One in Four Churchgoers in Abusive Relationships, UK Study Finds

By Julia Baird and Hayley Gleeson
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
March 26, 2018

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-26/one-in-four-churchgoers-domestic-abuse-research/9586582

One in four churchgoers has experienced domestic abuse in their current relationship, according to a new study in Britain.

The research, conducted in Cumbria by academics at Coventry University and the University of Leicester in conjunction with Christian charity Restored, has led to urgent calls for churches in Britain and Australia to expose and counter abuse in their midst, with the authors finding more priests need to publicly condemn abuse "from the pulpit".

Almost half of those who sought help from their church (47.2 per cent) said they were unlikely to do so again, if they experienced abuse in the future.

Only two in seven thought their church was adequately equipped to deal with a disclosure of abuse.

Mandy Marshall, a co-founder of Restored, a global Christian alliance that aims to end violence against women, said: "One of the biggest barriers we have faced is Christians not believing that domestic abuse could happen in their church."

She added: "My hope is that this research is a wake-up call to all churches to recognise that domestic abuse happens in churches, too, and that we need to respond appropriately and effectively when domestic abuse is disclosed."

The study comes after an ABC News investigation found women in Australian Christian communities — a number of them clergy wives — were being told to endure or forgive domestic violence and stay in abusive relationships, and that churches of all denominations had too often ignored their reports, failed to recognise the different forms abuse took and did not ensure safety or provide adequate care.

Dr Kristin Aune, of Coventry University, the study's lead author, said: "A quarter of the people we heard from told us they had been physically hurt by their partners, sexually assaulted, emotionally manipulated, or had money withheld from them."

The most commonly experienced form of abuse was emotional.

Barbara Roberts, the leader of A Cry For Justice, a website for Christian survivors of domestic violence, said the new research gives Australian church leaders a strong mandate to address domestic abuse more forcefully.

"We need clergy to speak up about domestic abuse," Ms Roberts told ABC News. "But when they speak without much knowledge, they can do more harm than good."

Churches must 'condemn abuse from the pulpit'

For the study, In Churches Too: Church Responses to Domestic Abuse — A case study of Cumbria, the researchers invited churchgoers from a range of churches in the English county of Cumbria to complete a survey on participants' attitudes to and experiences of domestic abuse, as well as their perceptions and experiences of their church's response to it.

(The researchers cautioned that participants were self-selected and not necessarily representative of all churchgoers in Cumbria or elsewhere.)

Of the 438 responses received, 109 people — or one in four — had experienced at least one abusive behaviour in their current relationship, which included 12 women who had experienced between 10 and 20 abusive behaviours, and six women currently in relationships where they feared for their lives.

A large number of participants said their church did very little to respond to domestic abuse, attributing this to their church being small, elderly and rural, or to a culture of silence.

And those who had sought help for domestic abuse were more likely to have done so outside the church: just one in six men and fewer than one in four women sought support from a church.

In just over half of those cases, the response received was supportive, and primarily took the form of emotional support or a listening ear.

However, there were also examples of "dangerous practice" and disclosures of domestic abuse being minimised or silenced.

"Churches could do more to connect and work with local domestic abuse charities and to condemn abuse from the pulpit," the authors wrote.

"There is an appetite for the church to become a place where those subjected to abuse can find support."

Dr Aune, a senior research fellow at Coventry University's Centre for Trust, Peace and Social relations, said that while many UK churches had done "excellent work" to address child abuse, more attention must be paid to domestic violence, and more research was needed.

"We would like to conduct a national study in the UK and comparative work in Australia ... as we're aware that, unlike in the USA and Canada, there's been very little research in either country," Dr Aune told ABC News.

"Research is powerful as it provides evidence that can lead to much-needed improvements in the work of churches and other public services, so we hope to achieve that."

Experts call for Australian research

Dr Naomi Priest, Associate Professor at the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, who has previously called for collection of local data on this question, said the UK research reiterates the urgency for faith communities in Australia to invest in comprehensive research into domestic violence.

"There is increasing recognition that faith based communities are key settings that can either protect or reinforce issues related to domestic violence, which we know is prevalent in those communities, as it is in the wider population," Dr Priest told ABC News.

"While small community-based studies can provide useful insights, independent research using large-scale representative population data is urgently needed in the Australian context.

"This is important not only to understand risks and resources related to family and domestic violence in faith communities, but also to create benchmarks to enable tracking of progress over time."

PHOTO: Only two in seven churchgoers thought their church was adequately equipped to deal with a disclosure of abuse, new UK research has found. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)

Following the ABC's reports, the Anglican Church of Australia in September made a formal apology to victims of domestic violence and pledged to undertake professionally designed and independent research into the nature and extent of domestic violence in Anglican communities.

Dr Priest cautioned that such research should also include participants outside the church as well as those still attending.

"We know domestic violence and the failure of faith leaders to respond appropriately are reasons why people leave churches, so it's important that any study includes churchgoers and non-churchgoers," she said.

"The UK research shows there is an appetite for the church to become a place of support and that this is an important issue for church leaders to continue to discuss."

The church has both perpetrators and victims in its congregations

Survivors who stepped forward to tell their story in the wake of this research reiterated that being in the upper echelons of the church does not provide immunity.

The Reverend Eleanor Hancock, formerly the vicar of Carlisle, revealed to the Church Times that she was in an abusive relationship for 10 years

"We lived on a farm; so I blamed my bruises and injuries on slipping in the yard, or being kicked by a sheep. He was emotionally abusive, too, calling me fat and ugly, and blaming me for everything," she said.

"I kept making excuses for him because I loved him; but, eventually, I knew I had to leave."

Dr Aune said the most difficult churches to engage in the research were "new or independent evangelical and charismatic churches".

She stressed that it is crucial the church resists dismissing reports of domestic violence and accepts that "we have to challenge domestic abuse wherever it is found".

She said: "Christianity's founder himself challenged injustices in the treatment of women; surely Jesus would have supported any work to uncover domestic abuse.

"The church has a challenge on its hands, in that it has both perpetrators and victims in its congregations, but it must find ways to work with them that unequivocally challenges perpetrators not to abuse, that teaches everyone that domestic abuse is wrong, and that ensures safety for their victims."