How do we make sure our church members are safe in their marriages?

I conclude my conversation with Gretchen Baskerville, author of The Lifesaving Divorce: Hope for People Leaving Destructive Relationships. We discuss some practical ways congregations can identify troubled marriages and provide safety for those within them. We also discuss the need for churches to have a frank discussion about divorce - and how a written policy condoning divorce because of abuse can be a powerful tool of healing for all those involved.

Excerpt

Reuel Sample:
And we're focusing on on the victim here. But a therapeutic separation also helps the abuser to get the the the help or the direction or the discipline that he or she needs. Because we know that that person too is a member of our church and to turn our back on that person is also a bad thing to do. Up to the point where that person is not going to accept any help and then our job as Christians is to put that person out of the church. But until that point is that our job as pastors is to help both of these people and to be open to the possibility that a one size message of marriage at all costs is neither helpful nor biblical.

<Gretchen Baskerville:
Exactly. And I think one of the things we have to be aware of is the Bible talks about wolves. The Bible talks about people who have a form of godliness, but they don't actually live out the traits. So be aware that an abuser, whether it's a man or a woman, can talk. A great talk can shed the tears of of repentance, can stand up front in front of the church and tell their testimony. But what you really need to see is, have they genuinely changed? Do they do they still blame the wife or the husband? Are they taking responsibility for what they do or do they excuse what they do? And there can be a lot of mind games that an abusive person, a hardened, abusive. A person can play and they're just really good at fooling all of us as Christians, we do believe that God works miracles, but sometimes our idealism gets makes us blind to these people. And I would also look up the blog posts by Dr Anna Salter, a schoolteacher. She's written some things for Christianity today, and she talks about how abuse perpetrators and also child molesters really like churches because we are so trusting because we are so optimistic because we do have so much faith and we really do believe that God can change lives.

Gretchen Baskerville:
And so we are we get groomed ourselves, we get preyed upon. I will be the first to say I have been conned. I've been in church ministry face to face church ministry since 1998, and I have been conned by some really clever cons. And in my case, since I mainly deal with women, I've been conned by women. I've I've seen them take advantage of others. I've seen them do financial swindles. I mean, and they talk such a good talk. So pastors, you know, just be aware that just be careful. Just be careful and be, you know, in in reality, it's the it's the wife. It's the victim. It's whoever, the vulnerable person who needs to say, Yeah, OK, I definitely see a change because if you tell them the the the victim, oh, we see a change, then you're siding with potentially siding with the abuser. Let them say, you know, I don't know. He looks OK. He he does a few nice things, but something deep in my gut, something deep in my heart says he hasn't really changed. He's just kind of going through the motions and saying the right words.