Leslie Vernick: Sexual Abuse in Marriage

Maybe you've heard it from your church leaders or other wives: There's no such thing as sexual abuse in marriage. Your body is no longer your own. He can do with it as he pleases. No good wife every refuses anything sexual her husband desires. His needs, his needs, his needs...

That was the main idea behind the Christian objection to 50 Shades of Grey. It wasn't that the storyline was based on abuse, manipulation, coercion, perversion. It was that the sex didn't take place inside a legal marriage. Abuse dissolves with a marriage certificate, right?

What?!

If there had been a wedding, then THAT would have been rendered good?

Sexual abuse within marriage does happen, and it is sinister, damaging, and evil.

Leslie Vernick on her blog from March 25, 2015, shares one woman's account.

As we've said before, "Satan is a one-trick pony." This could have been this writer's story, down to most every shared detail. The husband's actions and underlying mindset, the wife's responses, the church's reaction to her cry for help. It's time to bring this into the light so that the next generation does not suffer so.

Read Leslie's blog here: http://christiancounseling.com/blog/

And just from my experience: Be encouraged. My marriage took from me all my innocence, but God has restored my purity. I am his and he has washed from me all the filth of that relationship. Healing is long and seems slow to me, but it is happening. The purification, however, is a sealed deal. I am his and he is mine and nothing can separate me from his love that is mine in Christ Jesus.

Imposed Widowhood

I was combing her baby-fine wisps of hair upward away from that sweet freckled face when, in the mirror, she cut her too-large-for-her-petite-face eyes upward to catch mine in the reflection.

"Mommy, are we a widow?" she asked, with absolute honest innocence.

The matter-of-factness in the statement felt like re-bar through the gut. I didn't cry. Yet. But I felt my shoulders sag as I thought about how to answer her--how to give this tiny one the bitter reality that she ought to, ought to, ought to be protected from.

"Well, according to the Bible, yes. I think we are. We say "widow." But the Bible just says, "a woman without a man."

It was enough. She seemed satisfied. But I keep thinking on it. Am I satisfied? In a way, I think we both can be, because our Father God is love, and he declares that he loves the fatherless and widow, and judgment on the wicked sends. But it's hard to believe it, because so much of the so-called church has no love for us.

We've been condemned very recently. I cannot return to the danger, destructiveness, uncertainty, objectification, dehumanization, intimidation, dishonesty, theft, and agony we lived through. Almost all my adult life was spent under that and I have been set free by God when I would not free myself. I cannot prostitute myself to gain anything in this material world--not financial "blessing"; not the good opinion of the judgmental in "the church." But that was what was held before me earlier this week. Return to your former prison. Go back to Egypt. There's garlic and onions waiting for you if you do, but it you don't, no help for you!

Religion that is pure and undefiled, before God the Father (that's OUR Father) is this: to visit widows and orphans in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Gradually, God is taking from me every idol. I pray the children see it and my own forced surrender will help them hold more loosely as they mature. Every good thing can become an idol. Every. Good. Thing. And sinful, power-hungry men and women can play upon us in our weakness, to blur the lines between real righteousness and worshiping the creation instead of the Creator and Giver of all Righteousness in his Personhood. I've been there. It is a daily spiritual battle not to return.

He called us out of horror and into widowhood. He will gently lead those who have young. Can I embrace this imposed widowhood despite how hard it is, how contrary to all ideals? If I have him, his favor, his presence, his promises, yes. Even this. Even, "Mommy, we are a widow." If she knows he loves the widow, she knows more than I could ever give her in an intact but severely broken household.

A Cry for Justice Responds to Bethlehem Baptist Church

A Cry for Justice acknowledges the sermon from Bethlehem Baptist Church, promising a change in the church's formerly lax and even supportive view of domestic abuse. After a legacy of soft discipline and "no-divorce-ever" policy under John Piper, the words coming from the BBC session seem to note a radical change in position. But is it? A Cry for Justice wisely asks some very direct and specific questions to "root out" the practical application. Be sure to read the comments for more response from BBC's own representative.

http://cryingoutforjustice.com/2015/04/30/john-pipers-old-church-is-admitting-to-fault-in-how-it-has-addressed-domestic-abuse-and-making-changes/#comment-63156

A Strong Statement Against Abuse from Bethlehem Baptist Church

"We, the council of elders at Bethlehem Baptist Church, are resolved to root out all forms of domestic abuse (mental, emotional, physical, and sexual) in our midst. This destructive way of relating to a spouse is a satanic distortion of Christ-like male leadership because it defaces the depiction of Christ’s love for his bride. The shepherds of Bethlehem stand at the ready to protect the abused, call abusers to repentance, discipline the unrepentant, and hold up high the stunning picture of how much Christ loves his church."

There is nothing passive in this statement. "Resolved to root out all forms of domestic abuse..." There is nothing victim blaming. "The shepherds of Bethlehem stand at the ready to PROTECT the abused..." There is nothing here that excuses abuse, but recognizes it for what it is, "a satanic distortion of Christ-like male leadership because it defaces the depiction of Christ's love for his bride."

All church leaders and the women's ministries that support the church should read this and take seriously the awareness that abuse is a satanic distortion. Praise God! He is opening eyes! Previously, John Piper was very soft on abuse, reluctant to risk ruffling the feather's of men's egos even to suggest that an abused woman should escape an attack if she could--but calling her to endure it until she could seek help from the church another day. I am staggered to see how much God has been working since those statements were made. Praise! Doxology! 

Read the article here. Includes a link to the complete sermon.
http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2015/04/28/hyper-headship-and-the-scandal-of-domestic-abuse-in-the-church/

Leslie Vernick: It takes time and maturity to recognize an abusive marriage

Leslie Vernick writes about the long process of opening eyes toward the reality of abuse. For some, realizing the reality leads to knowledge of the relief (and allowable option) of divorce under abusive circumstances.

It can take decades for the scales to come off our eyes when we have lived with abuse, when we desire to be godly and have God's favor, to see a whole home in the way that we envisioned it in our youth. Co-dependency and fear, self-judgment and the judgment of others slow us down, drive us further into abusability.

Leslie's entry here may help other women open their eyes and act for their own well-being sooner, limiting the destruction. (In some cases, that limitation early enough in the relationship may even lead to a saved marriage.)

Read her blog here:

Shortening the Learning Curve

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