I note that the book of Galatians speaks of two deceptions: 1) that "Christians" could be bewitched to return to the curse of trying to get to God through the Mosaic law, and 2) that Christians could be tricked into denying that a man reaps what he sows. Galatians 3:1-2 admonishes, "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?" Galatians 6:7 warns, "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." (Both NIV.)
Common church policies dealing with domestic violence and family abuse are violations of these Scripture warnings. The suffering victims are expected and directed to obey bewitching rules that curse their lives. The abusers are able to mock God - to repeatedly deceive.
HEADS UP SISTERS! The following is a list of stumbling blocks set up by churches across this land. The consequences are extremely destructive and even deadly. These stumbling blocks start out like a sign of hope: "We will take care of everything". They end up an epitaph: "FED TO THE LIONS". Here is a list exposing the secrets and taking away their power to trip you, bewitch you, or deceive you.
Let is be said that God is not to blame for unwise church policy or people. Christ is the Head over every power and authority and Christ does not promote cruelty and evil. When we speak against cruelty, we do not blame God. We implore people to stop causing Him to be blasphemed by what we do under His Name.
1) MARRIAGE COUNSELING: Abusers very rarely truly change their hearts towards their love of abusing. Do you really want to be married to someone who is always fighting the urge to abuse you, not just hurt you? God ordained marriage as a relationship of loving support and with an abuser this is not possible. It is not possible for abusers to provide their offspring with anything of value relationally. If your children admire the abuser, they will pick up on the warped cruelty or they will be emotionally damaged. Children do not need everyone to love them, but they do need family love, not family perversion. Marriage counseling can only serve to reveal to a counselor or Pastor that abuse is indeed occurring. In so doing, however, any honesty from the victim can put her in danger when she goes home with the abuser. His declarations of learning from his counselor do not necessarily carry over in private.
2) MARRIAGE COUNSELING AFTER SEPARATION: Warning! Do not let a church leader speak "kindly" to you of doing everything in his power to help you by fixing your marriage. If you have become separated, you have likely reached a critical point in saving your own life from slow murder. Perhaps your husband has been arrested. Any man, much less a so-called Christian leader, who thinks so highly of himself as to "put you back together" is severely lacking in wisdom. He does not qualify for Christian leadership. A wise man would at least first get to know the victim. He would get to know that she is most likely a person of more spiritual fruit than he has ever needed to achieve himself. He would find that she has already tried all the "respect" tricks, the "love" tricks, the "serve" tricks, the "patience" tricks, and, especially, the "self-control" tricks. If he thinks he could get her to try the "tough love confrontation" tricks, he may be ignorant of the fact that this could put her in great danger. Or maybe he doesn't care. Maybe "his" church is not allowed to suffer the stigma of being anything less than strict about keeping families glued. Maybe he is not aware that the world looks on and sees the deceit behind hidden family abuse; they are not impressed.
3) REFUSING COURT SUPERVISION IN FAVOR OF CHURCH SUPERVISION: As Christians, we want to think of the church as it should be - "The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor AS yourself," (Galatians 5:14). My purpose is to encourage the church-at-large to become that vision towards the abused. Abused women and children need protective and secure loving environments as well as opportunities to be. (Sadly, Church, do you know that we are denied this need?) If you are asked to go to court in order to request your No-contact order be lifted for the church leaders to "help" your marriage, THE PRICE YOU PAY WILL DEVASTATE YOU! You will lose the ability of the courts to protect you from your abuser. No matter how "repentant" he may declare to be, he will prove to be only as deceiving as always. If he truly is repentant, he will offer to stay out of the way so that you can heal. God has demanded that the sowing of abuse requires the reaping of consequences: the removal of the victim until she decides otherwise.
If you waive the court's pursuit of your case against the abuser, you may be BLACKLISTED by the local court and you may be unable to beg, borrow, or buy their help later on. Believe me, the abuser will appear publicly to co-operate with the church's efforts to "fix" your marriage. Remember, he was not unhappy with the abusive relationship. He is likely addicted to you as his object of abuse and not much more. Gifts and efforts and romance are, to him, bait to keep you hanging on with hope. Most likely, your church counselor is unaware and may be manipulated by the abuser: a master manipulator. Your abuser will quickly get "inside" the buddy system of the men of the church and will use his romantic side to charm the women. Both sexes will find you an embarrassment as you continue to "complain" of his secret harassments towards you. Now, the church will not take you seriously and the court will not either. The church cannot protect you and they will not put themselves on the line to do so. They are not heroes in this opportunity. Even the ones who are "on your side" will declare they must sadly submit to the policy that favors the abuser.
4) CONTINUING TO ATTEND THE SAME CHURCH: You will probably believe that your church leaders are "godly" men with "tender" hearts, as they should be. The unfortunate truth is that these men commonly do not feel they need to spend their tenderness or protection on the abused wife. There really is a belief that it is her responsibility to stay married and that if God wants her to be forever tormented by the abuser, that must be God's will for her: maybe she needs it? This will not be said in so many words because those words do not look very Christian: they obviously are not Christian. Pastors may have degrees, but they are often subject to other church leaders. Overwhelmingly, church leaders have knowledge of Scriptures but are not commonly intimately acquainted with the mind of the Scripture in its entirety themes and attitudes. Jesus' teaches about the NEED to violate the Sacred rituals in order to save the life. He would allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in the hard individual choices.
So, if you continue to attend your abuser's church, do so with the knowledge that you will not change policies dealing with marriage. You will be more and more the problem and your abuser will become more and more the trophy. Church will become a safe place for your stalker to accost and spy on you and your children. You will be rebuked by little old ladies and large men with testimonies of the "nice" things your husband did for them. You will think you are healing and then will find yourself being called "worthless" once more. You will find yourself the subject of sermons on "forgiveness", as if trying to make a wise choice about safety is "unforgiveness". You will not hear many prayers for the huge percentage of abused wives, but you will hear prayers for "your marriage". You will be excluded from serving as a part of the Body of Christ. You will finally go there grieving rather than worshiping.
5) THE GOAL OF RECONCILIATION: Scripture shows us that reconciliation is a good thing IF IT IS A GOOD THING. Scripture also teaches NON-reconciliation, scattering, escape from persecution, even hiding, etc. Wisdom is very much the issue. Is it wise to reconcile or wise to stay away? Simple. Do not feel pressured to believe that the Bible makes a blanket statement about reconciliation magic. Who has bewitched them that teach such dangerous things? Such a belief would take away our ability to warn our children about stranger danger and risky relatives. Actually, such teaching would mean that my child has not properly forgiven her kidnapper/rapist until she has somehow formed a friendly bond with him: it is on her shoulders. RUBBISH!
The truth is that God is responsible to change hearts and enable safe reconciliation. We just watch for what He is doing. The truth is He is not changing the hearts of abusers except for very rarely. Church leaders tend to be asking women to participate in their agenda for reconciliation even though God is not there. Nearly always when they push reconciliation, the abuser has not changed his heart, even if he is a church-goer or church leader. The women are repeatedly endangered, murdered, and maimed. In fact, the women are not just sent back, but they are repeatedly sent back. Hopefully we will begin to get the message that GOD IS NOT IN IT. God is in refusing to be bewitched and deceived. "Thank you God. You are Good."
Common church policies dealing with domestic violence and family abuse are violations of these Scripture warnings. The suffering victims are expected and directed to obey bewitching rules that curse their lives. The abusers are able to mock God - to repeatedly deceive.
HEADS UP SISTERS! The following is a list of stumbling blocks set up by churches across this land. The consequences are extremely destructive and even deadly. These stumbling blocks start out like a sign of hope: "We will take care of everything". They end up an epitaph: "FED TO THE LIONS". Here is a list exposing the secrets and taking away their power to trip you, bewitch you, or deceive you.
Let is be said that God is not to blame for unwise church policy or people. Christ is the Head over every power and authority and Christ does not promote cruelty and evil. When we speak against cruelty, we do not blame God. We implore people to stop causing Him to be blasphemed by what we do under His Name.
1) MARRIAGE COUNSELING: Abusers very rarely truly change their hearts towards their love of abusing. Do you really want to be married to someone who is always fighting the urge to abuse you, not just hurt you? God ordained marriage as a relationship of loving support and with an abuser this is not possible. It is not possible for abusers to provide their offspring with anything of value relationally. If your children admire the abuser, they will pick up on the warped cruelty or they will be emotionally damaged. Children do not need everyone to love them, but they do need family love, not family perversion. Marriage counseling can only serve to reveal to a counselor or Pastor that abuse is indeed occurring. In so doing, however, any honesty from the victim can put her in danger when she goes home with the abuser. His declarations of learning from his counselor do not necessarily carry over in private.
2) MARRIAGE COUNSELING AFTER SEPARATION: Warning! Do not let a church leader speak "kindly" to you of doing everything in his power to help you by fixing your marriage. If you have become separated, you have likely reached a critical point in saving your own life from slow murder. Perhaps your husband has been arrested. Any man, much less a so-called Christian leader, who thinks so highly of himself as to "put you back together" is severely lacking in wisdom. He does not qualify for Christian leadership. A wise man would at least first get to know the victim. He would get to know that she is most likely a person of more spiritual fruit than he has ever needed to achieve himself. He would find that she has already tried all the "respect" tricks, the "love" tricks, the "serve" tricks, the "patience" tricks, and, especially, the "self-control" tricks. If he thinks he could get her to try the "tough love confrontation" tricks, he may be ignorant of the fact that this could put her in great danger. Or maybe he doesn't care. Maybe "his" church is not allowed to suffer the stigma of being anything less than strict about keeping families glued. Maybe he is not aware that the world looks on and sees the deceit behind hidden family abuse; they are not impressed.
3) REFUSING COURT SUPERVISION IN FAVOR OF CHURCH SUPERVISION: As Christians, we want to think of the church as it should be - "The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor AS yourself," (Galatians 5:14). My purpose is to encourage the church-at-large to become that vision towards the abused. Abused women and children need protective and secure loving environments as well as opportunities to be. (Sadly, Church, do you know that we are denied this need?) If you are asked to go to court in order to request your No-contact order be lifted for the church leaders to "help" your marriage, THE PRICE YOU PAY WILL DEVASTATE YOU! You will lose the ability of the courts to protect you from your abuser. No matter how "repentant" he may declare to be, he will prove to be only as deceiving as always. If he truly is repentant, he will offer to stay out of the way so that you can heal. God has demanded that the sowing of abuse requires the reaping of consequences: the removal of the victim until she decides otherwise.
If you waive the court's pursuit of your case against the abuser, you may be BLACKLISTED by the local court and you may be unable to beg, borrow, or buy their help later on. Believe me, the abuser will appear publicly to co-operate with the church's efforts to "fix" your marriage. Remember, he was not unhappy with the abusive relationship. He is likely addicted to you as his object of abuse and not much more. Gifts and efforts and romance are, to him, bait to keep you hanging on with hope. Most likely, your church counselor is unaware and may be manipulated by the abuser: a master manipulator. Your abuser will quickly get "inside" the buddy system of the men of the church and will use his romantic side to charm the women. Both sexes will find you an embarrassment as you continue to "complain" of his secret harassments towards you. Now, the church will not take you seriously and the court will not either. The church cannot protect you and they will not put themselves on the line to do so. They are not heroes in this opportunity. Even the ones who are "on your side" will declare they must sadly submit to the policy that favors the abuser.
4) CONTINUING TO ATTEND THE SAME CHURCH: You will probably believe that your church leaders are "godly" men with "tender" hearts, as they should be. The unfortunate truth is that these men commonly do not feel they need to spend their tenderness or protection on the abused wife. There really is a belief that it is her responsibility to stay married and that if God wants her to be forever tormented by the abuser, that must be God's will for her: maybe she needs it? This will not be said in so many words because those words do not look very Christian: they obviously are not Christian. Pastors may have degrees, but they are often subject to other church leaders. Overwhelmingly, church leaders have knowledge of Scriptures but are not commonly intimately acquainted with the mind of the Scripture in its entirety themes and attitudes. Jesus' teaches about the NEED to violate the Sacred rituals in order to save the life. He would allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in the hard individual choices.
So, if you continue to attend your abuser's church, do so with the knowledge that you will not change policies dealing with marriage. You will be more and more the problem and your abuser will become more and more the trophy. Church will become a safe place for your stalker to accost and spy on you and your children. You will be rebuked by little old ladies and large men with testimonies of the "nice" things your husband did for them. You will think you are healing and then will find yourself being called "worthless" once more. You will find yourself the subject of sermons on "forgiveness", as if trying to make a wise choice about safety is "unforgiveness". You will not hear many prayers for the huge percentage of abused wives, but you will hear prayers for "your marriage". You will be excluded from serving as a part of the Body of Christ. You will finally go there grieving rather than worshiping.
5) THE GOAL OF RECONCILIATION: Scripture shows us that reconciliation is a good thing IF IT IS A GOOD THING. Scripture also teaches NON-reconciliation, scattering, escape from persecution, even hiding, etc. Wisdom is very much the issue. Is it wise to reconcile or wise to stay away? Simple. Do not feel pressured to believe that the Bible makes a blanket statement about reconciliation magic. Who has bewitched them that teach such dangerous things? Such a belief would take away our ability to warn our children about stranger danger and risky relatives. Actually, such teaching would mean that my child has not properly forgiven her kidnapper/rapist until she has somehow formed a friendly bond with him: it is on her shoulders. RUBBISH!
The truth is that God is responsible to change hearts and enable safe reconciliation. We just watch for what He is doing. The truth is He is not changing the hearts of abusers except for very rarely. Church leaders tend to be asking women to participate in their agenda for reconciliation even though God is not there. Nearly always when they push reconciliation, the abuser has not changed his heart, even if he is a church-goer or church leader. The women are repeatedly endangered, murdered, and maimed. In fact, the women are not just sent back, but they are repeatedly sent back. Hopefully we will begin to get the message that GOD IS NOT IN IT. God is in refusing to be bewitched and deceived. "Thank you God. You are Good."
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