Domestic Violence and Abuse: An Urgent Call to an Informed Pastoral Response Towards A Wholistic Healing
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Date
2001-02
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Tangaza University College
Abstract
Many Christians who today are victims of domestic violence and abuse suffer their
memories or current critical situations in silence. This has been because of the lack of trust that
they would be treated appropriately once in the limelight.
Many of the pastoral agents do still hold to the notion that these problems are not a
common occurrence, and if they do happen, it is not among their people, less expanding their
knowledge on the issue and striving to address the same. They are far removed and as such, for
them anything to do with domestic violence and abuse such as battering, incest, rape, sexual
harassment and other forms of domestic violence and abuse happen to people unlike them.
The truth is that great majorities of their flock walk in the daylight happily while in the
night they have to struggle as victims and survivors with their experiences of domestic violence
and abuse 'To a certain extend, our pastoral agents are ill-prepared to respond to these
challenges. There is the need to know more about domestic violence and abuse in the family for
unless the pastoral agents come out in the open and speak of the same, their congregations will
never cultivate the trust needed to come to them and help stamp out this problem. A challenge must here be considered for the pastoral agents to attend to their own houses
too. This is for the pastoral agents who themselves have been victims of domestic violence and
abuse and live with these memories. The same applies to pastoral agents who are perpetrators of
this violence and abuse. The church must therefore incorporate new awareness of domestic violence and abuse in every aspect of ministry and teaching.
It must start now to address the issue in its particularity as a deeply rooted problem in our
social, cultural and religious contexts, pastorally and individually.
This essay sets out to try and address this problem hopefully offering pastoral agents
some new insights on how to help reduce the occurrence of domestic violence and abuse.
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Keywords
Domestic Violence, Abuse, Wholistic Healing