“Hasn't the Church silenced women and told them to endure violence?”

🔥The question: “Didn't ‘be obedient and keep the family together’ make women put up with domestic violence and sexism?”

🕯️First, the admission: Church members and pastors have taken women's words lightly and, with a distorted language of obedience and forgiveness, forced victims of domestic and sexual violence into silence and into staying with the abuser. There has also been a culture that unjustly shut women out of education, leadership, and theological speech. This was a wrong that turned the blame onto victims.

🛡️The Church's answer: Every woman and every man is made in the image of God and bears the same dignity. Violence is not justified by marriage or by authority, and a victim has the right to get to safety immediately and to receive help from protection and law-enforcement agencies. The Church has to let women's words actually shape its decision-making and its safeguarding structures, and to correct discrimination and violence.

🧐If they press further: “Does forgiving mean not reporting?” — No. Forgiveness is not a command to treat a crime as though it never happened, or to go back into a dangerous relationship. Keeping distance, reporting, punishment, and claiming compensation do not contradict forgiveness.

✨In one sentence: “Faith does not tell women to endure violence; silencing them with a distorted obedience and forgiveness has to be confessed, and safety, legal accountability, and equal dignity have to be upheld.”