Why Christianity Can Be Dangerous for Women

“Turn the other cheek”

“Love Thy Enemy”

 “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”

 

Many of us have heard these quotes of Christ and use them as our guiding posts in the way of love and interpersonal conflicts. They seem harmless, kind, a message of peaceful relations.  But for abused women, who tend to be caregivers and codependents who don't want to have ill feelings towards others, these words can be lethal. Also, for people who have just started out on the spiritual path, they will also use these teachings inappropriately and justify and minimize a whole slew of poor behaviour from others, not having healthy boundaries. I know because I did this when I started out on my spiritual path. 

Faithful, good-hearted women are more likely to tolerate poor treatment because they are conditioned to be people pleasing, nice, pleasant, thoughtful, kind, extremely forgiving, etc. They will ignore horrific treatment, disrespectful behaviour and demeaning comments made to them, and believe that prayer will save the sinner.  They believe they have to be Christ’s bride and look graceful and pretty so they can get into heaven and join Him.  They will cover up the emotional or physical bruises that are left on their souls instead of taking a stand by staring their abusers in the eye and telling him to back off. They can spend their whole entire lives in an unhappy marriage with an alcoholic, or make excuses for the man who is beating her, believing that this is a good Christian thing to do.  

With the help of scripture, they become the ultimate doormat and the abusers learn that they can get away with beating the women or intimidating the people in their lives.  Because bullies will find the weakest link, they will gain more and more power as they allow their abuser to overshadow them.  The men will feel strong and great, while the women meekly imitate Christ and bow their heads in victimized humility.

I strongly believe that God wants us to feel happiness, to stand up to evil, to face bullies, to heal our hearts and to learn discernment.  We are meant to feel alive and joyful, not full of fear and death. Anyone you meet who has survived an abusive relationship will explain to you that they felt like they were in a fog, or they had no idea why they stayed so long, that they believed it was because they couldn’t love their partner enough – until one day something snapped and she got up and left. I would suggest that that was the day when she was actually listening to God and divine intervention happened.  

I say this with the utmost compassion for Christian women in abusive situations. Because it happened to me, as well. I believed the jargon of the Bible – love the enemy, love the criminal, just pray, turn the other cheek.  I ended up in a relationship with someone who had done jail time, had serious mental health issues and was looking to dominate a vulnerable woman.  He nearly destroyed me and my self-esteem, and I ended up feeling ashamed that I didn’t see what was so obvious. It was because of my desire to live a spiritual life that I ignored the common sense realities that this was a severely broken man who was ready to bring down everybody in his path.  He knew how to con nice girls and emotionally manipulate them to feel sorry for him. He made me feel guilty, that somehow I wasn’t loving enough and he used tools like racial guilt, implying that I was a stuck up white girl so I would feel bad about myself. He accused me of flirting with other people – when I was merely talking to people--and started a whole slew of attacks to make me doubt myself.   

My desire to grow spiritually over-powered my intuition and voice and made me tolerate and participate in ways of being treated that were humiliating.  Luckily my feminist background kicked in and I took a stand against him that I am NOT going to be abused in this lifetime and we ended the relationship 6 months after it started.  It took me 2 years to wrap my head around how I allowed myself to become pulled in by him.  I tried to justify it, not to see myself as a victim, show that I was compassionate towards him. But the truth is that he was a manipulative person who was so deeply warped that he had no concept of respect, integrity and honesty with others. And I was a lonely woman who wanted to be loved (I hadn’t been in a relationship for 3 years).  I also assumed that everyone who claims they are on a spiritual path has this code of ethics within them, only to realize that wasn’t the case. I got duped, fooled, humiliated and roped in to his wounded self. And Christ’s quotes made me blind to how I was giving away my own sense of self so I could feel like I was a good, spiritual woman.  

Yes, I’ve forgiven him. Eventually I could see how tormented he was. I see that there were parts of him that I did love, that’s why I wanted to be involved with him. I had admired how much he healed from his experiences of childhood. I liked his faithfulness in his Native Tradition. I saw hope that if God helped him, Spirit could help me. But no amount of prayer or Higher Power could make this man someone safe for women. He needed serious psychotherapy for his deepest wounds.

I have regained my inner strength and healed my heart, with thanks to books, personal prayer, counsellors and healers.  I’ve learned to discern the psychopath and sociopath to understand their psychology so I won’t get trapped again.  I’m fine with trusting my perceptions of those who are safe and healthy and those who are warped and dangerous.  I’ve learned to not believe that everyone who tells you they love you does. I discovered that my naïve, nice girl self can actually kill me and lead me down a dark and depressing path. I really don’t ever want to go down that road again.  I know now that I deserve to have a happy life. And I don’t need Christ’s mixed messages to tell me how to live. Because he wasn’t a woman and he wasn’t living in this time period. He has no idea what we have to face on a day-to-day basis and his so-called wisdom is actually a form of foolishness and denial, leading women astray.

I’ve come to realize that I’d rather be the spiritual person who has a lot of street wisdom, than the naïve sitting duck pretending I’m not afraid. Yes, forgiveness is good. But wisdom is better. And every person on this planet is called to growing in becoming loveable. That’s the other person’s job, not mine nor Christ’s, if they want to open their heart to love and respect.