RELIGIOUS LEADERS LEARN: "Safety First" for Abuse Victims

Ever gone to a religious leader/counselor for help with your abusive relationship and been told to forgive, try harder to be a good spouse, reminded of your marriage vows of "til death do we part" -- wanting to scream that your relationship with your abuser was going to kill you first?

The Providence Journal in Rhode Island reported that the Interfaith Alliance Against Domestic Violence held a day-long worship on April 26 2007.  The Rev. Kristen Leslie, a minister, expert on domestic violence and professor at Yale Divinity School, spoke to a group of priests, ministers, rabbis, elders, nuns, deacons and Buddhist and Muslim women.

Rev. Leslie put it bluntly -- domestic violence "is hurting our people."   Abusers, she said, will do all they can to create a "closed system" where the victim is unable to critique the system because she or he has been cut off from outside influences.

So what can clergy do to reach out to the abused and battered people in their congregations?  Rev. Leslie said, "You can be the best theologian, spiritual sage, scholar of the Bible or Koran, but if you don't attend to the person's safety, you're not helping."

After safety, Rev. Leslie says the most serious misuse of spiritual concepts is the notion of forgiveness, which abusers will use to their own advantage.

In the Christian tradition, she noted that forgiveness is supposed to be preceded by some truth telling and confession by the perpetrator/penitent.  This means that before he/she can be forgiven, the perpetrator has to admit his wrong, take responsibility, make a permanent change in his/her life and make restitution.

(Whew.  That's a tall order for an abuser -- most of whom tell us that it's our fault they abused us !!  And then there's that Boomerang Love thing that goes on with partners of abusers -- going back in again, thinking that if we love them enough, they'll change.)

Joanne Friday, of the Buddhist Clear Heart Sangha, said she knew of a woman who had been abused who asked her Buddhist teacher how she could show more compassion to her abuser. 

The Buddhist teacher replied that her "first order was to have compassion for herself, and that she needed to leave."

Couldn't have said it better myself.  Come to think of it, I did -- in my book (www.boomeranglove.com) .

Have you experienced counseling from a spiritual leader which showed that person didn't understand the nature of abuse or the Borderline disorder?  If you had followed that advice, would it have made your situation worse or put you in danger?  Share your story with us in the Comments section below.  Learning from each other is what this blog is all about.