When 'Til Death Do Us Part' is What's Killing You

As I write this blog, I’m actively praying that pastors will read it because pastors need to get this right.

I recently received a private message about a woman trapped in an abusive marriage. The details aren’t mine to share, but they don’t really matter that much anyway because every time I hear these stories, the formula is always the same:

1. Abused woman seeks help from church leaders in dealing with her abusive husband.

2. Church asks woman what she did to provoke the abuse; tells her to repent of her part in the situation because, in their minds, it’s never 100% the fault of the aggressor. It takes two to tango.

3. Church slaps man on the hand and tells him to be nicer to his wife without providing any substantive form of accountability or offering the wife any protection whatsoever.

4. Church sends wife (and often kids) right back into the line of fire.

I pause here to clarify that of course the word “abuse” is broad and ambiguous in its scope. It’s something of an unfortunate spectrum. One isolated harsh word is obviously not grounds for divorce. Marriage is a sacrament. It’s right and good for Christians to take it seriously and encourage people to do everything within their power to make it last. But when abuse is present, it is not the victim’s fault if the marriage ends. Unfortunately, in too many of these situations, the burden of saving the marriage falls almost entirely on the shoulders of the faithful spouse rather than on the shoulders of the one wreaking havoc on the vows he made. Just how many times should a wife endure her husband calling her a cu*t in front of her kids (or anywhere) before you determine he’s officially abandoned his marriage vows? How many times should she allow him to lock her in the house or restrict her access to finances or use porn to humiliate her?

In cases of physical abuse, sometimes the church will intervene and suggest a separation for a period of time, which is a good start. But hundreds and hundreds of churches leave it here. They’ll grant their blessing for the separation but never for the divorce. Instead, they leave these women in limbo, permanently tethered to men who’ve broken every marriage vow they ever made. Wives in these situations are prescribed a decontextualized reading of 1 Corinthians 7:10. They’re instructed to pick up their crosses and spend the rest of their days spiritually and legally bound to monstrous men. This falls under a theological umbrella known as the “permanence view” of marriage, and it’s popularized by heavy hitters like Voddie Baucham.

A now viral video of John Piper was recently resurrected to illustrate how deep the cognitive distortions on this topic really go in many sectors of the church. In the video, Piper is asked to give his advice for women caught in abuse. At one point in the video, he responds by saying,

“If it’s not requiring her to sin but simply hurting her, then I think she endures verbal abuse for a season, and she endures, perhaps being smacked one night, and then she seeks help from the church.”

The message is clear: “Tolerate abuse. Enable sin. Martyrdom. That’s what God wants.”

I’ve been doing a lot of diving into the wreck of my own indoctrination lately, especially as it relates to the church’s teaching on both marriage and abuse. What I found in my own childhood Presbytery’s archives was a 118 page document that tediously analyzes the topic of divorce.

And in all 118 pages, the experts never managed to reach the conclusion that beaten wives are free to leave and remarry.

This makes me so sad. If the cost of preserving a marriage is the destruction of a person, the cost is just way too high. If you know God’s heart, it shouldn’t take 118 pages to know this. So why do so many still get this so very, very wrong?

This morning I spoke to a woman who’s been trapped in an extremely verbally abusive marriage for upwards of 20 years. Her husband’s default response to any misstep on her part is to call her a “f*cking bitch.” What do you think that will do to a woman’s morale day in and day out over a period of years? What do you think it will do to their children’s perception of gender dynamics in a marriage?

This woman has finally found the courage to ask for her church’s blessing to leave this unrepentant man, but they won’t give it. They want her to stay and “work on the marriage” as though she hasn’t already been killing herself to save the marriage for the past 20 years. He hasn’t hit her or cheated on her, so she’s not free to leave.

Guys, this is some really terrible theology. Marg Mowczko has some really relevant things to say about some of the Scripture verses that are most frequently weaponized against women to bind them to unrepentant men. Specifically as it relates to the passage from 1 Corinthians 7, Marg clarifies that the passage wasn’t written to speak to the context of abuse in the first place:

Paul explicitly states that the Lord commands that a wife should not separate, but Paul then makes an allowance for the very thing the Lord forbids. It seems Paul understood the difference between the ideal and the concessions that are sometimes made in a less than ideal situation. Moses, likewise, allowed for divorce (Matt. 19:7-8; Mark 10:2ff). (It seems Moses sent away his first wife Zipporah and later married another woman from Kush.)

With the situation in Corinth in mind, Paul allowed for a separation, effectively a divorce, but he did not want to rule out the possibility that a separated couple might mutually resume relations, that they might ‘reconcile,’ which they couldn’t do if a spouse married someone else.

Paul’s words on divorce in 1 Corinthians 7 apply to a spouse or couple who have renounced sex (1 Cor. 7:10-16; cf. 7:39f).[4] It doesn’t make sense to apply his words to the situation of a spouse who wants to leave an abusive marriage.

The Bible does not mention every scenario where divorce is acceptable, but it does indicate that neglect was a valid reason for divorce in ancient Israelite society (Exod. 21:10-11). If neglect was a valid reason, it seems reasonable to assume that other forms of abuse would be also.

When a couple married in ancient times, as now, there were expectations and promises, either implicit or articulated. When a spouse repeatedly breaks these promises, the terms of the marriage contract or covenant are broken; the marriage is broken.[5]

Paul had a high view of marriage and was trying to prevent both divorce and sexual immorality among the Corinthian Christians. He was not, however, suggesting an abused spouse should stay with their abuser. He simply does not cover this scenario in 1 Corinthians 7.[6]

It often seems like the people who want to use the Bible to place heavy yokes on broken women’s shoulders are the people with the poorest understanding of what God is actually saying in the passages they weaponize.

Please don’t hear me saying this happens in all churches. It doesn’t. But it happens in too many churches, and it may be happening in yours, even if your church has airtight theology and rock solid disciplinary procedures on everything else.

Guys, tethering women to unrepentant, abusive men until the day they die is not biblical obedience. It’s a refusal to properly contend with sin, require accountability, or place the responsibility of the blame on the appropriate shoulders. By the time a woman arrives in a pastor’s office to ask for help with her marriage, you had best believe she has exhausted all her own resources and reserves. She’s used every weapon in her arsenal. And she’s doing the humiliating work of exposing her vulnerability and asking for help.

If you’re a pastor who isn’t prepared to roll your sleeves up, dig into the mud of their situation, and provide accountability on a weekly basis, then you have no business telling her to suck it up and work harder, hoping things will magically improve by the time you can manage to pencil her into your schedule six months down the road. She doesn’t have that long. She’s actively dying inside every time he lashes out at her, which is almost daily.

Too many women are limping away from seemingly perfect churches and away from faith entirely because of crap like this. And a lot of them end up in my inbox.

I would like to see this change.

Sisters, if you’re reading this and this situation describes you, here’s what I would say to you as someone who’s endured this agony myself:

1. You can’t make up for your partner’s slack by working harder, praying more, being hotter, or performing better. Marriage is a two-way street. It will never last if you’re the only one doing all the work to repair it. Be honest with yourself. Own what’s yours but nothing more.

2. If there’s an abuse dynamic in play, do not go out and purchase a copy of “Love and Respect” with the expectation that reading it will solve all your problems. There’s a strong probability it will serve the opposite purpose. (See Sheila Wray Gregoire’s research on this to learn more.)

3. If your spouse demands to change marriage counselors every time his/her feet are held to the fire, you might as well not continue going. It’s a waste of everyone’s time. A spouse than refuses to humble himself/herself enough to submit to anyone’s authority is not a spouse with any interest in changing.

4. Great preachers do not automatically make great marriage counselors, and most pastors secretly hate being called upon to help in this capacity. We cannot be all things to all men. Let the preachers preach. Seek counseling elsewhere.

5. God may hate divorce, but He hates abuse more. Divorce is hard on kids, but training them to normalize terror in the home is even more damaging. Your kids will naturally seek to model themselves after the example of how you behave and what you tolerate. Choose wisely.

6. Unrepentant, chronic porn addiction is infidelity and should be treated as such. Porn consumption rolls out a red carpet for the devil himself to take up residence in your home. You do not need to tolerate it.

7. There’s no Bible verse that requires you to be a voiceless, compliant doormat. In fact, if you become one, you are likely enabling sin. That’s not love; that’s fear.

8. Being more sexually available is a superficial solution to what is usually a much deeper problem. Cancer needs chemo, not a bandaid.

9. If you’re constantly keeping secrets or covering up your spouse’s behavior so he/she doesn’t look bad to others, you’re in trouble. Nothing good will come from this. Refuse to live a lie.

10. God can heal anything, but He’s not going to strong arm the unwilling. If He’s really healing your marriage, it will be glaringly obvious to even the most skeptical of your friends and family members. Don’t settle for less.

11. Surround yourself with prayer warriors who are committed to your spiritual and emotional health so that any step you take either toward or away from your marriage is hemmed in prayer to the One whose love will never fail you.

A husband who beats his wife has abandoned every marital vow he made. He has broken the marriage covenant. He is to blame for destroying the marriage. His victim is not.

Ladies, if your pastor or priest advises you to remain in harm’s way, you are in a spiritually abusive church. Get out.

Call the police, and run to Jesus. He loves you more than He loves His institutions, and He never asks you to enable sin.

If I have to post this reminder 10 times a year until the day that I die, so be it.