2.  Explore the antagonistic relationship between the secular world and the religious world with special attention on how this impedes an appropriate response to family violence  Examine the religious texts and ideologies for the three primary world religions that are frequently cited by the batterers to justify their behavior and cited by the spiritual leasers when they inappropriately counsel victims to stay in violent relationships  Look at the ways in which systematic abuse by religious institutions, such as the Catholic Church sex scandal, reinforces male power and privilege and allows the abuse if women and children to be perpetuated

3.  To provide the reader with an overview of the role that religion has played in shaping family violence—especially child abuse and domestic violence  To acquaint the reader with the specific texts and passages that institutionalized religions rely on for shaping appropriate gender roles and parent-child roles  To explore the ways in which institutionalized religions have responded to family violence vis-à-vis texts and passages  To examine the response individual spiritual leaders have to victims that seek assistance  To provide recommendations for transforming religion from an institution that directly and indirectly supports family violence to one that participates effectively in its eradication and prevention

4. Religiosity Theory of Secularization

5. Tensions have always existed between religious institutions and the secular world An understanding of the relationship between religion and the secular world is an important starting point for understanding one of the ways in which religion shapes family violence and the religious response to it Sociologists of religion have two main interests: 1. The rate to which people in a given society are affiliated with particular religions 2. The overall religiosity of people in different societies Religiosity: a way of measuring both the frequency with which people attend church as well as the level of their belief in certain core religious principles

6. The prediction among scholars that modernity and religion are inversely related As a culture or society or nation becomes increasingly modern, the people in that culture or society or nation will become less religious This inverse relationship between modernization and religion is created in large part by the rise and acceptance of and even prioritizing of science

7. Torah Qur’an Bible

8.  One of the most common misconceptions is that intimate partner violence and child abuse do not occur in Jewish households  There is no statistical evidence to suggest that Jewish women and children are any less likely to experience violence or that Jewish men are any less likely to perpetrate it Shalom Bayit being primarily the responsibility of wives may prevent or inhibit Jewish women from leaving battering relationships Shalom Bayit: Peace in the household

9.  For Muslim men and women, the Qur’an is the primary source of their faith and practice  Qur’anic verse 4:34 is often used to justify physical abuse against a wife if she does not submit to her partner’s authority:  “Men shall take full care of women with the bounties Allah has bestowed upon them, and what they may spend out of their possessions; as Allah has eschewed each with certain qualities in relation to the other. And the righteous women are the truly devout ones, who guard the intimacy, which Allah has ordained to be guarded. As for those women whose ill-will you have reason to fear, admonish them [first]; then distance yourself in bed, and then tap them; but if they pay you heed, do no seek to harm them.”  Many scholars of the Qur’an have debated over the appropriate translation of the word ‘tap’  In some texts, it is translated as ‘hit’ or ‘strike’  Many scholars believe that is an incorrect translation based on the Prophet's lifelong abhorrence of hitting women

10.  Christianity is the dominant religion in the United States  Traditionally, Christian teaching about the roles of husbands and wives within a marriage rely heavily on Ephesians 5:21-33  “Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also the wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” (Ephesians 5:22-24) When taken in isolation, these verses may be interpreted to imply that the husband has absolute authority over the family and this authority cannot be questioned, and that wives, in turn, must demonstrate absolute obedience and summarily submit to abuse from their husbands

11. The issue of divorce is an important barrier for highly religious women to leave abusive homes  In all three major religions, marriage is a lifelong, sacred commitment among husband, wife, and God  For many religious women, the congregation or temple to which they belong may provide their primary community of friends and support  A battered woman considering the possibility of divorce may realize that to separate from her husband will likely sever her relationship with her entire faith community

12. There is a great deal of variability in the amount of formal training that individual religious “professionals”– ministers, priests, pastors, rabbis, and imans– receive Unfortunately, the majority of spiritual advisers are not well trained to deal with family violence and in some cases the religious leader is himself the perpetrator Some religious leaders express fear that secular approaches to domestic violence will result in divorce—which violates the lifelong contract that marriage is believed to be by all organized religions

13. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops developed a website to provide advice to parish priests who are presented with victims of domestic violence (http://www.usccb.org/laity/help.shtml) A group of African American women founded the Black Church and Domestic Violence Institute to fill an important niche in fighting domestic violence in the African American community (http://www.bcdvi.org/index.html)

14. The troubling case of an intersection of religion and family violence  Thousands of victims on at least three continents  The institutionalized role of the church in covering up the abuse and thus allowing it to continue  The official response to allegations of sexual abuse was to remind the victims that to make such an accusation publicly would lead to their immediate excommunication  The removal of accused clergymen to lower profile positions or simply moving them to smaller, rural parishes

16.  There is no religion that advocates violence  Religious scholars recognize the translation problems that lead to texts that seem to support violence but are in fact misinterpretations of the original language  The typical religious leader may have little access to this knowledge and thus he, like the members of his congregation is likely to absorb and perpetuate the false belief that religion dictates unequal gender roles that privilege men and require the absolute submission of wives