5 Clear Reasons Pastors Must Preach on Domestic Violence

[Michie]

The CDC reports that more than 1 in 3 women and about 1 in 4 men in the US will experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime. 1 in 3 teenagers experience dating violence. And yet over 40% of pastors “rarely” or “never” speak about domestic violence. Another 22 percent do speak about the issue at least once per year. That means that two-thirds of pastors are not addressing the issue of domestic violence.

Why are we not dealing with this?

Today we will talk about why pastors aren’t dealing with this, and then give five reasons why they should.

Why Pastors Don’t Preach on Domestic Violence​

Many pastors do not believe this is an issue within their church. That is partially due to our tendency to bury our heads in the sand on some of these uncomfortable issues. We like to think that our preaching is impacting the homes of our congregants (and it likely is). But we put far too much confidence in that once-per-week encounter. This blindness might also be attributed to the manipulation skills of abusers. Nobody “seems” like an abuser, so we assume nobody is.

Another reality is that pastors are simply not trained in the issue, which means it’s likely not on our radar. When we are confronted with the reality of abuse within our midst, we tend to do one of two things. First, we can assume that with Bible in hand, we have all the answers we need to counsel. We administer what we do know: prayer, forgiveness, endurance, Bible reading, marital roles, etc. Because we are ignorant to the complexities of abuse, we can end up doing more harm than help, such as counseling a wife to go back to her “repentant” husband, or boldly confronting in ways that aren’t safe for the victim.

Continued below.

5 Clear Reasons Pastors Must Preach on Domestic Violence - Topical Studies

Domestic abuse often isn’t on our radar. And because it’s not something we assume is happening in our congregations, we do not make application points about it. We preach a sermon on anger from Ephesians 4:26-27 and talk about getting cut off in traffic, ...

www.biblestudytools.com

 

[PloverWing]

From the article:

There is one other reason why many pastors rarely preach on domestic violence; it doesn’t come up in the text. Or at least we think that is the case. Many pastors today preach book by book and verse by verse. That’s a good practice which I’d recommend. But it also means that if you aren’t truly preaching expository sermons (but only giving a running commentary on the text), you’ll seldom if ever come to a text on domestic violence.

This was one of the difficulties that came to my mind. Unless there's some extraordinary event that's just happened, each week's homily is going to be based on the assigned lectionary readings. If the priest wants to connect the week's readings to domestic violence, it's going to take some work to make that connection. But I agree that domestic violence is a problem, and that perhaps silence from the church communicates something. I'd be interested to see some examples of how preachers build bridges from the lectionary texts to the topic of violence without the transition being awkward and artificial.

 

[Michie]

From the article:



This was one of the difficulties that came to my mind. Unless there's some extraordinary event that's just happened, each week's homily is going to be based on the assigned lectionary readings. If the priest wants to connect the week's readings to domestic violence, it's going to take some work to make that connection. But I agree that domestic violence is a problem, and that perhaps silence from the church communicates something. I'd be interested to see some examples of how preachers build bridges from the lectionary texts to the topic of violence without the transition being awkward and artificial.

With liturgical Church it could be a problem. With most Protestant churches, it’s not. It is up to the pastor to decide what to preach each week.

 

[WolfGate]

From the article:



This was one of the difficulties that came to my mind. Unless there's some extraordinary event that's just happened, each week's homily is going to be based on the assigned lectionary readings. If the priest wants to connect the week's readings to domestic violence, it's going to take some work to make that connection. But I agree that domestic violence is a problem, and that perhaps silence from the church communicates something. I'd be interested to see some examples of how preachers build bridges from the lectionary texts to the topic of violence without the transition being awkward and artificial.

I think it becomes easier if you broaden the scope just a bit, and look at verses about abuse. Col 3:8, Psalms 37:34-36, even Col 3:19 (which is domestic) can be springboards. You do have to move past the "facts" of the verses and look at the principles God is teaching through them.

We had to deal with abuse when I was lead elder at a church several years ago. It was impactful to the congregation because the abuser was one of our pastors. As we were dealing with the congregation during the fallout of that, it became clear how many people in our congregation had been touched by domestic abuse. I think pastors can get there, and they will find a polarized reception for certain, but I believe they'll also find more need it than they may think.