Sally found little comfort in her Pentecostal church, which she had turned to repeatedly. Once he forced her to have sex just three weeks after giving birth. Those nights I felt that I was almost being raped." She later wrote in a statement prepared for court: "If I refused, he would become incandescent with rage.
The abuse quickly escalated as Peter drank, gambled and demanded sex every second night, usually after having yelled at her for hours. Her bible study leader told her later that she looked like the saddest bride he had ever seen. Peter's personality changed on the first day of their honeymoon, when he yelled at her for sleeping in, and made plans to go fishing for days without her. She overlooked the fact that she had to buy her own engagement ring and agreed to marry him not long after their meeting. She grew to believe she was meant to be with him. She wasn't instantly attracted to him but was charmed by the deluge of flowers and love letters he sent. Sally met Peter when she was in her mid-30s, and had been praying for a husband. Is it true - as one Anglican bishop has claimed - that there are striking similarities to the church's failure to protect children from abuse, and that this next generation's reckoning will be about the failure in their ranks to protect women from domestic violence?Ī 12-month ABC News and 7.30 investigation involving dozens of interviews with survivors of domestic violence, counsellors, priests, psychologists and researchers from a range of Christian denominations - including Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal and Presbyterian - has discovered the answers to these questions will stun those who believe the church should protect the abused, not the abusers. So why is Australia so behind on this issue?ĪBC 7.30 Facebook video: The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies explains gender equality in the church In other countries, like the United States and United Kingdom, there has been extensive analysis. While it is generally agreed that inequality between the sexes can foster and cultivate environments where men seek to control or abuse women, in Australia there has been very little public debate about how this might impact people in male-led congregations and religious communities, especially those where women are told to be silent and submit to male authority. When we speak of domestic violence, and the cultural factors that foment it, one crucial element missing from the discussion has been religion. Religion and domestic violence: the missing link
The next morning, she packed up her bags, grabbed some clothes for her daughter and left, taking the little girl with her. "Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man rather, she is to remain silent." 1 Timothy 2: 11-12įor years, Sally had believed that God wanted her to submit to her husband, and she did her best, bending to his will and working to pay the bills, despite the pain she was in.īut on this night, she was done. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour." Ephesians 5: 22-23 "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. Peter then opened his Bible and read out some verses: She knew what had "flicked his switch": the simple act of coming down to say goodnight, which he interpreted as a lack of willingness to have sex. Sally, an executive assistant who had just turned 44, stared at him, worrying about whether her neighbours - or her sleeping daughter - could hear his roars through the thin walls. "You are a failure as a wife, as a Christian, as a mother.
The Bible says you must obey me and you refuse," he yelled. The night before Sally finally left her husband and the townhouse they lived in on Sydney's northern beaches he told her she was also failing her spiritual duties. She was deeply exhausted, depleted and worn. The abuse went on, day and night, as Sally bore a child, worked morning shifts at the local hospital and stayed up late pumping breast milk for her baby.