Domestic Violence not a Domestic Problem

The purple ribbon project advocates an end to interpersonal violence.

Love. Everyone — women, men, children — needs it. We don’t necessarily expect to experience it, in its various forms of acceptance and understanding, support and encouragement, affirmation and affection, “out there” “in the world” of school, work, or public life. In fact, we are often encouraged to think public life is supposed to be a realm of merciless competition, casual unconcern for the welfare of others, and predictable violence. We are encouraged to turn for love and care to “personal relationships” — where many of us experience its most devastating betrayals.

Domestic violence is one of those. The controlling and demanding masculinities we cultivate in our entertainments, reward in our board rooms and recruit for our work and war rooms don’t stay “out” all the time. When they go home, they bring a pattern of violent and coercive behavior with them, into 28% or more of intimate relationships.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. The Women’s Center has been receiving messages from colleagues involved in educating faith communities about the problems associated with domestic violence, and encouraging churches, synagogues and mosques to respond to it with the healing resources they uniquely possess.

The Faith Trust Institute has links to resources, including a bulletin insert that can help call congregational attention to the problem. Presbyterians Against Domestic Violence have a downloadable congregational packet that includes educational and worship resources that can help a congregation raise awareness and energy for mobilizing against the domestic violence.

Our friends at Menswork are observing the month by conducting a special free training on MW PGR Training FlyerPromoting Gender Respect, a program designed to engage men and boys in the prevention of bullying, sexual harrassment, sexual assault, and dating violence. The program recognizes the need to counteract those culturally prevalent messages that equate violence with “real” masculinity, and to energize a different, more positive script. The training takes place October 12, 9:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., at Family Scholar House, 403 Reg Smith Circle, Louisville.

All these resources acknowledge something we already know, or ought to: domestic violence is far from an isolated personal problem. It is a problem for and with communal life, which plays itself out in intimate contexts. Its solution calls for communal action.

 

Domestic Violence Goes to Church

AP photo of St. Thomas Syrian Orthodox Knanaya Church, Clifton, NJ

Yesterday, a woman died in a New Jersey church, apparently having sought sanctuary there. Her attacker killed two other members of the congregation in the attack, shot two other members of the congregation in the attack, one of whom later died, and one of whom is in critical condition.

Sometimes, domestic violence shows up right in the narthex.

Our thoughts and prayers are with this bereaved congregation.

Let’s hope our ongoing actions and commitments will be, as well. Churches, pastors, would-be pastors, Christian educators, the entire Christian community, the Church, need to be concerned about domestic violence, and actively involved in the effort to end it, for lots of reasons. Because it is in the world in which we live, because it is a source of suffering, because it creates situations in which people need comfort and healing and confrontation and repentance and transformation, all the things God offers, and that can (we say, we hope) be encountered in the community that gathers around that offer.

Because domestic violence is a gender issue, because it draws its energy from the messages in our world that men are supposed to dominate women, or at least some women, at least their women; and from the other messages, that glamorize and valorize violence in the cause of combatting evil and just doing what’s right (like, just making that woman do what she’s supposed to do). And because those are messages the church is in a position to challenge, with its Jesus-lessons of the great among you being servants rather than tyrants (Matt. 20:25) and not responding with violence (Matt. 5:44, e.g.). And because those are messages the church should challenge, though it hasn’t always lived up to that calling, and has even turned the good news it is called to preach to the captives into exhortations to return to abusive situations.

But then there is the frankly practical reason, that all the ramifications of domestic violence affect churches and church members directly. Domestic violence comes to church. Our sanctuaries are not always, really, safe spaces, even when we have done all we can to make them that way. They certainly will not be when we have done less than that, because we thought, mistakenly, that domestic violence was one of those problems that would respect the magic threshold of the church.

[One exceptional pastoral and institutional resource is Marie Fortune's Faith Trust Institute, which is dedicated to mobilizing faith communities to end sexual and domestic violence. The PC(USA)'s Presbyterians Against Domestic Violence Network offers a collection of resources online. The local organization LIFTED (Louisville Task Force to Eliminate Domestic Violence) publishes an online packet to help clergy make congregations safe spaces at the MENSWORK website.]