Intimate Partner Violence and the Influence of the Faith Factor

The research article is based on a broader research project that set out to investigate the influence of Christian teachings and biblical texts on Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) among the Christian Women of Kilifi County of Kenya. Its specific focus is on how faith became a key coping strategy for women swimming in the troubled waters of IPV. Methodologically, it relied on oral interviews that were conducted among 30 women, 10 pastors, and 12 community leaders in Kilifi County. Overall, the research article argues that faith, in the larger realm of religion, is not only used to normalize IPV, but also utilized as a coping tool by victims. This further fuels a vice that is rooted in Judeo-African patriarchal ideals. Yet it has also established that some women adopted alternative strategies, outside the religious realm, so as to cope with the harsh reality surrounding them. The latter lost faith in religious approaches, and eventually adopted non-religious strategies in their endeavor to manage their circumstances. The need to revisit the idea of ‘separation’ and/or divorce, as a pragmatic approach for Christian women facing IPV, has been suggested as a workable strategy where need arises.</jats:p

Religious and Patriarchal Beliefs that Influence Christian Women to Persevere in Abusive Relationships: With Reference to Giriama People, Kenya

This article examines how cultural beliefs and patriarchal practices during the early period of the spread of Christianity promoted intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in the church. The article begins by exploring some cultural and patriarchal beliefs that were practised by the Jews and Giriama people during the pre-evangelistic period that promoted IPV against women through religious and cultural practices to see violence as normal, thus choosing to persevere in violent relationships. New strategies for preventing IPV against women have been discussed. In this descriptive research, data were collected from 52 informants using questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The study interviewed 30 women facing IPV individually. Abused women provided information in focus group discussions. Ten pastors were sampled in order to gather data on how cultural and patriarchal practices with the support of biased biblical interpretation of texts, promoted IPV against Christian women. Twelve questionnaires were administered to six gender officers, three probation officers and three social workers, and the findings were used to supplement data collected from the key informants. This study established that some Bible texts are interpreted and used by wife abusers and pastors offering counselling to the IPV victims to promote and justify IPV. It, therefore, recommended that the church should organise to re-read and re-learn these Bible texts with a view to interpreting them without being biased against women. The church should also re-examine all patriarchal passages in the Bible with a view to facilitating contextual and reasoned scrutiny of the male-controlled beliefs and practices that promote IPV against women. The article established that cultural beliefs and patriarchal practices promote IPV against women. Some pastors and wife abusers interpret some Bible verses to justify spousal abuse; however, if the problem of IPV is to be prevented, the church, the government, and other stakeholders involved in a war against IPV on women must embrace new strategies that are free from cultural and patriarchal beliefs and practices