No Place for Abuse : Biblican &...

No Place for Abuse:

Biblical & Practical Resources to Counteract Domestic Violence

by Catherine Clark Kroeger & Nancy Nason-Clark

InterVarsity Press, 2001, 168 pages

Critical Review by Dr. Bruce L.Theissen

Resources for Family and Parenting >>

The old saying, "There's no place like home!" is one in which many souls take comfort. Not the battered, beleagured Janice, Macy, Susan, or Vilma, the real-life subjects depicted in No Place for Abuse, and certainly not Mrs. Jones, a composite of characters I pulled from my caseload as a psychologist, in order to form an archetype of The Abused Woman. For these women, home is a haunted place of terror and misery, and the expression is a cruel reminder, provoking daunting images of unspeakable violence and insufferable abuse.

In a recent InterVarsity interview, Nason-Clark concisely spells out her goals concerning No Place for Abuse. "My hope," she says, "is two-fold: (1) That we would offer hope for victims and practical guidelines for those attempting to respond compassionately to victims; and (2) that we would dispel the myth that abuse is rare and that it is virtually non-existent in Christian homes."

After carefully reviewing the book, I wouldn't hesitate to declare that Kroeger and Nason-Clark go quite far in accomplishing these goals. In doing so, they come remarkably close to summoning readers to venture out of the wilderness of myth and its twin, the wilderness of denial---every psychologist's chief rivals. But they stop short of delivering the oppressed into the Promised Land.

God's will and his expressed intention is clearly to deliver all who are oppressed out of the hands of the oppressor. God will undoubtedly use his appointed servants, Kroeger and Nason-Clark towards this end.

Yet, while poignant stories of actual abused women bring the mission of these authors to life, I'm not sure that God requires all of those statistics to usher in the new era of enlightenment among Evangelicals on this issue. Further, I'm not sure evangelical Christians need all of those circumspectly chosen Bible verses to convince them of the devastatingly destructive nature of domestic violence or to entreat them to take an activist role in counteracting the cycle of abuse in afflicted families.

There are two slowly decaying myths that Kroeger and Nason-Clark fail to dispel and, in fact, actually give CPR to in an apparently unintentional rescue effort. The first of these myths is that men can be only perpetrators, and not victims of abuse, and that women can be only victims, and never perpetrators of abuse. The problem with statistics is that they capture only what is reported or directly observed.

As a psychologist who has led a number of groups for both perpetrators and victims of domestic violence, I have learned that the cases of battered men are much greater than any statistic will ever capture. While women may, in general, be at a decided disadvantage in terms of physical size and strength, cases of what I refer to in a song as "an assault with a deadly woman" are much more common than most people realize and are most certainly underreported. Additionally, cases involving mutual combat and reciprocal abuse are also conspicuously common and underreported. While males experience intense shame associated with being perceived as perpetrators of domestic violence, they are even more ashamed of the whole notion of being physically beaten by a woman.

The second myth of abuse that Clark Kroeger and Nason-Clark not only buy into, but actually perpetuate, is that, in the context of a relationship dyad such as a marriage, there is always one clearly identifiable victim, and one clearly identifiable perpetrator. Over the years, adults raised in dysfunctional families adopt highly sophisticated ways of concealing abuse and often deliver it in the form of disguised emotional blows. Even the most subtly delivered abusive words can add fuel to the fire, ultimately contributing to the temptation, though never serving as a justifiable cause, of a hostility-laden individual's physically abusive reaction.

In addition to overlooking, and perhaps being party to the perpetuation of the aforementioned myths of abuse, two other interstices come to mind concerning this otherwise comprehensive, insightful, and practical guide. These are first, a failure to address adequately cross-cultural differences in the way in which abuse is experienced and rationalized and, second, a failure to adequately account for the powerful role of unconscious conflict, reinforced by childhood trauma and unhealthy parent-child dynamics in contributing to the later development of violent tendencies in the context of domestic relationships.

Regardless of the relatively few ostensible limits of this book, the reader, whether victim/perpetrator or passively resistant churchgoer, is bound to be emotionally compelled to take decisive action and to become an agent of healing. It is my hope that in such cases, the Holy Spirit will intercede, filling in the gaps in human understanding, and filling heretofore haunted homes with his hallowed presence.