Photo Courtesy of Tanya Cooper
The “Domestic Violence in the American Christian Church” research project — created by Professor of Law Tanya Cooper, Assistant Professor of Communication Roslyn Satchel and several other partners — aims to correct the American Christian Church’s attitude toward domestic violence cases and make these institutions effectively assist victims.
The study is attempting to answer three research questions:
- Are members of the American Christian church affected by domestic violence in the same proportion as in the general population of 1 in 3 women?
- Do church teachings and practices unwillingly empower abusers in perpetuating domestic violence?
- How can we resource congregations to handle domestic violence appropriately when victims seek solace from their faith community?
The idea of creating the project came from various cases of domestic violence victims who sought support from American Christian churches, whose response was sometimes discouraging, Cooper said.
“Our work will help victim-survivors and their loved ones, congregations and abusers in sustainable ways,” Satchel wrote.
Cooper said students can contribute to the project by being involved in the research part of it, going to several churches and communicating the main goals of the project, and helping out with the collection of statistics.
Pepperdine’s Community-Based Research Program has awarded Cooper and Satchel’s project a $9,000 grant to “develop and share [their] research with as many people and communities that can hear us,” Cooper said.
Cooper, a practicing lawyer, who represents victims of gender-based violence, such as domestic violence, human trafficking and sexual assault, said she looks at the project from a legal perspective.
Satchel, who has a media, theology and law background, wrote in an email that she examines “the scriptures and congregational hermeneutics for both the ways in which they influence culture and reflect cultural beliefs and practices pertaining to domestic violence.”
Other partners, like second and third year law students Shannon Popovich and Rebecca Wicks, respectively, are responsible for doing research through news articles, legal newspapers and studies that can provide statistics that are liable for the project, Popovich said.
Cooper said that in some instances, “the church discouraged [the victims] and doubted what the story was,” blaming the victims for their husband’s aggressive behavior and supporting the abuser, discounting what had happened, dissuading them from reporting it to authorities or anyone else, and telling them to forgive and forget.
Many churches stand firm to their faith principles and try to help the couple by having counseling sessions, “which is exactly the opposite of what you are supposed to do in a domestic violence situation,” Cooper said.
Educating people on the current attitude of American Christian churches towards domestic violence is crucial for changes to be seen, Cooper said.
“Everybody can do something by being aware,” Cooper said.
In other cases, the church’s response was good. This would happen when members of the church had also been victims in the past, understanding and protecting those seeking support from domestic violence situations.
“It was good in the sense that sometimes the victims would go, and there would be a member of the church congregation who they could talk to, who knew exactly what they were going through,” Cooper said.
One of the next steps for this project is going out to the community and sharing the research that has been done.
“Upon completion of this phase, we will be surveying/interviewing members, leaders and advocates within faith communities for their experiences,” Satchel wrote.
The project’s researchers and partners will go to churches, train members of the congregation and provide them with resources so they can have someone in the pastoral care team who can handle calls from domestic violence victims, Cooper said.
In June, Cooper and Satchel, along with other research partners, will attend the Christian Scholars Conference in Nashville to speak on this project. Cooper said that hopefully they will also have a Convocation session to let students know more about this piece of research.
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Follow Carolina Pinto on Twitter: @caroli_mmp
