The tragic story of Ronke Bewaji
Shonde, the lady who was allegedly murdered by her husband in a fit of rage,
has been trending and people are understandably very moved by the circumstances
of her demise.
Many people have given their 2
cents and a recurring theme has been the role of her pastors and other advisers
who told her to persevere in the face of persistent physical abuse. I don’t
claim to know the conversations she had with her pastor, I don’t even know if
the pastor was privy to the problems in the marriage. None of us knows for sure
if the decision to hold on wasn’t solely the victim’s. That said, I would
disagree strenuously with anyone who gives advice that places a woman in harm’s
way just because you feel the need to protect ‘the home’.
As a Christian, I do wonder if
telling a woman to stay and persevere in an abusive situation all in the name
of maintaining the sanctity of the ‘marriage’ actually reflects the Person of
Christ. When I read the Gospels, one thing that resonates with me about Jesus’s
encounters with people (especially women) is His overarching compassion for
their circumstances. Take the case of the woman who was caught in adultery and
about to be stoned to death; the gruesome truth about her situation was that
death by stoning was the prescribed punishment in Mosaic Law. The Pharisees were
not breaking the Law by wanting to punish her and Jesus didn’t contest that
fact as a fellow Jew. But He knew the real reasons behind their ‘righteous
indignation’ – they weren’t interested in upholding morality, their anger wasn’t
righteous – first, they wanted to entrap Jesus because they felt threatened by
Him, and then they were also just hypocrites who had found someone that they
felt superior to, someone who was unfortunate enough to get caught. He saw
right through them and challenged their feelings of superiority by telling the
one without sin to cast the first stone and of course, there was no one left to
execute the punishment.
Jesus could have been pedantic
and said “the Law is the Law” (the woman was not falsely accused from all
indications) but He didn’t because He knew that compassion is more life
changing than the rigid application of the law. He was more interested in
preserving a life by showing mercy.
In His encounter with the
Samaritan woman at the well, He didn’t list out all the provisions of the law
regarding her status as a woman who had been married 4 times, in fact as a
Rabbi, He should not have even spoken to her. When the woman of questionable
reputation poured perfume on him and washed His feet with her tears, He didn’t
kick her away to maintain appearances as the spectators expected. When the
woman with the issue of blood touched His garment, He wasn’t concerned about
the fact she was in an ‘unclean’ state according to the provisions of the Law, He
didn’t accuse her of defiling Him, rather He saw her need and addressed it. In
fact, if anybody had the right to wave the law over these women and insist on a
strict adherence to it, it should have been Christ because He was sinless. Was
his failure to condemn them a result of His disregard for the Law? No, everyone
marveled at his authority and knowledge whenever he preached, but he understood
the intent of the Law and knew that God was/is not interested in a rigid
external fulfillment of the law to the exclusion of mercy and justice. He said “Woe
to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of
your spices--mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important
matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced
the latter, without neglecting the former” (Matthew 23:23)
So when a marriage becomes a
dangerous arena for one of the parties involved, is it an act of mercy and
compassion to coldly tell the abused person to stay and pray for change in the
danger zone because God hates divorce? When a woman’s life is endangered in the
name of a marriage, how does God get the glory? I wonder if the real reason for
such advice is because we want to foster love and reconciliation or because we
want to avoid the awkwardness and unpleasantness of a less than perfect
marriage in the church. I wonder if the advisers are more concerned about keeping
up appearances than the well-being of the concerned parties.
When a married woman is turned
into a punching bag on a regular basis, can we say with all honesty, that the
marriage is fulfilling divine purpose? Children who grow up seeing their mother
regularly subjected to beatings and humiliation are not happy and well
adjusted. A woman who lives in constant fear is definitely living below her God
given potential.
Some people will say things like ‘seek
the will of God in prayer’ but I don’t see how practical this is; in any case
distance doesn’t negate prayer. We all have survival instincts and I believe it’s
a gift from God because the life He gives is precious, so He has engineered us to
instinctively preserve our well-being. The people who say ‘seek God’s will’
before attempting to preserve your life will not seek God’s will before looking
right and left when crossing a road; if a deadly snake suddenly appeared on
their path, they would not pause to pray about whether to kill the snake or flee.
I don’t know how a woman in a dangerous marital situation is any different.
I know the Christian life is one
of sacrifice and hard choices but God’s commandments are not burdensome (1 John
5v3). God knows that we are imperfect and we make bad choices but the fact that
a woman, for whatever reason, made the decision to marry a violent man does not
mean that she must pay for it with her life.
