Bridging the Gap Between the Church and Domestic Violence

By Dr. Tanya Smith

This book comes from a painful experience where God healed me and brought out ministry from. It comes from experience of realizing the gap between the church and domestic violence victims and survivors. And most importantly it comes out of my dissertation!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Warrioress Publishing
• Release date: Oct 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088063385

Book preview

Dr. Tanya Smith

Bridging the Gap Between The Church & Domestic Violence

First published by Warrioress Publishing 2023

Copyright © 2023 by Dr. Tanya Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

Dr. Tanya Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

First edition

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

Find out more at reedsy.com

Publisher Logo

This book is first dedicated to my family who stood by me, loved me, and gave me strength to become a survivor.

Next, I dedicate this to the women who survived their domestic violence relationships and to the families of those women who were not fortunate to make it out.

Love Does No Harm…

Romans 13:10

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgement

The Problem

Case Study

Why This Problem

Domestic Violence - The Need To Know

The Bible & Domestic Violence

Additional Important Biblical Restoration Help

Summary, Results & Recommendations

Things We Don’t Like To Discuss

Action Steps To Considered If A Person Is In An Abusive Relationship

Extra Scriptures

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Foreword

Fred was born in St. Vincent, West Indies, into a well-respected and wealthy family. After his mother passed away and his father was a high-ranking British Naval officer continually moving, Fred moved to Canada at 13 to live with an uncle. Fred eventually followed in his father’s footsteps and served in the military and then soon after married Helen, a fiery woman of Irish descent.

They began a family with five children, one son, and four daughters. Fred worked hard at his job; in his spare time, he painted, loved music, reading, and sharing his time and money with people experiencing poverty. He loved the Lord, served his church, was respected as a churchman, and preached on the streets of Toronto. People often observed and admired him for his ability to debate and stand up for what he believed in and his uncompromising faith in Christ.

However, the home was a different story for Fred. When his eldest son got old enough, he ran away because he could no longer control his father beating him or his mother.

The eldest son, with handsome features and an athletic build, could not handle the mother turning to alcohol out of her pain and turning her pain onto his sisters. He ran and kept on running through his marriages, money, and eventually to his grave over an internal illness that he could no longer manage with a pain medication addiction. He never abused anyone like he witnessed while he grew up. He just abused himself.

With Fred’s eldest son leaving a gap of who to prey upon, it left only his mother and now oldest sister who alone was trying to raise her sisters because of her father’s rage and mother’s drunkenness.

They would go to church as the seemingly perfect family, go home, and all hell would break loose by Sunday dinner. It would start with Fred’s wife, who would be beaten, she would then drink away her pain, and then Fred or the mother would take it out on his children. The eldest daughter was usually the target.

The beatings the daughter recalls were not the worst. Often the worst came from her father when he would lock her in a closet after beating her severely and then precede to scream scriptures at her for hours, berating her not with the love of God but using the name of God who in his mind and words hated his little girl and the fact that she was born.

To this day, the daughter can quote verses perfectly and entire chapters because she heard it so often locked in a closet bleeding and begging for her life.

Finally came the day of rescue for the girls. It wasn’t her mother, the pastor of the church, or a fellow member of the congregation who called and said enough was enough but a concerned and courageous neighbor.

And at that point, the girls were separated, the two youngest together in a loving foster home, the second oldest in an abusive foster home, and the eldest just ran from foster home to foster home, being homeless, selling newspapers that were discarded at train stations for the next arrivals, giving up her first child to an orphanage as a teen, until finding herself in a finishing school and under the care of loving Aunt.

Whatever happened to Helen, the mother of these five children? She never recovered from her physical or chemical abuse, she never got her children back, her marriage was never restored, and she died in a hospital so emotionally fractured she didn’t remember who she was, or her children were.

Whatever happened to Fred? Almost sixty years later after the eldest ran away, a letter came seeking forgiveness for the many atrocities he inflicted upon her. It was months before she could reply, but with firmness and resolve, she forgave him. A few months later, Fred died alone in a home for the elderly.

The eldest boarded a plan to attend his funeral with her youngest son as emotional support. She said some words in a sparse-filled room with only a few relatives present. The eldest daughter’s son, Fred’s grandson, who he had never met, delivered the eulogy, and they flew home.

You might ask how I know this story so well; I delivered the eulogy for Frederick Fraser Blencowe. A man I never met but through the wounds and scars of my mother. And forever my namesake.

This is my family’s story, and it could have been my future story if not for the many ways grace intersected into my mother’s life and now my own. She is the most courageous woman I have ever known.

Yet, His gift of grace has compelled me to continue giving voice to the generational grief, trauma, and suffering caused by domestic violence. My story has continued to help me grow in understanding and compassion for those still stuck in the cycle and the many children who have witnessed the horror of abuse. My theological education did not make me an expert in this area, as it did not even approach the topic of Domestic violence. Still, it gave me a foundation to align my heart with Christ and His wisdom in ministering to this epidemic in our churches and culture.

I hope that as you read this work by Dr. Tanya Smith, you will also recognize the importance of breaking the cycle and, many times, the generational cycle of abuse.

Jeanne McElvaney once stated, You can recognize survivors of abuse by their courage. When silence is so very inviting, they step forward and share their truth, so others know they aren’t alone.

Reader, leader, pastor, parishioner, survivor, family member, and advocate what you hold in your hand is the work of one who is courageous and has discarded the shadow of silence to bring you a truth that confirms you are not alone and that the chapter of Domestic Violence will not have the final word.

Dr. Tanya Smith has woven together not only a biblical and theological primer on the holistic impact of Domestic violence, but she has also managed to give you the principles in how to courageously act in bring healing and hope and at the same time lovingly bringing truth to many of our false assumptions regarding abuse.

One would think that her personal testimony or any of the thousands presently and throughout history would be enough for church and society to be moved to action but poignantly she reminds us with the following quote from McKnight,

When something goes wrong in a church – from behind-the-scenes abuses of power of sexual affairs to violence against women to financial sins – the pastor and other leaders often seek to control the narrative to protect the reputation of the pastor, the church, or the church’s ministries.107 He goes on to say, "Survivors of abuse that happens in the church point to contributing factors such as faulty theology, authoritarian leadership, and church leaders who prioritize forgiveness for the abuser above justice and