Shame, blame, control, anger: these are the dynamics that typically lead a man to engage in acts of violence against an intimate partner.
Shame is a lie that says a person is bad, worthless, unacceptable, unlovable. To defend against shame, abusers project what they see as their own negative characteristics onto someone else.
Psychotherapist Jim O’Shea explains,
Abusive personality types have a dangerous and specific characteristic–the blaming mindset. They project their own negative traits onto their partners. This mindset sees the partner as the source of the abuser’s discomfort, shortcomings and failures, and this continually stokes his anger…
The abusive or controlling personality type believes the partner is the problem and must be controlled and made subject to his will.[1]
This shame-based, blaming mentality is embedded in patriarchal (a.k.a complementarian) theology.
A well-known theologian of the 4th century AD, St. Augustine, is largely responsible for the patriarchal theology that is still often taught in our churches and seminaries. Leaders of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood frequently quote John Calvin to defend their patriarchal view of the Bible, and Calvin cited Augustine as one of his main influences. Augustine did not get his patriarchal views from the Bible, however; he derived them from reading Neoplatonic philosophy. He then used this philosophy as an interpretive guide to the Bible. (For more information, see Chapter 3 of “Addressing Domestic Violence in the Church.”)
Augustine was also influenced by the example of his own parents and the male-dominant culture of the Roman Empire. In this culture, men were typically violent towards their wives. Commenting on this reality, St. Augustine blamed women for the violence of their husbands:
And besides this, as he [Augustine’s father] was earnest in friendship, so was he violent in anger; but she [Augustine’s mother] had learned that an angry husband should not be resisted, neither in deed, nor even in word. But so soon as he was grown calm and tranquil, and she saw a fitting moment, she would give him a reason for her conduct, should he have been excited without cause. In short, while many matrons, whose husbands were more gentle, carried the marks of blows on their dishonoured faces, and would in private conversation blame the lives of their husbands, she would blame their tongues, admonishing them gravely, as if in jest: That from the hour they heard what are called the matrimonial tablets read to them, they should think of them as instruments whereby they were made servants; so, being always mindful of their condition, they ought not to set themselves in opposition to their lords. (St. Augustine Confessions IX.9.19.)
These statements transfer responsibility for male violence onto women; they blame victims for the actions of their abusers. Augustine believed that women caused their husbands to become violent, by not being properly submissive to their “lords.”
Just as Augustine blamed women for the violence of their husbands, so too did he and other notable theologians blame Eve for the fall of humanity into sin. Addressing all women, for example, Tertullian said,
And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert— that is, death— even the Son of God had to die. (On the Apparel of Women, Book I, Chapter 1)
Echoing this view of women, Augustine wrote, “What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman” (Let. 243.10).
Patriarchal theology pointed to Eve–and all women–as the primary cause of humanity’s fall.
The solution proposed by these early theologians was simple. Men must exercise control of women to prevent further catastrophes. Drawing from Neoplatonic philosophy, Augustine compared women to the evils of the “flesh” and explained that men—whom he compared to the “spirit”—must have complete “mastery” over them (On John, Tractate 2, § 14; Plotinus’ Enneads 1 & 4).
Through the mental gymnastics of patriarchal theology, the shame of humanity’s fall was transferred onto women, who must therefore be controlled by men. In addition to being a lie that has absolutely no basis whatsoever in the Bible, this is the very thinking that predisposes men to engage in violence against women. In fact, a recent international study of nearly half a million women in 44 different countries found that one of the greatest predictors of male violence against women was an environment that normalized male authority over female behavior.[2]
If church leaders do not renounce the shame-based, blaming mentality embedded in patriarchal (complementarian) theology, they will continue to enable domestic violence against women.
It’s time for the church to truly embrace the following instructions of the apostle Paul to the church in Rome: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” It’s time for the church to stop listening to ancient Greek philosophy and Roman culture; it’s time to start thinking and behaving like Christ:
The attitude you should have is the one that Christ Jesus had:
He always had the nature of God,
but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God.
Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had,
and took the nature of a servant.
He became like a human being
and appeared in human likeness.
He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death—
his death on the cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)
References:
[1] Jim O’Shea Counselling Service: “Controlling people have low self-esteem and project their own negative traits onto their partners,” August 15, 2015.
[2] Heise, L & Kotsadam A. (2015) Cross-national and multilevel correlates of partner violence: an analysis of data from population-based surveys. The Lancet, Volume 3, Issue 6. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(15)00013-3/fulltext
Addressing Domestic Violence in the Church 