can help because there is a lot of expertise in
society.”
For more information about how your church can help women For more
about how your church can help women caught up in domestic abuse, visit
www.restoredrelationships.org
SIC: CT/UK