Over the past month I have done four workshops with the congregation (men, women, and youth) at la Iglesia Presbiteriana Emanuel. It is not the end, but only the begining of my work and their`s. At the request of the pastor and moderator of the Ayacucho Presbytery, Rev. Juan Quispe Flores, they were all on domestic violence and what the bible does or does not say. I knew I couldn`t cover everything so I tried to be direct and to the point. Let us not dance around anything. That is the exact opposite of Latino culture, communication, and frankly homeletical method, which is more like a cyclone that finally comes to and makes a point after mucho Blah, Blah, Blah. Pastor Juan and I talked and reflected a lot about domestic violence and scripture before doing the workshops. He said ¨One of the women in my congregation asked me why was the bible machista?¨ He told me he had trouble responding, and couldn`t help but chuckle at this women`s direct approach and line of questioning. I said ¨I love her already, who is it?¨ He wanted to begin equipping his congregants to combat domestic violence and abuse first in their own homes and church and then move out into the wider community, reaching out to their neighbors and saying ¨This isn´t right, and the church will no longer be silent on this issue. Women AND Men are children of God, made in God`s image.¨ He, and I wanted them to be aware that domestic violence is not just physical or ¨hitting¨someone. It is any combination of physical, emotional, sexual, and economic related (think money) threats of using or actions used to control, intimidate, or coerce another person with whom you have a relationship with. 
One of the things that we (really I so far in my department of 1.5 people) are doing with churches through Paz y Esperanza is trying to encourage ALL people to take a look at and maybe try reading the sacred texts that we all know, those we DO NOT know, and maybe the scriptures we THINK we know, but to read them through the eyes of gender. See Irene Foulkes article, Rereading the Scriptures through the Eyes of Gender. For instance try reading Psalm 55:12-14 through the eyes of a victim of domestic violence and abuse:
12 It is not enemies who taunt me— I could bear that; it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me— I could hide from them. 13 But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend, 14 with whom I kept pleasant company; we walked in the house of God with the throng.
or maybe try reading Ephesians 5:22-23through the eyes of a woman in a male dominated household or machista society:
22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which Christ is the Savior.
...and then read it again, but read the WHOLE of the text, Ephesians 5:21-33 and see if there is not a difference:
21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. 24 Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. 33 Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband. Do your eyes seem new? Oh my goodness I never looked at it that way before, you say! Is there anything coming to you like maybe mutuality instead of submission, like it does to me? I have found this to be one of the most dangerous, often misused, and chopped up texts in the bible. The church through the years has used(misused) it as a weapon and an edict to restore dangerous, controlling relationships that are manifestations of fear, power, and control, rather than mutuality, respect, tenderness, and love. Mutual duties are named. The relation of the wife to the husband (or two people) is like that of the church in Christ, a close, tender relation, in which there is no bondage, but freedom, because the service is that of the heart. (Two people)Husbands, love your wives. We have here not only the duty, but the measure of the duty. As Christ loved the church. Loved so well as to be willing to give all things, even life, for her welfare. The union of (two people)husband and wife were here described is ideally perfect. The tenderest love on one side, and loving obedience on the other.(1)
Clergy and lay people sent and are still sending women back to submissive and abusive relationships, instead of listening and supporting victims, helping them to reclaim their voice in a safe place. Forgiveness and reconciliation doesn`t mean sutpidity. It requires time apart, and honest change on the part of the aggressor. It means the victim not forgiving someone until they are sure that it will not put them back in the same unhealthy and dangerous situation. The church is not a courthouse of judgement, but a sanctuary. Try telling that to an ingrained machista and majority conservative society...that is what it is like to stand between two fires....the gospel of Jesus Christ on one side and a raging, testosterone filled, room of armchair theologians on the other.....biblical hermaneutic of suspicion and interpretation and machista...DISCUSS!! (Think SNL ¨Discuss¨ Lady here).
Standing between two fires, that must be what it is like to be or have been a victim of domestic violence, turn to clergy or the church and have the thing you trusted most in the world, scripture, used as a weapon against you or to support the abusive nature of your relationship or marriage.
It is certainly what it feels like to stand infront of men and women who`s culture says or tells them: Men are the head of the house, the kings of the castle...that means they are in charge and that women will and must do whatever they say (and that is not mutual). That is the danger and risk of proof texting or taking little slivers or single lines of texts from the bible instead of more complete stories or passages.
Resource (1) The People`s New Testament
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