Biblical road-maps for leaving abusive partners

I recently ran across this academic paper: ‘‘God Just Brought Me Through It’’: Spiritual Coping Strategies for Resilience Among Intimate Partner Violence Survivors (Link but behind a paywall)

This paper will probably never get a wide audience, even among Intimate Partner Violence advocates. The sample size is small (42) and the study is specific to women who self-describe as Seventh Day Adventists (a small denomination).

The study does have strengths. For one thing, it specifically addresses Religion and Spirituality which some survivors of domestic violence identify as the most important factor in their survival and escape; there are very few papers which explicitly address this resource. 14% of the participants in the study were African-American and there are reasons to believe that African-American women are over-represented in Intimate Partner Violence. The study makes use of many direct quotes from the participants. Examples:

No, I don’t have the physical arm around me to hold me when I cry, but I can go back to my bed and lay on it and cry and talk to God.... God has never failed me. (B)

I think the thing that has helped me to get through it all and during those times, especially when I couldn’t talk to anybody else, I was talking to God. (J)

[God’s] the one that carried me through and that’s one thing I know—that if I cannot depend on anything or anybody else in this world there’s one person I can depend on. (A)

Well, after the suicide [attempt] I realized He was the only way out. God was my only way out of this.... He was the only thing I could hang on to at that point; I was so desperate. (K)

God just brought me through it.... That was what got me through, just my relationship with God and prayer. And really, truly, each day was just a matter of prayer. (R)

In order to cope with my first husband, I spent a lot of time in prayer on my knees. (M)

I would go to sleep and then about 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning I would wake up and I would go to another room and I would read my Bible and I would pray and I would get strength for the day. I wasn’t sleeping a lot but somehow God would give me strength for the day. (J)

When I would get to the point where I had no hope— didn’t even have a knot in the end of the rope to hang onto—I would say, ‘‘O Lord, please show me something that will help me right now,’’ and I would just open the Bible and start reading the whole page, and you would not believe all the verses in the Bible that talk about children being returned. And that really gave me some hope. (S)

Interviewer: How did your spiritual life help you cope with the difficulties?

Participant: Um, that holding on. And claiming some [Bible] promises. And, especially the one—my favorite one at the time... ‘‘God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.’’ And I was wanting to hold on to my sound mind. Not lose it. (L)

Note: Names of participants changed to initials for additional privacy.

One of the disheartening parts of this paper is that formal religion and clergy were not particularly helpful. The authors of the paper make the distinction between "Religion" (not so helpful) and "Spirituality" (lifesaving).

As a blogger, I like puzzles and I found this puzzling. Why did the rank-and-file of Christianity "Whiff" when swinging at the ball?

Looking for subtle clues when God is handing us a road-map

It is not the place for an academic paper to speculate. They explain how they collected the data. They present the data. They inform us if the hypothesis conforms to the observed data within a predetermined degree of confidence.

As a blogger I CAN speculate.

If you go to a Bible Concordance or if you use an internet search engine, you will find very few Bible quotes that directly support a person in a situation of Intimate Partner Abuse. Most of the verses seem to read as "Go back. Try harder. Accept your lot in life."

That dearth of practical instruction seems very odd when the Bible has actionable advice on topics as niche-like as vegans while domestic tension has undoubtedly been a very big deal since Adam blamed Eve for getting booted out of the Garden of Eden. How could the Bible be silent about domestic strife and yet have something to say about those annoying vegans?

Paraphrasing what one of the respondents said "I would randomly open my Bible and read until I was tired" suggests that maybe the source of spiritual strength is more involved and complicated than the rare, random, pithy spiritual-righty-tighty-lefty-loosy. Maybe God isn't dropping the occasional, random bread-crumb but maybe God is handing us a detailed road-map.

And with no further ado....

I believe that Exodus (the second book in the Canon) is a nearly perfect analog or roadmap for how people trapped in untenable domestic situations must extricate themselves from the situation.

• It will not be easy.
• It is very important to find a guide who is a Godly person (Moses).
• There will be false starts.
• It is very OK if you must use a false-pretext to leave the situation.
• Be armored against the temptation to fall into another abusive relationship. JUST DON'T DO IT!!!
• Trust God.

And many, many more examples of help for your difficult journey.

Truly, there is a land of milk-and-honey waiting for you.

So if you are a believer and if you know of somebody who has struggled and the situation has proven unfixable (perhaps due to unwillingness on the part of the other party) encourage them to read and reread Exodus.

Hat-tip to the tireless Lucas Machias for finding me a copy of this paper to read.