16 days of activism against gender-based violence

This homily was preached at St George’s Cathedral, Perth, on the eve of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (24/11/24)

It was in the back room of a Cathedral like this, in another continent, that I attended a session called ‘Domestic Abuse and how the Church should respond’. Maybe a decade had passed since my first marriage ended, but in the words of our first reading, I was still ashamed, disgraced about it, and pretty discouraged about the way the church had handled it.

Battered from my marriage breakup and seeking some sort of familiarity and comfort – seeking God, although I didn’t know it at the time – I tiptoed back into the church of my youth. The church where I met my first husband and where we had married. The minister called me a scarlet woman and asked how I dared to walk into his church with my head held high. His wife – ironically the ‘welcomer’ on the door –refused to give me a notice sheet – she said there would be no need for me to know what was happening in church that week.

The requirements to be allowed back into the fold were clearly laid down to me; I would need to stand at the front and explain to the congregation why my marriage had ended, and repent. There were no similar requirements for my husband. No requirements at all. The minister knew nothing of the state of my marriage, nor the reasons for its breakdown. He never asked. And that added to my shame.

And yet, because God had breathed God’s promise into my heart that said ‘I’m pleased to hear from you Gemma, and I love you’, because God was proving again and again to be a trustworthy and redeeming husband who was not casting me off – ever – and had gathered me up and was beginning to whisper terrifying plans about ordination, I dared to wholeheartedly, even foolishly believe the church should have something to say about the things that break marriage, and people, and should be able to offer a way back.

And if the church should respond to divorce, then it must also be able to respond to issues of domestic abuse – those marriages that had been way worse than mine, because I had believed that mine was just a mismatch, a mutual falling out…and he had never hit me.

So, I sat in this training – domestic abuse and how the church should respond – and I felt empowered and hopeful and ready to become that Christian, even that Christian leader, that helped ‘those people’. Those poor women whose husbands beat them.

Mid-morning we began to look at different types of abuse. I can picture the piece of paper she handed out; there was a person in the middle with speech bubbles around her – emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, and so on – and there were dot points under each, listing behaviours.

And as I stared at the page it began to swirl, and I filled in my own dot points;

• that time he told me I looked like a cow because I was chewing gum,
• the way he gave me pocket money – from my own wages – because he controlled the money;
• when he told me which church we were moving to because he was the spiritual head of the house and I had promised to obey;
• removing the pizza from me, so he could help me not get fat;
• the clothes I was allowed to wear with him, but never with other men;
• the time he told me, ‘close your mouth; you looked retarded’ when I was marvelling at the intricacy of dew on a sparkling new spider’s web;
• the times he wanted sex and I didn’t, so he did it anyway
• the day he finally raised his hand in anger, because I wanted chips

Shaken, I excused myself from the training and locked myself in the bathroom. I can still picture the inside of that bathroom door where I rested my forehead and wept, realising for the first time, 10 years after it was over, that I had been in an abusive marriage, and its breakdown wasn’t all my fault, despite what the divorce papers said.

The world taught me domestic abuse was only physical. That nothing else counted, nothing else was as bad.

The church taught me divorce is always the woman’s fault and always because she had an affair, so she wasn’t welcome, unless she publicly repented.

God taught me that wasn’t true; that I was beautiful and called and loved everlastingly. And that God is a trustworthy husband, and other men might be too.

I returned to that training session, red-eyed but resolute; determined I would face the trauma of what had been, would commit to healing from it, and would use all I was feeling, including my anger and pain, to strengthen me so I could support, challenge and help others. And that I would do my bit to make sure the church really could respond to domestic abuse, generously, courageously, without misogyny; being kind, tender hearted, forgiving, melting bitterness, giving grace.

In Australia, 1 in 4 women experience domestic abuse in their lifetime.

1 in 16 men.

Indigenous women are 33 times more likely to be hospitalised by FDV and 7 times more likely to be murdered by an intimate partner than non-indigenous women.

And these statistics are at least as high in Anglican churches, if not higher.

Friends, you may have heard it said that domestic abuse is only abuse if she is battered and bruised or raped.

You may have heard it said that the man is the head of the household and the head of his wife.

You may have heard it said that she deserved it or that Christian marriages are exempt or it doesn’t happen here or any number of other false statements about FDV in faith settings and homes.

But now we say to you, domestic abuse happens all around us, in our churches, our schools, our communities, even in our own homes. And the responsibility of shining the light of Christ on perpetrators and survivors alike is in our hands.

You may have heard it said that it’s not your business, not your job.

Now hear us say to you, yes, it is. Amen.