A Woman Fights for her Life and the Church is Culpable: a Call to Repentance
by Staff
August 24, 2009
MEDIA ADVISORY, (christiansunite.com) -- Kathryn is fighting for her life and her church is responsible. Today she is in surgery to repair her shattered wrist, which will use up funds she was saving to resolve her head trauma injuries. Her doctors are baffled by her rare disorders: lesions on her brain, the spinal fluid in her life- threatening nosebleeds, and blood pressure that soars and drops suddenly causing her to fall 3-4 times a day. But they know the cause of her disorders is the multitude of concussions inflicted on her by her pastor-husband.Kathryn and her husband served as missionaries abroad and as pastors at home. In their 25 years of marriage he stabbed and beat her, causing numerous concussions. Her close friend, the co- pastor's wife, disclosed that she and her husband had been aware of the abuse for years, and offered their pickup to help Kathryn to safety. The next day the pastor's wife withdrew the offer. Shortly thereafter Kathryn's husband threw a hammer at her, fracturing her eye socket and breaking her jaw. The police helped her escape.
Her church told her she had no right to leave or divorce her husband, and punished her by revoking her pastoral certificate. As abusers commonly do, her husband wept publicly at the altar, claiming sorrow for assaulting his wife. Their church kept him on as pastor, ignoring that his show of "repentance" is part of the cycle of violence, and that he had violated the I Timothy 3:3 requirements for pastors.
Kathryn's story is not unique. One in four women is abused in her lifetime, including Christian women. Church leaders, who are often the first people abused women appeal to for help, frequently blame the abused women for the violent and illegal acts committed against them and tell them to go home and submit to their abusive husbands. The innocent are condemned so the guilty can be free to continue their sin.
In addition, although husbands are commanded to love their wives self-sacrificially, pastors often ignore scripture and replace it with husband authority teaching, emphasizing wife submission.
The sins against women--pornography, prostitution, rape, domestic violence, adultery, abortion--are all the result of contempt toward women, largely because loving self-sacrifice/submission doctrine has been replaced by submission/authority teaching.
It is these sins within the church that are causing the downfall of our nation. 2 Chronicles 7:14 "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
Waneta Dawn ministers to women who are the targets of their abusive husbands, and is the author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel," a story portraying the damage of non-physical domestic abuse.
For information see www.wanetadawn.com and http://submissiontyranny.blogspot.com
