| (Copyright 2006) by Catherine C. Kroeger (Brewster, Massachusetts) |
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| A traveler was trudging along the way between Jerusalem and Jericho. The road in that direction is an easy one, all downhill; for Jerusalem is on high ground and the land around the Dead Sea lies 1390 feet below sea level. So, it was that our traveler was led to expect a swift and fortuitous journey; but suddenly the totally unexpected happened. He was set upon by a group of robbers who seized his belongings, stripped him naked and beat him so severely that he lay half dead by the side of the road. He lies there alone, his friends and family totally ignorant that he is in trouble of any sort. Of course, the analogy is soon made to the condition of victims of domestic abuse. Although sometimes there are warning signals that went unheeded, often trusting unfortunates set out blithely on the matrimonial journey with absolutely no inkling that the specter of abuse could lurk along the road. I once heard Sarah Buell, a nationally acknowledged expert on abuse, say that it is very difficult even for skilled professionals to recognize a potential abuser in advance. Just like the traveler caught unawares, the victim “usually a woman” finds herself in dire straits with no one immediately available to help. Even if she is able to raise her voice, there is no guarantee that anyone will respond. So many victims lie alone beside the road, often deliberately isolated by their abuser from friends and family. In our story, the victim has sustained a life-threatening experience. He has been deprived of his assets, abused, beaten, inflicted with serious bodily injury, stripped of dignity and basic human rights and shunned by the religious establishment, It is he who is designated by Jesus as the exemplar of the neighbor whom one is to love as oneself. Two highly qualified leaders of the religious establishment pass by unconcerned, unwilling to get involved in what is clearly a most unfortunate situation. Did the priest and Levite fear defilement as they traveled upwards on the road to minister in the temple at Jerusalem? Why soil their hands of their garments? Surely their ritual purity was more essential than the complicated nuisance that lay beside the road. Did they perhaps curse the crumpled form that was cluttering up their path? And so they leave him to die as trash along the road. Indubitably the reverend gentlemen were well aware of the biblical dictate that “those who despise the poor are an insult to their maker, and those who help the poor honor him.” (Prov 14:31) Nor were they ignorant of the prophecy of Obadiah, the shortest tractate in the Old Testament (also the least read). It has a very simple message: the importance of standing up for those in need. The Edomites are condemned for their failure to come to the aid of Israel. Because of the violence you did to your close relatives in Israel, you will be filled with shame and destroyed forever. When they were invaded, you stood aloof, refusing to help them. Foreign invaders carried off their wealth and cast lots to divide up Jerusalem, but you acted like one of Israel’s enemies. You should not have gloated when they exiled your relatives to distant lands. You should not have spoken arrogantly in that terrible time of trouble. (vs. 10-12) Disregarding admonitions of this sort and hewing to their own neatly designed theological rationalization, the priest and Levite simply ignore the victim? or perhaps even blame him. He is a matter of indifference to them, and they proceed on about their own business. But have we too, like Obadiah’s Edomites, been guilty of standing aloof or of speaking arrogantly and unfeelingly when those of our own church family are in a time of terrible trouble? Was the man beside the road conscious enough to realize that his own faith community had rejected him, that the religious authorities felt no incumbency to give him any sort of assistance or compassion? Did he feel, as so many other victims do, that there was now no longer room for him in the family of God, that somehow his own sin had placed him in this crisis? How often victims feel distanced from the Lord’s presence and favor, snubbed by church leadership, scolded, humiliated, and abandoned! One member of a world-famous fundamentalist church wailed “Our church sends tons and tons of food overseas but won’t even give a basket of groceries to a devoted church member when she is fleeing abuse.” Other victims tell of being removed from the choir or praise team, of being asked to defer their request for church membership, of being asked what they have done to deserve the abuse. Yes, it is the rejection by other Christians that hurts the worst of all. But to return to the victim in the story, some might ask “why didn’t he just call 911”? This, of course, is ridiculous in the context of the story, but no more ridiculous than the questions that are often asked about modern day victims of abuse. “Why doesn’t she just leave, what is she doing to stop it, doesn’t she know that she’s just enabling him”? There may be remarks such as “I tried to help her once before, and she just went back to him.” Alas, we are all too willing to place all the responsibility at the victim’s door. Recently an attorney for the Greater Boston Legal Services wrote a letter to the Boston Globe. In part she said Too often the victim is expected to leave the situation, so victims of domestic violence are essentially blamed for staying. We should never be asking why victims stay. The real question is why, as a society, do we continue to portray intimate victim violence as anything other than it is: a crime. If the parties to an assault were not in a relationship, no one would ever suggest that the victim was to blame for permitting the assault to occur. My experience working with victims of domestic abuse has shown me that society treats these crimes differently. Why else would the media persistently refer to an assault on one’s partners as a “domestic dispute”? It’s a crime, and it needs to be treated as such. To do less is to perpetuate prejudice against victims, permit perpetrators to continue to deny responsibility, and allow the judiciary to impose sentences that send a message to perpetrators that it is not really a crime to beat up your spouse. Of course, nice Christian people think that the whole thing is horrid, and few are willing to address the issue, or to take on its systemic implications. The job is messy, complicated, and inconvenient. It demands far too much of us personally and is likely to earn us the opprobrium of the respectable Christian community. However, Jesus tells this story to place the responsibility on the people of God. It is they who must show love to their neighbor. Help comes for the abandoned man from a most unlikely source. It is an individual outside of the victim’s own faith community, one who is able to buck the attitudes of the religious establishment. Although of a different race, the Good Samaritan has read the same five books of Moses. But he looked at the law of God with different eyes and was willing to step out of line, to respond to a different call and to invest himself in obedience to what he read. Some of us would consider other parts of his theology somewhat suspect. Thus, it is that modern day victims too sometimes finds that help comes from those who do not have the same religious point of view. Actually, secular feminists were in the shelter movement and performing all sorts of acts of mercy while we evangelicals didn’t even know there was a problem. It is still true today that most help for victims of domestic abuse comes from sources that do not identify themselves as Christian. One devoted church member exclaimed “It was such a shock to discover that I had to go to the community sources for help to apply for food stamps and get a restraining order and emergency shelter and safety counseling.” The church that had a great reputation for caring really didn’t care to touch any part of the problem with a ten foot pole. Yes, we have been there with too little and too late. The Samaritan, however, when he came to the place where the man lay, poured both oil and wine into his wounds, bound them up and placed him on his own means of transportation. Thereafter he brought him to a safe place where he would not be further abused. Beside the sacrifice of his own sleep and leisure in caring all night for the victim, the Samaritan parted with personal wealth in order to secure humane treatment for the survivor. It had cost time and trouble and treasure, but it earned him the commendation of Jesus. The Samaritan had ministered not only to the body but also to the soul of a man whose desperate need had been ignored by his co-religionists. We read that the kindly stranger poured both oil and wine into his wounds. Wine, of course, can serve as a disinfectant, and oil promotes healing. In the Bible oil symbolizes the work of the Holy Spirit, grace, joy, and a demonstration of God’s favor and empowerment. It is particularly this demonstration of God’s grace that constitutes the gift that we who follow Jesus Christ can bring to abuse victims. Other agencies may be better suited to meet many of their other needs, but we are best suited to treat the soul wound. It is here that the injury is deepest, and the need so often ignored. These victims have been betrayed and abused by someone they love, and often the emotional and psychological abuse is far worse that any physical injury they have sustained. They have been vilified, demeaned, humiliated, insulted and derided. Often their self-image is at ground zero. Here is where the people of God can give victims the healing balm of the scriptures, the hundred odd texts that condemn physical, verbal, sexual and emotional abuse. We can show them what the prophets say of God’s love for those who are oppressed, disenfranchised and afflicted. We can share with them God’s promise of healing and wholeness. Early one morning an abused woman read a collection of scriptures that I had e-mailed to her, and she said “As I drove to work, I just had shivers running up and down my spine.” She had been shunned by her church, but she found her affirmation in the Word of God, and she regained her personhood. Thereafter she started a support group so that she could share her good news with other Christian women in similar straits. I recollect a woman who came to our local Cape Cod community shelter, and her first words were “More than anything else, I want someone to pray with me.” The wounded woman who has been covered with blows loves to be covered with prayer. They love to have you hold their hand as you pray. One day I stood with my arms around that woman as we prayed together in the restroom of the courthouse before she had to face her husband in a divorce hearing. Prayer can take on a whole new dimension for these people. Abused women love little acts of caring, of being invited to your home, of being included in holidays that they might otherwise have to face in lonely bitterness. They are hungry for your words of affirmation and encouragement, and profoundly grateful for practical acts of assistance, watching the children, a basket of groceries, a safe place to store belongings. Toiletries, clothing, and children’s toys for those who have had to flee in haste. A teddy bear. These say that somebody cares, that God is still there for those caught in the horrors of domestic abuse. We can also help persons in unsafe situations to develop a safety plan. Some feel that to do so would be a lack of faith, but the wisdom writer said, “A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The foolish go blindly on and suffer the consequences.” (Proverbs 22:3) Yes, there is the oil of healing, but the Samaritan also poured wine into the wounds as a disinfectant. There are many false ideas that bind the family and the church into patterns that exacerbate existing wounds and make further abuse more likely to occur. Alas, we have developed a predisposing ethos. If we are to be faithful to the scriptures, then we must disabuse God’s people of some dangerous concepts. May God lead us to understand the ways of peace! We note that the Samaritan bound up the wounds, availed himself of a community resource and recruited the services of the inn keeper. We can also encourage women in consulting the services available in their community. “From the steeple to the shelter” is very good policy. Here is an essential point: churches fear to send their congregants to the available community resources, and those connected with these community resources fear to have the victim contact her pastor. A woman who must seek protection in a shelter feels compelled to hide her spiritual needs and convictions. Shelter workers have repeatedly experienced the jeopardy in which their clients have been placed by pastors who insist that the victims return home. They are understandably reluctant for any contact with churches or church-related agencies. Yet we can seek to bring evidence of our concern to shelters and agencies caring for abused women. The needs are so diverse that ordinarily no one agency or service can meet all of them… Here is a wonderful place to serve as a volunteer; and in that capacity one doesn’t necessarily have to stand on a soap-box to make it apparent that one is a Christian who cares. Increasingly there is a realization that a victim bears acute wounds in his or her soul and that spiritual needs must be recognized and addressed. The division of violence and Injury Prevention of the Department of Public Health in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts now employs a program coordinator to offer spiritual resources to secular community agencies that provide assistance to victims of domestic abuse. They’re starting to want what we have to say. Our literature, our labor and our love can make themselves felt in ways that are both large and small. As the Samaritan turned his patient over to the innkeeper, he pulled money from his own purse to pay for accommodation and care during the convalescence. If the process were to take longer than might be anticipated, the Samaritan stood ready to underwrite a more protracted period of recovery. Healing cannot be programmed into a timetable. In particular, forgiveness does not happen on cue. It is the work of the Holy Spirit and cannot be rushed or supplied on demand. Much is written in the Bible about forgiveness, and often a pastor is very quick to demand that a wife forgive the husband who says that he is sorry. But neither God nor human beings can forgive in a vacuum. Forgiveness is based upon a changed pattern of behavior. Jesus said to forgive those who genuinely repented. This will take time to establish, and the wife has every right to continue to be concerned for her own safety as well as that of her children. To insist upon a precipitous reconciliation may be to send a woman and her family to their deaths. A victim may well need a protracted period of time before forgiveness is possible. This must not be forced or rushed. It may be a very long while before members of the family can feel safe around one who has betrayed their trust and endangered their lives. God can bring forgiveness at the right time and in an appropriate way. We must remember that Jesus said that forgiveness should come as a result of genuine repentance and transformed conduct on the part of the offender. That takes a lot of time and work, no matter how extravagant the claims of immediate transformation. There are a few faith-based intervention programs that offer hope, but they do not offer instant cures. But let us return to the conditions on the Jericho Road. It led down through a deep ravine with high cliffs on each side, and the wild terrain offered excellent opportunities to those willing to take advantage of an unwary traveler’s vulnerability. Have we developed such an unsafe environment within our churches? Along that Jericho Road, there are towering crags behind which an abuser can hide. There are ideologies that can predispose to abusive behavior. For instance, Elizabeth Hanford Rice, in her book Me? Obey Him, maintains that a godly wife must submit to her husband’s authority even when it comes to wife swapping, domestic violence and child abuse. Dorothy McGuire, Carol Lewis and Alvena Blatchley commended a wife who submitted to her husband even after he had been tried and convicted of trying to murder her. 1 Their book Submission: Are There Limits, requires that a wife submit to physical abuse, sexual abuse and going to an x rated movie. I once sat in a crowded auditorium and heard a highly influential speaker illustrate that the husband was a hammer, pounding down on a chisel (the wife) that was in turn hacking away at the children. He later went on to say that a wife was to praise God for her husband even while he was beating her. Yes, sentiments such as these, absorbed by the Christian community, provide the climate in which abuse can easily happen. All too often the church has contributed to the problem rather than providing solutions. The problem of domestic abuse is not confined to evangelicals. Sociologist Nancy Nason-Clark, finds not a higher rate of occurrence but of more severe situations among earnest believers. In a paper given at the Evangelical Theological Society last fall, Steven Tracey wrote, “It is widely accepted by abuse experts (and validated by numerous studies) that one fourth to one third of North American women will be assaulted by an intimate partner in their life time and that evangelical men who sporadically attend church are more likely than men of any other religious group (and more likely than secular men) to assault their wives.” 2. Evangelicals are exceedingly reticent to disclose the reality, even when it reaches life-threatening proportions. They fear that this will damage the testimony of their church and of their spiritual convictions. They perceive marriage to be a replica of Christ’s love for the church and they dare not reveal the terrible travesty of what goes on in their own home. In point of fact, such a perception reverses the biblical image: Christ’s love for the church is supposed to be a paradigm for the love of husband and wife. This cannot possibly be mirrored by an abusive marriage. One endangering issue is that of insistence that a family stay together even when the situation is unhealthy or even dangerous. Another is an insistence on secrecy, even when this only serves to perpetuate the problem. Our testimony is not damaged by the admission of a difficulty but rather by silencing, denying, ignoring, or minimizing it. Sometimes we have idealized and idolized the family in ways that have blinded our eyes to the ugly realities. We as evangelicals stand upon a biblically based affirmation of the integrity and importance of the family, but this then requires not that we turn away but that we address the problems with prayer, scriptural resources, informed response, and caring concern. In terms of abuse prevention, we have splendid resources that are critically underutilized. In the first place, we have the power of the Scriptures. If we believe that they are our only infallible rule of faith and practice, then we must heed their manifold injunctions against physical, verbal, mental, emotional and sexual abuse. The Bible condemns such conduct vehemently, and it is our duty to be faithful to what we are being told in the Word of God. There are some hundred biblical passages addressing battering, violence, rape, incest, stalking, lying in wait, twisting the words of another, threats, and intimidation. If this is what the word of God says, then we must be faithful in proclaiming it. Let us remember that what is taught in the church permeates large sections of our society far beyond the walls of the church. Lamentably, many church members tell researchers that they have never heard a sermon on domestic abuse. The ancient prophets viewed things quite differently. Ezekiel specifically condemns shepherds who allow the more powerful members of the flock to butt and mistreat the weaker members. “Hear indeed, O shepherds, the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God: I am going to deal with the shepherds! I will demand a reckoning of them for My flock.” (Ezekiel 34:7-9) If the shepherds have failed, then God will assume direct supervision. And as for you, My flock, thus said the Lord God: I am going to judge between one animal and another. To the rams and the bucks: Is it not enough to you to graze on choice grazing ground, but you must also trample with your feet what is left from your grazing, And is it not enough for you to drink clear water, but you must also muddy with your feet what is left? And My flock graze on what your feet have trampled and drink what your feet have muddied. Assuredly, thus said the Lord God to them: Here am I, I am going to decide between the stout animals and the lean. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder against the feeble ones and butted them with your horns until you scattered them abroad, I will rescue My flock and they shall no longer be a spoil. I will decide between one animal and another. . .. (34:11-22) May God make us faithful to respond, to bring our congregations to a place of zero tolerance for abuse, to develop a protocol that can be used uniformly when there is a disclosure by a victim, to listen carefully to those who dare to tell their story, to bring offenders to accountability, to become agents of healing rather than condemnation, to become spiritually informed and faithful in prayer. There are many wounded lying along the road, and will you indeed love these neighbors as yourself? (Footnotes) 1 Dorothy McGuire, Carol Lewis and Alvena Blatchley Submission: Are There Limits? (Denver: Trii-R Ministries, 1984) 36-42. 49. 52/ 2 Steven R. Tracy “What does: Submit in Everything” Really Mean? The Nature and Scope of Marital Submission, Presented at the Evangelical Theological Society November 17, 2006. ——————————————————————————– Reprinted with permission from: God’s Word to Women http://www.godswordtowomen.org/ ——————————————————————————– |
| Iron Sharpening Iron In regard to: The Victim Beside the Road Article by Catherine C. Kroeger Comments by James Steinle (Swanville, Minnesota) |
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| “The Victim Beside the Road” by Catherine C. Kroeger on abuse was quite enlightening and thought provoking. |
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