"There is no excuse other than legitimate life-preserving self-defense for a man becoming physically violent towards a woman"
Cal Thomas: The sacking of Ray Rice
“Footage of a player dragging an unconscious woman from an elevator gets the player a two-day suspension, but footage of the act that put her in that condition gets him suspended indefinitely?”
“Should anyone be shocked at the irrefutable evidence of domestic violence in the NFL? Professional football players are men who make their living through violence, and for whom violence well executed has made millionaires of nearly all of them. … To be a star athlete in America is to grow up, from roughly the age of 14 on, with no one—coaches, contemporaries, later scouts and agents—ever saying no to you. Fame, money, women come rolling in for these athletes, the favorites, or so it sometimes seems, at least while they are still young, of the gods. When someone does say no—a drunk fiancée, a disobedient child—is it all that shocking that the athletes respond with violence?”
I wonder how many pastors / counselors cover this basic principle in pre-marital counseling - “There is no excuse other than legitimate life-preserving self-defense for a man becoming physically violent towards a woman”
Confession: I never did … I wish I had
Or, for that matter, what about telling everyone that, apart from legitimate self-defense, it ain’t so hot to be using physical force on another male? Now I’ll grant that yes, it’s worse for a man to do this to a woman simply because God made her the “weaker vessel”, but if we are (1 Cor. 12:31) to eagerly desire the greater gifts, we need to remember (1 Tim. 3, Titus 1) that a pastor/elder needs to be “not quick tempered”, “not self-willed”, and “not violent”.
I had marriage counseling, and it was very helpful, but I would have to guess that if marriage counseling is the first place that a young man learns not to get his desires with his fists, the church has failed him.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
Two sad stories of spousal abuse - both in churches I pastored.
- One Sunday a young couple were in the service as first time visitors. As it turned out (and I was not aware of it then), the girl was the daughter of regular attenders. Shortly afterwards they came to me asking for use of the church and for me to officiate. The father called me and told me that did not approve of the wedding and requested that their request be denied. I agreed. Later the father called to say he approved of the wedding and all was a go. I did the standard 5 or 6 pre-marital counseling sessions and the wedding was a “go”. Before the wedding the girl’s brother called me to say that the fiancé beat the girl. There was no obvious evidence of this (bruising … et cetera) but I began to ask questions. The girl denied she was abused and then the brother relented of his comment. I married the couple. After the wedding they basically disappeared from church. One morning I received the sickening news that the new husband had tied his wife to a chair and beat her. I still regret officiating at their ceremony!
- We had a couple attending the church. We had a practice that after a certain period we would invite attending couples to our home (the parsonage) and Kathee would make her “unusually good ham sandwiches” (I call them “unusual sandwiches” for short but that’s another story!). The night they were to come by, our son (then two now 32) fell against our coffee table and cut his forehead. They arrived after the service and we had them babysit our two other kids while we took our 2 year old to the emergency room. We felt a special bond with them because of that event and how they stepped in to watch 2 kids in our emergency. As I recollect she joined the church and he did not (he had a giant rock music collection and as I recall I said something about that that offended him). She faithfully attended and he sometimes attended. He was an engineer for RCA. One day the woman called on me and she had been beaten. She said her husband regularly beat her and that day he had struck her with the fireplace poker. I had her call the police. It was the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving. They went to his place of business and arrested him. I told her in no uncertain terms that she should have a zero tolerance towards abuse.
First, let me make clear that I agree in principle with this statement,
“There is no excuse other than legitimate life-preserving self-defense for a man becoming physically violent towards a woman”
But, whether many today realize it or not, that is most emphatically not the message that young girls and young women in our culture are being taught. They are told that they can be anything they want to be. They are told that they are just as capable as a man. That anything a man can do, a woman can do better.
We are putting women in physically demanding jobs that once were the sole domain of men. Firefighters, police officers, women in combat, each jobs which require strength, endurance, stamina which are not typically found in the female gender. We change the rules so they can participate, all the while assuring them that they are equal to the men.
Add to that the feminist indoctrination that women can do it all, just as well as men. And it breeds situations where the females become the aggressors, believing they are equal with men in strength, speed and endurance.
If you watch the video of the Ray Rice and his girlfriend/now wife. It is pretty clear that she hit him first, after having spit in his face. She was under the mistaken impression that she was equal to him in every way. He knocked her out cold with one punch.
Now I’m agreeing that he shouldn’t have hit her. But, because of how our culture has trained young women, and her mistaken belief that she was equal to him in strength and speed, she provoked him.
Another point that also needs to be made is the fact that more often then many people want to admit, women do assault or acted violently in our culture. Read the controversy surrounding soccer star Hope Solo and her domestic abused charges. I also remember seeing a news report this spring of a woman who lost complete control and assaulted a man on the beach in Florida, for flying a drone.
Add to this the under reported but serious problem of domestic violence in lesbian relationships, (depending on which source, anywhere from 17% to 40%).
In summary, while we do well to tell men that it is wrong to hit women. We should also be telling women to control their emotions/passions and to avoid violence as well.
Christians often seem to see women as dainty flowers, never doing wrong and never acting in violence or out of control anger when their wants and desires are thwarted.
We need to be reminding women that they are to be living out the fruits of the Spirit just as men are. That uncontrolled anger and violence are signs of a heart not right with God.
Again, I agree that men should not be violent toward women. But, in our culture today, we need to be telling the women to control themselves as well.
Discussion