What can the church do to meet the challenge of domestic abuse?

Domestic abuse is in the news again in Australia since the 1-woman-a-week murdered through domestic violence became, this year so far, 1 woman in 4 days. In 2020, the UN reported that 47,000 women and girls were murdered by an intimate partner or family member that year – meaning a woman or girl was murdered by domestic violence every 11 minutes.¹

In Australia, there have been nationwide protests. The grief and the anger are palpable. I spoke to some women at work and even though domestic abuse is not part of their personal story, they are not coping with everything they are reading and hearing.

Their heartache comes from a feeling of helplessness. And that has very deep roots in learned and recently observed cultural history:

• In 1996, a massacre occurred in Port Arthur in Tasmania which left 35 dead and 18 wounded. It was horrific. The response was swift and courageous – a huge tightening of gun laws and a gun buy-back scheme that resulted in the surrender of around 700,000 firearms.
• In 2014, “One punch laws” were introduced around Australia after a string of alcohol related deaths resulting from a single blow to the head or neck. At the time, 172 men had been killed by such blows. In February of that year, then-Premier of NSW introduced lockout laws – that is, the earlier closure of licensed venues and bottle shops. Assaults in Sydney’s key social (and alcohol related violence hotspots) Kings Cross and the CBD fell by 32 and 26 per cent respectively.² Sadly, big business won out and the laws were repealed soon after.

What these instances show though, is that when needed, governments can move decisively and quickly to combat a social problem, and with positive results.

In the last 5 years alone, 319 women have been murdered at the hands of their current or former partner in Australia. And yet no swift, decisive or courageous action has been taken. The only change that we can see is that things are getting worse.

This makes women feel like their lives don’t matter. Like nothing ever changes. Like the people who have the power to do something don’t care enough about this issue to make the changes needed to combat this issue.

This instills in women a sense of powerlessness. Their voices are not heard. Their lives are not of enough value to actually do something. Ironically, tragically, these are the very feelings that are produced from situations of domestic abuse, workplace harassment and bullying and in so many other situations that women face every day.

This can be amplified by “what-about-ism” – that is, when talking about this issue, the response is that men are subject to domestic abuse too. Indeed they are. But hijacking this issue by replacing it with that issue not only de-values what women feel and experience, it effectively tries to silence their voices even more.

Violence against men is absolutely an issue. But right now, in this moment, we need to talk about violence against women.

The immobilisation of people in power comes from too little too late – perhaps they feel helpless too. They are fighting against a long history where violence against women was accepted and expected. In fact, history shows us that there is a certain level of male aggression that women ought to expect at the hands of her husband, with laws and judicial outcomes based on the judge and juries subjective opinion as to whether that line had been crossed from basic marital violence, to cruel and legally unacceptable. The best documented examples come from the 18th and 19th centuries³ and these are the foundation of attitudes and application of the law today. In 2012 when Nicola Stocker posted a comment on social media about her ex-husbands attempt to strangle her, her ex-husband sued her for defamation. His arrest was not in doubt. His physical assault on her was not in doubt (there were marks still on her neck 2 hours afterwards when the police interviewed her). The issue was whether she defamed him by saying so. He won. He won because the judge judged, in his own opinion that “what happened is that he did in a temper attempt to silence her forcibly by placing one hand on her mouth and the other on her upper neck under her chin to hold her still. His intention was to silence, not to kill.”⁴ In no other criminal proceeding would a judgement be passed around the intention of the aggressor and not their action. In this case, we can see quite clearly how attitudes about men, women and the marital relationship are skewed.

What is it about attitudes about men that aggravates this view? One is a sense of superiority, another is entitlement, and a third is the inability to curb animal urges.

Again, these are historically and culturally embedded and there isn’t the time or space to give adequate coverage here. I have covered some issues on problematic sexual behaviour in marriage in other blogs (Sexual consent in marriage from both a biblical perspective and our cultural baggage). It is worth noting though that while violence against women has been around as long as men and women have, a critical change in cultural attitude came in the Middle Ages when the poetry and language of courtly love (where a woman was to be wooed by a knight who was ready to die for love), evolved into to courtly rape (where a man “stormed the castle” to take the woman). “His lady was no more the commander of his fate, she was an involuntary assistant to his satisfaction.”⁵ The language of that poetry found its way into court documents and how crimes were genteelly described which began to feed into the myths that breaking down a woman’s defences forcibly is somehow a romantic endeavor or part of the flirtatious dance and that men animalistically cannot stop when started. This latter is particularly insidious as it absolves the man of any responsibility for his actions. It even places the onus of responsibility on the woman, because there were things that she can do to stop the events (so the thinking goes) whereas he cannot.

We see this play out in the common and vile questions a woman is asked and the assumption that she contributed to the violence against her. Why didn’t she leave? What was she wearing? How did she provoke him? In what way did she lead him on? Not many ask the rather more simple question – Why did he do that?

This is the million dollar question. “Whether perpetrators abuse strategically or on impulse, however, they usually have one thing in common: a supercharged sense of entitlement.”⁶ That entitlement comes from a “social system where men have positions of power, and women are seen as second class citizens.”⁷ This has been the case forever, so why does it feel so different now? “Subjugation is not a condition that is natural to women, and it runs entirely counter to the phenomenal liberation we have fought so hard for. That’s why abusers – especially coercive controllers – don’t just beat their victims anymore. If they want to replicate the old conditions of submission and devotion, they need to create an environment of coercive control.”⁸

This, to me, feels like a particularly insightful observation.

Let’s think about this biblically. Subjugation is not natural to any of us. Our desire (men and women) is to be God, ruler of our own destiny and placing ourselves first, which by extension means ruling over our environment and anyone in it. The extent to which this happens of course varies, as do the means by which we do it. But living our lives the way we want is, since Adam and Eve, what we are prone to do. This is complicated by the curse from the Fall which left us with a power struggle. We are no longer of equal value in our being and with differing functions (inherent in which is makes no difference to our value), we are now locked in a struggle for dominion. Dominion can take many forms – it can include physical control, or who’s truth is the right one and everything in between. The church in the past has played into this struggle by misappropriating scripture. For example, requiring wives to submit (per Ephesians 5:22, Colossians 3:18 and 1 Peter 3:1) without any qualification or nuance is not – is NOT – what the Bible communicates. It ignores the immediate and broader context of these passages and twists Scripture grossly. Submission in the context of these passages puts the responsibility on the husband to love his wife sacrificially (like Christ loved the church) and to be the husbands that a wife can voluntarily and freely submit to. If her submission is not free or voluntary (ie if it is demanded or coerced in any way) it is not biblical submission.

We need to acknowledge that this is not how it has been historically. Our reading of Scripture has been culturally dominated and in times past, the submission of the wife was expected. Even to the point of accepting violence at the hands of her husband, as we have seen. As such, the preferred reading of Scripture largely aligned with how things were in the world. But since the earlier 20th century, and particularly second wave feminism of the 1960s, that picture is changing. With the power dynamic shifting, some are trying to re-institute (consciously or unconsciously) the previous power dynamic.

This is something we should be aware of and requires very careful navigation on our part. As Christians, we are seeking the kinds of relationships that God has on view when he created us and communicated to us through his Word, not the kinds of relationships we have on view as we imperfectly apply his words.

That takes humility. And it takes work.

But where to begin?

First, we can acknowledge that the current situation is not good enough and we can recognise that we all have a part to play.

As citizens of a thriving democracy where we all have a voice, we can be more outraged. We can write to our local politicians, we can march, we can join the conversation. To do this, we need to educate ourselves and face the unimaginable. We need to acknowledge that violence against women is real and pervasive. It happens to any woman, at the hands of any kind of man. “Perpetrators exist on a spectrum: from family men who don’t even realise they’re being abusive, to master manipulators who terrorise their partners.”⁹ In 2020, 23,153 women and girls reported rape and sexual assault. Data suggests that only 10% of rapes are reported to police.¹⁰ That means that, including the unreported cases, there were over 200,000 sexual assaults in Australia in 2020. Think of it another way – in 2020, there were 200,000 rapists and sexual abusers in Australia and 94% of the offenders are men and boys. That’s just under 550 sexual assaults a day, of which only 55 are reported. Only a fraction of those end up going to court and fewer end up in a conviction.¹¹ What this means essentially is that if a man rapes a woman, he has about a 90% chance of the woman not reporting him and about a 99% chance of getting away with it altogether.

We need to be outraged by that. And instead of despair and hopelessness, we need to imagine the world we would rather have, and act on that. The world we imagine doesn’t have to be a utopian fantasy land. It is already imagined for us in the pages of Scripture. It is in God’s communication to us through Christ in how to treat each other. That is not a vague “be nice to each other” kind of sentiment. That is firm and unequivocal. This should be what helps us to act on the current situation and future change.

Funding into domestic violence services is undoubtedly needed. But we need to change the attitudes at the source in order to achieve generational change. The church has a vital role to play in this – as do we all, as worshippers and glorifiers of God. We need to feel empowered by the word of God and the vision he has for our relationships as a way to change the situation both now and into the future. So here’s some ideas to act on as individuals and as churches:

1. The Ten Commitments for Prevention and Response to Domestic and Family Violence in the Anglican Church of Australia is a good place to start, as is the work that the Sydney Diocese has done on domestic violence and continues to do. Contact your minister and your Bishop to see how you and your church can support these initiatives.
2. Be clear what your church’s policy on domestic abuse is – both in responding to it when presented and in teaching. If it is not clear, have a discussion with your minister as to how to effectively train and communicate policy.
3. The culture of a church comes from the senior minister. So the attitude of the senior minister to domestic abuse is key. When I say domestic abuse, that includes both physical violence and more insidious coercive control and psychological abuse. In previous generations, only a physical assault was (perhaps subconsciously) considered abuse. Ministers need to be trained on abuse and abusers, as well as how to set aside unconscious biases as to what the typical abuser and typical victim look like in order to minister effectively. It is worth noting that not everything in the church has to be about this for a church to get the “general vibe” as to what the minister’s views are. In my church for example, there are no women on the ministry staff but the senior minister seeks out the advice of women on key topics so that women’s views and voices are heard and included in his planning and policy making. He has made his view of domestic abuse clear a couple of times but you can hear across all his sermons his views on men, women and relationships to the extent that I have a pretty good idea that this church is a safe emotional space.
4. We need to better communicate and teach complementarianism – that is, the equal value of men and women with differing functions. Previous generations have translated that as “equal but inferior” that plays into the miscommunication of scripture around submission. Gods Good Design by Claire Smith and Embracing Complementarianism by Jane Tooher and Graham Beynon are great start points.
5. We need to recognise that abuse doesn’t come from nowhere. It begins in small ways within a marriage setting and can become amplified. This means that inappropriate behaviours may be occurring in many marriages without husbands and wives even knowing. It’s the proverbial frog in a pot of slowly boiling water. The unhealthy atmosphere may only become known when the damage is done. So marriage courses can focus on what is appropriate and inappropriate behaviour and raise the level of discussion on topics we would probably rather not talk about. Marriage prep is great but follow up to marriage prep to check that unhealthy behaviours aren’t creeping in is extremely important.
6. Let’s raise the level of discussion on inappropriate or unhealthy behaviour. That could include disrespect, name calling, belittling (stop being so stupid), expecting domestic service (where’s my dinner), demanding sex, silent treatment – all the things which don’t seem abusive but which can dabble in the shallow end of that pool depending on the frequency and the context. Of course, these can all crop up within the context of a perfectly healthy argument between husband and wife where emotions are regulated well. But sometimes they aren’t, and the disrespect sets the tone within the relationship and is wielded punitively as time goes on.
7. So we need to encourage the humility of self-reflection and support people to repent of behaviour they realize is not healthy. This is not to say that all husbands are abusers. This is merely to say that some behaviour can enter a marriage relationship that is not abusive but is unhealthy and, in some cases, form the foundation for later worse behaviour.
8. We need better and braver restrictions on what our children can access on social media. Much of the new pervasive and aggressive backlash in the power struggle between men and women is coming from influencers like Andrew Tate and the easy access to pronography. This sets a bedrock for boys in their formative years as to what they think women want (and deserve) and makes violence against women normalised (“it’s just a joke”) or something that girls should expect as part of being a woman.
9. We need to fathers to raise sons with specific guidance from the Bible in terms of how God sees women, how God sees relationships and a man’s responsibilities as a husband towards his wife.
10. We need brothers to call out brothers when they see or hear attitudes and behaviours that are worrying and teach men how to have those conversations with grace and love.
11. We can be more active in campaigns to change our environment. The work of Collective Shout and Melinda Tankard Reist focus on the de-sexualisation of advertising and online spaces, and changing attitudes to sexual behaviour from school aged years.
12. We need to listen more to women. When women are crying out for justice, they aren’t being “hysterical” or “shrill”, they are asking to be taken seriously. The Bible takes women seriously. God made women of absolutely equal value to him as man.
13. We need to raise the level of discussion on difficult topics. For example, God made women (generally speaking) with a different sexual appetite to men. We need to explore why that is (and I have written on this with a conclusion that it is another example of God’s great glory) and what God would have us do in those most vulnerable of situations.
14. Let’s work on this as men and women together. This is a problem affecting our world and our churches that stems from sinfulness and the curse of the Fall. Let us work together in humility and love, in self-reflection and in repentance to increase in Christlikeness and witness to the world that there is a better way.

That’s a lot – but it shows that there is a lot that we can do as individuals and as churches, to combat what we are seeing around us. We are not helpless.

Our imagination for a better world should be fuelled by God’s created goodness. This takes humility, communication and awareness. All these are hard work. But if we don’t engage and we don’t do the hard work, God’s world will continue to be drained of its created goodness, the violence towards women will not diminish, the struggle for dominion will escalate and our sons and daughters will be taught that this is all they can expect from the world.

That thought breaks my heart. I know it breaks God’s too. Let’s imagine a better world, a world that reflects God’s glory, and, by the strength of God’s grace act on it.

1. UN Office on Drigs and Crime https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/UN_BriefFem_251121.pdf ↩︎
2. Some say these are greater reductions, but I have used the lower numbers here to be conservative. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-16/crime-statistics-and-lockout-laws-nsw-2015/6396486 ↩︎
3. Kate Morgan, The Walnut Tree: Women, Violence and the Law – A Hidden History ↩︎
4. Jennifer Robinson and Keina Yoshida, How Many More Women, pxii ↩︎
5. Philippa Gregory, Normal Women. 900 Years of Making History ↩︎
6. Jess HIll, See What You Made Me Do: Power, Control and Domestic Violence, p50 ↩︎
7. Ibid, p134 ↩︎
8. Ibid, p49 ↩︎
9. Ibid, p27 ↩︎
10. https://janegilmore.com/rape-and-sexual-assault-in-australia-2019-2020/#Courts-and-prisons ↩︎
11. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-14/why-do-so-few-sexual-assault-result-in-convictions/10492256 ↩︎