As a former victim of domestic violence, I can tell you that there are indeed Christian men who commit “spiritual abuse” by quoting portions of the Bible out of context to gain a manipulative control over their wives. If this fails, these men will often resort to more overt abuse. I have met many, many women who have been abused in this way (almost all protestants, epecially Baptists and fundamentalists).
But that said, my abuser was a non-religious person and he especially liked to punish me for going to mass. So it can both ways.
As I sought help to remedy the situation, I spoke with many domestic violence advocates, social workers, attorneys, etc. I often ran into people like this woman, who are used to seeing Christian men abuse their women by saying the man is Lord of the house and forbidding the woman to have friends, a job, or any say in family decisions, and then beating her if she steps out of line. This is a -very- big problem in fundamentalist circles and it shouldn’t be hushed up.
But what many feminist domestic violence advocates are missing is that religion doesn’t cause the violence. Religion is misrepresented and used as a tool to justify violence. These men seek out a misogynist interpretation of the Bible because they are already angry misogynists. Abusers who are atheists make up other beliefs to excuse their lack of charity and self-control. A non-religious abuser might believe that men are biologically superior because women are “over-emotional”, or he might make his wife get a job outside the home instead of raising the children, out of greed.
This poor woman has a misinformed idea of the Catholic Church’s understanding of the priesthood, and that’s too bad. But in the rest of the interview she did a much-needed service by taking a stand to say that the Bible helped her to heal. The Bible has a bad reputation in the domestic violence activist community, since it has been used as a weapon to hurt so many women. You can hardly blame activists for feeling such animosity toward Christianity, after seeing so many women and children beaten “because the Bible says… xyz.” It’s good that this woman was brave enough to say, “Hey! The Bible helped me.”
