Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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if I had been up all night with a sick child. I know that if I dont get
up to make him breakfast, he would hit me and Im scared. . . . I
met my husband at church. . . . I want to do what is right to follow
God. My pastor said I can separate (from him) but I dont have
grounds to divorce him. My mother told me that I am in a domestic
violence relationship and should get help. I never thought of my
situation as a domestic violence relationship. But I decided to call
and get more information. . . . Is your counseling confidential? I
dont want people to know. (a client of a domestic violence
agency)
Domestic violence knows no boundary between the secular world
and the spiritual world. In recent years, the veil of secrecy over domestic violence has been slowly lifting, giving us a glimpse of its detrimental effects in our society. As a result, there is greater media
exposure and more legislation to protect the victims. Different segments of our society are also forming collaborative relationships to
raise awareness of the issue and to provide the community with information on domestic violence. Unfortunately, the faith communities
have lagged behind the secular world in addressing this concern
among their congregations. Some act as if domestic violence stops at
the threshold of their spiritual world and that the church is protected. This is evident by these comments from some ministers: We
dont have this problem (spouse abuse) in our church. We dont deal
with domestic violence; we only deal with spiritual issues. There are
many reasons for this state of affairs in the faith community. There may
be denial that the congregations that theythe clergyhave nurtured and
taught would be involved in such heinous acts against their own family
members. In assuming this belief, clergy may not actively seek out information on this problem and hence, not recognize the signs of abuse.
Thus, the cycle of denial and silence is maintained. Some clergy may
feel that addressing societal issues would detract their congregations
from their spiritual growth.
Despite the fact that much work still needs to be done in the faith
communities, there are increasingly more religious denominations and
ministers who are forming collaborative relationships with community
agencies to address the problem of spouse abuse within their congregations. Various Protestant denominations and religions are making conscious efforts to train their clergy, develop educational materials and
establish policies to address domestic violence (<FaithToday.com>
2001). Andrew Weaver (1993) claims that domestic violence is the
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explore the relationships of the ministers fundamentalist religious beliefs, attitudes toward gender roles, the breadth of their definition of
wife abuse, and the possible subsequent effects these areas might have
on the ministers intervention with battered women.
METHODOLOGY
The sample for this study consisted of 294 Protestant and Catholic
ministers from a sample pool of 764 clergy who were randomly selected
from telephone directories in three counties in Southern California: San
Bernardino County, Riverside County and some adjacent cities in Los
Angeles County (Pomona, La Verne, Walnut, Rowland Heights, West
Covina, La Puente, San Dimas, Diamond Bar & Glendora). In the beginning, 889 Protestant and Catholic churches were randomly selected from the telephone directories and a four-page questionnaire
was mailed to them. Of these questionnaires, 125 of them did not reach
the church due to an address change or the church no longer exists. This
left 764 churches/ministers in the sample pool. Each church was assigned an identification number that was noted on the questionnaire so
that there would be a record as to which completed questionnaire was
returned. Churches that did not respond to the first mailing received a
second mailing two and one-half to eight weeks later. Follow-up telephone calls (a maximum of four attempts to each church) were made
two to eight weeks after the second mailing to those churches that still
did not respond to the mailings, in an attempt to increase the response
rate and to explore reasons for non-participation. These telephone calls
followed a script that was developed to insure uniformity in the calls.
Telephone calls were made to 532 churches. A total of two hundred
ninety-four (a 38% response rate) usable questionnaires were returned
and used in this study.
Traditionally, a research method that uses mailed questionnaires
tends to elicit a low response rate from its participants. In past research
studies that used mailed questionnaires among the clergy, the response
rates seem to be influenced by the topic of the research study, or the organizational affiliation of the researcher conducting the study (e.g.,
secular vs. religious organizations). In studies that had a high response rate among the clergy, the topics were related to religious matters or pastoral duties such as theological positions (65% response rate
in Gilbert, 1982), styles of pastoral counseling (37.6% response rate in
Beech, 1970) and needs assessment of the pastors counseling demands
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(72% response rate in Ruppert & Rogers, 1985). Studies that examined
topics unrelated to the traditional pastoral duties seem to have a lower
response rate even though these studies included additional mailings
and follow-up telephone calls to increase the response rate. Ammerran
(1970) conducted a study on the relationship between religion and politics that had a response rate of 35%. McDaniel (1989) explored the
views held by the clergy toward various marketing activities in a national survey that had a response rate of 29%.
Sensitive topics that were seemingly unrelated to the traditional pastoral duties or where the clergy have less experience in the area may
contribute to a low response rate from the clergy. Alsdurf (1985) had
conducted one of the earlier research studies in the field of spouse abuse
and the faith community. The response rate for his study was 4.9%.
Midgett (1993) of Arizona State University sent questionnaires on family violence to ministers in Arizona. The response rate was 25%. Nancy
Nason-Clark (2000) conducted a survey among Anglican clergy in New
Brunswick, Canada on family violence. Her affiliation is with the Religion and Violence Research Team and included church representatives
among them. The response rate from the clergy in this survey was 60%.
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
Five scales were used to measure the following variables: (1) traditional attitude toward Christian women; (2) fundamentalist religious
beliefs; (3) belief in myths of spouse abuse; (4) recognition of signs of
abuse; and (5) breadth of definition of abuse. In addition, there was a demographic section asking for personal information (e.g., number of formal counseling courses taken, denomination, the number of years in the
pastorate, self-rating on the fundamentalist-liberalism continuum, etc.).
Religious Attitude Inventory
The revised version of a subscale of Broens Religious Attitude
Inventory scale (Robinson & Shaver, 1973), Fundamentalism-Humanitarianism, measured the degree of adherence to fundamentalist
religious beliefs. This scale allowed for a more accurate reflection of the
ministers religious beliefs rather than through their identification with
a particular denominational affiliation. This 20-item Likert scale included such statements as: There is really no such place as Hell. The
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Bible is the word of God and must be believed in its entirety. The reliability coefficient was 0.90.
Attitude Toward Christian Women
A principle component factor analysis with varimax rotation was
performed on Postovoits (1990) Attitude Toward Christian Women
scale. The results showed that three subscales were the most logical division rather than five as indicated by Postovoit. These three new
subscales were: (1) Females Rights/Worth (eight items, reliability coefficient was 0.81); (2) Male Headship (six items, reliability coefficient
was 0.81); and (3) Equality of Sexes (five items, reliability coefficient
was 0.64). These Likert subscales contained statements that described
patriarchal and egalitarian attitudes toward women and the ramifications those attitudes may have on a Christian womans role in the family, church and community. Examples included such statements as:
The woman should never desire to teach the man, but should always
learn from him in subjection and quiet submission. Wives and husbands are commanded to treat each other as equals in mutual submission. The Bible shows that Christian women can be prophets, leaders,
wives and mothers.
Belief in Myths of Spouse Abuse, Recognition of Signs of Battered
Women, and Breadth of Definition of Wife Abuse
An additional three new Likert scales were developed for this study:
Belief in Myths of Spouse Abuse, Recognition of Signs of Battered
Women, and Breadth of Definition of Wife Abuse. The ten-item Belief
in Myth scale measured the degree to which one believes in myths surrounding spouse abuse and included such statements as: The abuse
cannot be that terrible or the women would leave. Batterers are uneducated men who are unable to cope with the world. The reliability coefficient for this subscale was 0.83. The eleven-item Recognition of
Signs of Battered Women scale measured the degree to which one recognizes the signs of wife abuse and included such statements as: She
seems to take the blame for mishaps in the family. She is hesitant to
provide information when asked about her relationship/marriage. The
reliability coefficient was 0.90. The 21-item Breadth of Definition of
Wife Abuse scale measured the extent to which one defines certain behaviors as abusive, and it included such statements as: He monitors
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how she spends her time (run errands, commute to work, etc.) and He
screams and yells at her. The items included behaviors that were
considered physically, psychologically and financially abusive. Respondents were asked to rate each item with regards to whether it represented wife abuse. The reliability coefficient was 0.96.
POTENTIAL LIMITATIONS
Maturation
This threat to validity was most probable among those ministers/priests
who received the first mailing, read it but delayed in filling out the questionnaire. Between the first and second mailing (two and one-half
weeks to eight weeks), they might have become sensitized to the issue
of battered women. This increased awareness could have affected their
responses such as increased suspicion of spouse abuse. However, any
increased awareness would presumably affect both fundamentalist and
liberal ministers.
Mono-Method Bias
All the measuring instruments used a pencil-paper method. This
method was chosen because of the sample size and the relatively large
number of measuring instruments. Personal interviews could have been
added as another method and the responses could differ. The sensitivity
of the topic and the more probable threat of social-desirability bias,
however, over-ruled the choice of using personal interviews for all the
ministers. It would be recommended that future research use other
methods to measure these variables.
External Validity
Generalization of data to other populations of clerics may be limited
as the sample was drawn from Protestant and Catholic clergy who have
churches in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties and nearby cities in
Los Angeles County. In addition, regional differences may attract certain personality types or denominations, or may affect the amount of social awareness of domestic violence among the ministers. However, the
data set is broad; any regional differences may be minimal.
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RESULTS
There were 38 Protestant denominations represented in the study, totaling 237 respondents (81% of all the respondents). Forty-nine percent
(144) of the Protestant questionnaires were from seven denominations:
Assembly of God, Baptist, Church of Christ, Lutheran, Methodist, Nondenominational, and Presbyterian. The ministers did not further specify
their denominations (e.g., Southern Baptist, United Methodist, etc.).
The rest of the Protestant respondents (51%) were spread among 31
other Protestant denominations. The sample size of each of these denominations was not large enough to generate individual analyses.
Catholic priests returned 57 questionnaires (19% of all respondents).
Total male respondents constituted 95% (278 ministers) of the returns
and total number of female respondents was 5% (16 ministers). The
mean age of the ministers was 48.9 years; the range was from 24 to 79
years old. The ethnic background of the ministers was predominantly
Caucasian/Anglo (79%). Hispanic/Latino constituted 8% of the ministers; African-American/Black 6.1%; Asian/Pacific Islander 4% and Native American 2%.
Differences Among the Ministers
Data analyses included the exploration of potential differences among
categories of ministers. Table 1 indicates the significant differences that
were found among the different types of ministers (Protestant female,
Protestant male, and Catholic male) in relation to the areas of fundamentalist religious beliefs, breadth of definition of wife abuse, females
rights and male headship. The results will be discussed in the following
sections.
Fundamentalist Religious Belief. There was significant difference
among the ministers in their degree of fundamentalist religious belief.
The Protestant male ministers had scored significantly higher on the
Religious Attitude Inventory scale than either Protestant female ministers or Catholic ministers. This higher score (as indicated by the
mean in Table 1) indicates that the Protestant male ministers held a
significantly greater degree of fundamentalist religious belief than either the Protestant female or Catholic priests. The Catholic priests and
the Protestant female ministers, on the other hand, were significantly
more liberal and may have a broader interpretation of the doctrines
than the Protestant male ministers. The female ministers, in particular,
may be more liberal in their interpretation of the Bible especially re-
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Protestant
Protestant
Male Priests
Male Ministers
Female Ministers
SD
SD
SD
Breadth of Definition
of Wife Abuse (p .02)
5.05ab
.73
56
4.86a
.82
213
5.35b
.45
16
1.86a
.70
56
1.72a
.70
214
1.46a
.34
16
Recognition of Signs
of Abuse (p .03)
4.27a
.92
55
4.06a
.87
213
4.58a
.90
16
Fundamentalist Religious
Belief (p.00)
3.64b
.72
51
4.99a
.88
211
3.63b
1.39
16
1.15
206
5.56
.53
16
Females' Rights/Worth
(p.00)
4.79
.93
53
4.43
2.60b
.77
55
3.18a
.82
210
2.11b
.52
15
55
.56
216
4.94a
.35
16
4.91
.69
5.07
Note: The means in the same row that share the same superscript are not significantly different by Tukeys.
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of the female ministers indicated that they had attended seminars/workshops on spouse abuse. Since more female ministers attended seminars/workshops on spouse abuse, they would be more cognizant of the
types of behaviors that would be considered abusive, hence, defined
wife abuse accordingly.
It is also possible that some male ministers may be reflecting a patriarchal mind set in seeing the behaviors that are seemingly more
male-dominant as normal behaviors in a marriage. There were a few
male ministers who commented that it was difficult to rate the behaviors
on a scale from abusive to not abusive, because they considered
some of the items on the scale to be normal occurrences in a marriage
(However, all these items had been selected for the scale because they
were defined as abusive in the domestic violence literature).
Religious belief also appears to influence the ministers breadth of
definition of abuse. Correlation analysis showed that ministers who
scored higher on fundamentalism (as indicated on the Religious Attitude Inventory scale), tended to have a narrower definition of wife
abuse [r (275) 2.18, p .002]. Thus, Protestant male ministers who
had the greatest adherence to fundamentalism had the most narrow
breadth of definition of abuse.
Male Headship. Male headship refers to the belief that men have
greater importance or responsibility in the family and in the church.
Protestant male ministers endorsement of male headship was significantly greater than that of either the female ministers or Catholic priests.
The degree of adherence to fundamentalist religious belief appears to
affect the ministers perspective on male headship. The Protestant male
ministers who had the greatest adherence to fundamentalist religious
belief had the greatest degree of endorsement of male headship among
the ministers.
Females Rights/Worth. Table 1 also shows that there was a significant difference across gender among the ministers regarding their perspectives on females rights/worth. Female ministers were inclined to
advocate for a greater degree of females rights than male ministers;
female ministers advocated greater freedom for women in terms of
their roles in the church and home than male ministers. Advocacy for
greater freedom for women may be a reflection of the female ministers continuing struggle in the faith community as their role is still
considered controversial in some denominations. Schurman (1991)
related his experience in having counseled women clergy who felt that
the price of their entering the ministry was very high due to sexism in
the church, and many have left because of that price. Female ministers
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TABLE 2. Ministers Perception of the Level of Responsibility of the Wife, Husband and the Minister in Spouse Abuse
Catholic Male
Protestant Male
Priests
Protestant Female
Ministers
Ministers
SD
SD
SD
N
15
Wife (p.28)
4.54a
1.90
48
4.09a
2.65
268
3.40a
2.29
Husband (p.00)
6.70a
1.58
48
7.46b
1.50
208
8.27b
.70
15
Ministers (p.00)
6.10b
2.00
52
7.14a
1.55
216
7.08ab
1.93
15
Notes: High number in means equals greater level of responsibility. M refers to the means and SD refers to the
standard deviations.
Means of variables in the same row that share a letter in their superscript are not significantly different by Tukey's
HSD.
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community agencies, the church can help bring about spiritual, physical
and emotional healing to their parishioners.
The results in this study suggest that a ministers degree of adherence
to fundamentalist religious belief and sometimes their gender may influence their perceptions of and interventions with battered women.
Among the ministers, significant differences were found in the areas of
fundamentalist religious beliefs, breadth of definition of wife abuse, females rights/worth and male headship. It appears that fundamentalist
religious belief has a significant effect on the breadth of definition, male
headship and females rights. It also impacts whether or not ministers
ask women about spouse abuse. The greater the ministers adherence to
fundamentalist religious belief, the narrower their definition of wife
abuse, greater adherence to male headship and greater belief in myths of
spouse abuse. The results are not suggesting that ministers who hold
fundamentalist religious belief are harmful to battered women or ineffective in helping battered women. Ministers have often sacrificed
greatly to take up the call of the ministry. They are on-call 24 hours a
day, seven days a week to meet the needs of their parishioners. Ministers with fundamentalist religious beliefs may be resistant to discussing
societal issues or working with secular agencies. But there are areas
where they cannot meet the needs of their parishioners. It may be necessary to set aside religious differences to form collaborative relationships in the community to mutually benefit each other in addressing this
issue of spouse abuse. There are battered women who want spiritual
guidance but use counseling services in secular agencies. The counselors there may not be able to address the spiritual issues. It would be
helpful for these agencies to have ministers they can refer the women to
receive the spiritual guidance. Ministers can help train social workers
and counselors regarding major spiritual concerns that battered women
may have in facing abuse. Counselors/therapists can train ministers in
areas of crisis intervention, the dynamics of abusive relationships, recognizing signs of abuse, etc.
It would be important for the ministers to examine whether or not
there are components within their religious beliefs that may become
barriers to them in obtaining more information about abuse and learning
appropriate interventions. It would be helpful for ministers to be aware
that adherence to strict/traditional gender roles may prevent them from
having a clear understanding of spouse abuse and asking women about
spouse abuse. A lack of understanding or absence of discussion about
abuse within the church may inhibit battered women and batterers from
disclosing their abusive situations and seeking help.
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Weaver, A.J., H.G. Koenig, and D.B. Larson. (1997). Marriage and family therapists
and the clergy: A need for clinical collaboration, training, and research. Journal of
Marital and Fmily Therapy, 23: 13.
Weaver, A. (1993). Psychological trauma: What clergy need to know. Pastoral Psychology, 41: 385-408. Cited in Nason-Clark, N. (2000). Making the sacred safe:
Woman abuse and communities of faith. Sociology of Religion, 61: 349.
Weaver, A. (1992). Working with potentially dangerous persons: What the clergy need
to know. Pastoral Psychology, 40: 313-323.
Wong Gengler, S. (2001). An evaluation of the transitional housing programs. A working report prepared for the State Department of Health Services, Maternal and Child
Health Branch, Domestic Violence Section. Sacramento: CA.
Received: 05/01
Revised: 08/01
Accepted: 09/01
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