Stand by your man?

Televangelist Juanita Bynum said her husband, minister Thomas W. Weeks III, choked, kicked and stomped her in a hotel parking lot on August 21. Bynum is accusing Weeks of aggravated assault, filing for divorce, and pushing for federal legislation that gives tougher punishments to abusers. The incident prompts questions of how the church helps - or fails to help - battered women.

Pastor Michael Pearl, for instance, tells abused wives to prosecute their husbands without divorcing them: "Guys who get out of prison run straight home to their ladies and treat them wonderfully-for a while anyway" (see page 6 of "Abusive Husband"). Pearl tells a wife whose husband sexually molests his children, "Stick by him, but testify against him in court. Have him do about 10 to 20 years, and by the time he gets out, you will have raised the kids, and you can be waiting for him with open arms of forgiveness and restitution. Will this glorify God? Forever."

But Edward Welch, director of Westminster Theological Seminary's School of Biblical Counseling, said sometimes counselors should persuade a battered woman to divorce her husband: "Violence can be an even more direct breach of the marriage than adultery itself. ... It is certainly a violation of a covenant of trust and care." Welch said Scriptures that counsel wifely submission cannot be used to excuse husbands' violence. The church may debate the definition of submission, Welch said, but a husband's call is clear: "You love your wives in the way Christ loved the church."

Welch said the church can improve its approach to domestic abuse. Churches can "give women the privilege of being able to speak more openly" by teaching that God hates injustice. Welch said pastors should give wives the words they need to speak up, and other church members should be ready to lovingly respond if she does.