The Church and Domestic Violence

From Religion Today:

A woman I'll call "Marleen" went to her pastor for help. "My husband is abusing me," she told him. "Last week he knocked me down and kicked me. He broke one of my ribs."

Marleen's pastor was sympathetic. He prayed with Marleen—and then he sent her home. "Try to be more submissive," he advised. "After all, your husband is your spiritual head."

Two weeks later, Marleen was dead—killed by an abusive husband. Her church could not believe it. Marleen's husband was a Sunday school teacher and a deacon. How could he have done such a thing? 

Unfortunately this is an all too common occurrence in today's churches. Pastors and ministers are still telling their church members that abuse is not a reason for divorce, to submit more, or husbands are the spiritual head therefore the wife must listen to him and by listening they can prevent the abuse. Um, EXCUSE ME?! Where exactly in the Bible does Jesus say violence is ok or wives who don't submit to their husbands deserve abuse? In fact, Eph 5:24 says "As the Church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands." (NLT) As far as I know the Church did not submit to an abusive Christ. In fact, Jesus Christ is just the opposite. He is nonviolent. He helps the hurting. We can see this in his Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) when he ends the parable telling us to "go and do the same" referring to the Samaritan who helped the hurt Jewish man. Another example of Jesus speaking to using nonviolence is the adulterous woman in John 8:3-11. Rather than condemning her to death and stoning her, Jesus turned the accusations around telling the leaders whoever has no sin may stone her 1st. Rather than allowing her to be stoned He forgave her and let her go. If we're to imitate Jesus and live like Him then why should husbands be allowed to beat, rape, and verbally abuse their wives? Jesus forgave the woman's sin as we are called to forgive. Abuse is hardly a way to forgive or "turn the other cheek."

Also, in looking at the Ephesians passage mentioned above, we have to look at Eph 5:25-26 "For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church. He gave up His life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word." (NLT). Abuse is never done out of love, but control and domination. Additionally, how can an abusive man love his wife as Christ loved the Church if he isn't following Christ and trying to imitate Him? This whole idea of wives submitting to abusive husbands baffles me. How can we as Christians turn a blind eye toward victims of domestic violence? And what's more, some Christians actually blame the victim!!!!!

How do they blame the victim? All we have to do is look at the most common response of "be more submissive." How many women go to their churches for help in these situations just to have that phrase shoved in their face.
Additionally, abusers like blame other things such as drugs, alcohol, a temper, losing control, etc. Men and women alike cannot simply use the excuse that they lost control, or it was the alcohol or drugs. Abusing someone is a choice. It's not abuse if the person feels remorse and true guilt afterward. The problem comes in whether or not an apology is real. If it is the abuser takes full blame and tries to change. If not, the abuser sometimes uses the phrase "if you didn't make me so mad." This is victim blaming and is a huge problem within abusive relationships and society as a whole including in the Church. The idea that one can "submit enough" is another technique of victim blaming. In reality, a victim can never submit enough or please her husband enough and even asking her to try to do so is perpetuating abuse. Someone who tells the victim to submit more is simply trapping her into a cage. We should never have to do everything to make our husbands, wives, parents, bosses, etc happy at the expense of our own happiness and psychological welfare. 
And using the Bible as a justification for it is sickening because no where in the Bible does it say men should abuse their wives and women should be slaves to their husbands. In fact, in 1 Cor 13 Paul talks about love. He says in 1 Cor 13:4-8

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Prophesies and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever.

Having been in an abusive relationship, I can tell you there is no place for the love defined by Paul. Abusive men and women alike don't know what it means to love nor do they have the capacity to do so in my opinion. That being said how can someone possibly love their wife as Christ loves the church if they aren't capable of loving the way Paul tells us to? The answer is they can't. Abuse is, as I said before, about power and control, not love. I strongly believe the Church needs to stand up and recognize this and that this is a reason for divorce and help these victims rather than helping to perpetuate the problem. 
In saying all this, I honestly believe that not all the ministers and church leaders say stuff blame that victim on purpose. Domestic violence is not a topic addressed nearly enough in churches if at all in some cases. People who do not understand domestic violence must learn about it from we victims and survivors, but, instead, many turn a blind eye because its not something they like to talk about. Well, it is a fact of life and an ugly and terrifying epidemic and we, especially Christians, cannot sit back and close our eyes to it. It does exist no matter how much we may wish it didn't. 
I also believe ministers, church leaders and all Christians do need to address this problem and look for real solutions that don't blame the victim or force her to stay in an abusive relationship esp an abusive marriage. Condemning someone to an abusive marriage, in my eyes, is the same as condemning someone to hell because that is exactly where she is living. An abusive relationship is literally hell on earth, and to offer her no hope of escaping is condemning her to a life of torture, fear, and in some cases death.