Friday Night Theology

Domestic Violence in the Bible?

13 March 2009

167 women are raped every day in the UK; 1 in 4 women will be the victim of domestic violence at some time in their life. And in a recent poll, 1 in 7 people think it's ok for a man to slap his wife or girlfriend for wearing revealing clothing in public. A similar number think that women who nag their husbands deserve to be hit. Moreover, it is expected that all of these statistics may get worse during the recession.

I hope you'll agree that this makes alarming reading. That's precisely why this week the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has launched the largest ever, cross government, public consultation on violence against women and girls. Whether we agree with Smith's proposals or not, we all have a responsibility to address these issues. 

If we're honest, the Church has often been pretty bad at tackling domestic violence. There are numerous stories of churches that have not believed women who have reported violence, and of pastors who have abused their wives. An article in Christianity Today estimated that 1 in 4 Christian couples will experience at least one episode of physical abuse within their marriage. Christians are in no way immune from this problem. Even worse, some people have tried to argue that violence against women is justified in the Bible. And I suspect you've had friends tell you that the Bible is anti-women and misogynistic.

One of the common passages that has been abused to justify violence towards women is Ephesians 5:22, "Wives submit to your husbands." Yet what proponents of this verse usually fail to notice is that this call to submission comes in the wider context of verse 21, "Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ." What's more, in the Greek, verse 22 doesn't actually use the word submit, rather it is implied. Given that verse 21 calls everyone to submit, submission in this context becomes about mutual respect, care and love, rather than power and domination. Or as Philippians 2:4 puts it, "Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others." The Ephesians passage then goes on to instruct husbands to, "Love your wives as Christ loved the Church," which can only mean laying down his life for her in humble service (Mark 10:45). 

Of course there is also the problem that in the Old Testament there are numerous places where violence towards women is mentioned and some have assumed that because it's described, God must endorse it. Yet just because the Bible may give us an account of a situation or event that happened, this does not mean God automatically approves of it. So for example, in Genesis 19, just because Lot offers his daughters to the men outside his house, that does not mean he was right in doing so. And even though the Bible later goes on to describe Lot as righteous (2 Peter 2:7-8), it doesn't mean that he was righteous on this particular occasion. In fact often these stories can highlight just how different God's standards are from our human, fallen and broken reality.

If humans are broken, then do we just accept that this is the case and that Christians won't be immune from it? I don't believe so, for while we may recognise that this world is not going to be perfect until Christ returns, we can strive to live to his standards, praying that with the help of the Holy Spirit we might achieve this. It means that in our own relationships - whether with colleagues, friends, spouses, family or neighbours - we seek to "submit to one another." And it means that we should affirm the government's efforts to tackle domestic violence, speaking out on these issues and not burying our heads in the sand. Jesus knew our world was broken, and that's precisely why he came to redeem it, to reconcile us to God, and to each other. And he calls us in turn to model this reconciliation, healing and redemption to a hurting and broken world.

Susannah Clark, Public Theology Researcher