talk to?’ ‘What did you wear?’ ‘Why would you wear stuff that would make other guys look at you?’ ‘Are you trying to impress these guys?’ Sometimes, he’d explicitly say that he didn’t want me wearing makeup.” With no previous dating experience, Kendrick was at first unable to identify her boyfriend’s control tactics. “I just figured this was what was done in a relationship,” she says. “I thought he was protective and concerned, and I convinced myself that he was just looking out for me.” Over time, however, Kendrick began to realize that her boyfriend was not only controlling but also manipulative and dangerous.“When we had been dating for about three months,” she says, “he became more demanding on what I should and shouldn’t do. ‘You will not do this.’ ‘You will not go here.’ ‘You will not talk to this person.’” The young man also became physically abusive. “He hated me arriving late at the meetings we had scheduled. It was just a pet peeve of his. We often met at a parking lot near my parents’ house. On one occasion when I got there late, he was angry at me. I said I was sorry, but he told me to get in the car, shut up, and stop trying to apologize. He was very forceful and a lot bigger than me, so it was pretty easy for him to hold me down. He was holding my arm so tightly that I told him, ‘You’re hurting me, let go.’ But he looked at me and said, ‘You’re not going anywhere.’ I was very afraid.” Kendrick’s boyfriend finally released her from his physical clutches, but not before further terrorizing her. “He tried to kiss me but I turned my head because I wanted nothing
and congregants need to know about abuse in teen dating BY AL MILES
“I met him through my church,” recalls Kendrick, the daughter of a Christian pastor. She was 14 when she began dating her first boyfriend, who was 17. “We went on a mission trip together with high school students the summer before I went into high school. He was very nice to me. We talked a lot on the trip, but didn’t see each other that much once we came back home. So we began instant messaging.” The young couple’s conversations were routine, at least initially. “We’d just talk about our days apart, how much we missed each other, typical stuff,” Kendrick says. “Even when I first came back from the mission trip, my parents were not happy about me seeing this guy.They wanted to keep me away from him because he didn’t have the best reputation. So he and I talked a lot about how unhappy I was.” Gradually, Kendrick’s boyfriend became more controlling. “He’d ask me, ‘What did you do today?’ ‘Who did you
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Kate Komarnicki
What clergy, youth ministers,
to do with him at that point. So, as a type of punishment, he lifted me up a little, we were in the back seat of the car, and he slammed my head back down onto the side of the door. I was trying not to cry, because one of his things was my crying meant that he had done something to hurt me. He’d say, ‘Since all I do is love you, if you’re crying you must be lying.’ He was very manipulative. Finally, he shoved me out of the car and said, ‘Stop being such a baby, I was just kidding.’” Kendrick says that her boyfriend never again used such physical force. She has a clear understanding as to why he no longer had to employ this particular abuse tactic. “He would grab my arm in the same place he grabbed me in his car, and this would scare me enough that I’d immediately do whatever he wanted.” He also began using more emotional abuse tactics. “He’d tell me how depressed he was,” Kendrick says, “but, if I loved him more, he wouldn’t be so depressed and everything would be okay. Or, he’d say, ‘I think I love you more than you love me.’ It was almost like a game that I had to play to convince him that I loved him enough.” But, despite his constant proclamations of love, Kendrick’s boyfriend continued to treat her disrespectfully. “If I missed a conversation,” she says, “due to class or having a meeting with one of my teachers, the next time I would talk to him he would constantly ask, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Are you cheating on me?’ ‘You are a whore.’ ‘You are a slut.’ This happened a lot.” Eventually, Kendrick was able to break free from this young man. But, as we will see shortly, she continues to live with the emotional and spiritual scars caused by the abuse he perpetrated against her.
(teenresearch.com), these startling facts were discovered: ■ More than half of teens (57 percent) know friends or others their age who have experienced physical, sexual, or verbal abuse. ■ More than half of girls (51 percent) know a friend or a peer who has been verbally abused or threatened, as have one-third of boys (34 percent). ■ Fully four in 10 girls know a friend or peer who has been pressured to have intercourse; nearly a third of girls (32 percent) know someone who has been pressured into performing oral sex. ■ Thirty-three percent of teens know a friend or peer who has been physically abused—either hit, punched, kicked, slapped, choked, or otherwise physically hurt (such as being bruised from a punch). ■ Verbal abuse is also frequent: 44 percent of girls and 27 percent of guys know someone who has been repeatedly abused verbally. Christian teens are no less vulnerable to the pervasive problem of teen dating violence. They may even be more likely to experience a specific tactic of control and manipulation not listed above: the misuse of God, Jesus Christ, Scripture, and church doctrine and tradition.
Spiritual abuse “I’ve yet to decide what was worse: the actual relationship with my ex-boyfriend or the first couple of months after I broke up with him,” Kendrick discloses. “Throughout our relationship he had told me that God meant for us to be together. That was something he said a lot as a manipulative tactic.” When the relationship ended, the young man used his past history of drug abuse as a way to manipulate other church members. “What he did was to convince everyone except one person in our high school youth group that I was selfish because I was the person he needed to try to stay clean from drugs,” Kendrick says. “He would go from telling others ‘I need her to stay clean’ to ‘I don’t know why she’s being so self-centered and selfish. This isn’t about her. It’s about me needing religion and to attend church to stay clean.’ Almost everyone bought into his deception. Since we both were attending the church where my father was the pastor, the implied question to me from others in the congregation was, ‘Why aren’t you helping him?’ People who I considered very close friends would not talk to me. I was furious and so upset. I couldn’t understand what was happening.” Five years later, Kendrick continues to live with the emotional and spiritual scars brought on by the abuse of her first boyfriend. “There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t, somehow, think of the relationship I had with him,” she
Definition and prevalence According to the Dating Violence Resource Center, a program of the National Center for Victims of Crime (www.ncvc. org), dating violence is controlling, abusive, and aggressive behavior in a romantic relationship. The problem occurs in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships and can include verbal, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, or a combination of these. Any teen can be a victim of dating violence.The problem exists in all cultures, races, socioeconomic classes, and faith communities. Both females and males are victimized. Boys injure girls more and are more likely to punch their partners and force them to participate in unwanted sexual activity, whereas girls are more likely to yell, threaten to hurt themselves, pinch, slap, scratch, or kick their partners. Some teen victims experience violence occasionally. Others are abused more often, sometimes daily. In a study commissioned by Liz Claiborne Inc. and conducted in March 2006 by Teenage Research Unlimited
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confesses. “Even now, when I see a car like the one he drove, I check out the license plate. And, regarding intimacy, it’s much easier for me to have a casual physical relationship with another person than to worry about any emotional attachment and connection, because that’s much scarier.” Today, her relationship with and understanding of God are murky. “Religion is something that I have struggled with,” Kendrick admits. “Because my father is a minister, religion has been a constant presence in my life. I think when you’re a teenager that makes it something you don’t want. God is someone who knows everything I’ve done, every mistake I’ve made, and still is compassionate and forgiving. Yes, God is probably disappointed at some of the decisions I’ve made, but he is a compassionate and understanding God, who will always also be a loving God.”
ping among them, just as they occur in every other segment of society. Make the safety of victimized teens top priority—Many churchgoers express more concern about “ruining the reputation” of a teen victimizer than keeping a victimized teen safe.This is especially the case when the violator is male and the person being violated is female. However, safety for individuals facing abuse has always to be the top priority in any teen dating violence prevention and intervention strategy. Hold abusive teens accountable—A perpetrator of teen dating violence will blame everyone and anything for the abuse he or she is inflicting: alcohol and other drugs, depression, mood swings, race, school stresses, upbringing, and, especially, his or her intimate partner. Christian leaders and laity are very susceptible to the manipulative ways of male perpetrators. We tend to provide them quick absolution of their sins; claim for them some type of divine healing; blame females, due to actions or inactions, for their own victimization; and pressure these hurting young women into offering their male violators forgiveness. In reality, the best hope for abusive young men to stop their violent behavior and lead lives that will contribute to the betterment of humankind is for us to hold them accountable for their sins. This means assigning full responsibility to them for the damage they cause and encouraging them to seek appropriate, offender-specific help from a trained counselor or group facilitator.
How the church can help Listed below are some practical steps Christian leaders and laity need to follow in order to help prevent and end situations of dating violence faced by scores of Christian teens like Kendrick. First, let’s consider some common warning signs that may indicate a teen girl or boy is in an abusive dating relationship: ■ Radical change in behavior—teen seems anxious, depressed, hypersensitive, withdrawn ■ Ceases activities once enjoyed ■ Distances self from family and friends— especially if teen previously enjoyed a close relationship with these individuals ■ Decrease in academic performance ■ Seems uninterested in physical appearance or personal hygiene ■ Dresses inappropriately for the season or situation— wears coats, heavy jackets, sweaters, or sweatshirts in summer weather; or wears sunglasses on cloudy or rainy days or indoors ■ Receives an inordinate number of phone calls or text messages from dating partner—or partner always seems to be around ■ Seems afraid of dating partner, or either defends or takes the blame for partner’s bad behavior ■ Secretiveness ■ Has unexplained bruises or offers unbelievable or vague explanations for bruises.
Seek education and training—Christian leaders and laity need the expertise and support of the entire community of service providers in order to respond properly to this complex problem. Awareness education and training, taken at conferences and workshops, or found in the form of videos, articles, books, and pamphlets (see resources sidebar), will greatly reduce the temptation to offer quick-fix advice to victims and perpetrators or to be easily fooled by the deceptive and manipulative nature of perpetrators. Know your limits—Christian leaders and laity must not go beyond their level of expertise and training. Instead, we need to work in collaboration with a team of advocates, certified youth counselors, crisis intervention counselors, law enforcement officers, legal professionals, and victim and witness assistance personnel, to name just a few.
Additional prevention and intervention strategies
Model healthy relationships—Teens are very sensitive to adult behavior, especially that of their own parents. It is therefore essential that clergy, youth ministers, and all other adult congregants model healthy behavior in their own intimate
Accept reality—Clergy, youth ministers, and congregants must face the tragic but true fact that situations of teen dating violence are occurring between some of the youth worship-
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relationships. If this is not done, teens will view adults as hypocritical and dismiss any advice they offer.
Resources on Teen Dating Violence Awareness
Stay informed on the manner in which teens use technology—Chat rooms, cell phones, personal web pages, and text messaging are but a few ways today’s teens connect with each other and the rest of the world. These technological advances have also made it easier for teen perpetrators and adult predators to abuse children and youth. Clergy, youth ministers, and congregation members must stay informed on every aspect of the technology teens are using. Simply placing a computer in a well-trafficked area of our home does not come close to qualifying as an all-encompassing prevention strategy.
Books
Violence AgainstWomen and Children:A ChristianTheological Sourcebook, Carol J. Adams and Marie M. Fortune, eds. (Continuum, 1995). Dating Violence: Young Women in Danger (1991); What Parents Need to Know about Dating Violence (co-authored with Patricia Occhiuzzo Giggans, 1995); and In Love and in Danger: A Teen’s Guide to Breaking Free of Abusive Relationships (1998). All by Barrie Levy and published by Seal Press.
Focus on the equal value and worth of all humankind— Far too often Christian clergy, youth ministers, and parishioners, especially men and teen boys, have interpreted or translated passages from Scripture in a male-centered manner. This patriarchal construct has, since the beginning of time, provided men, young and old, with privileges and power over women, children, animals, and plants which God never intended. The overall message from both divine beings and sacred texts centers on the love, respect, value, and worth of all humankind, female and male. When Christian ministers and congregants model and teach an egalitarian way of living, it reduces greatly the tendency of males, batterers and nonbatterers alike, to use divine beings, sacred texts, and church doctrine and teachings to excuse or justify male acts of abuse and violence perpetrated against women, teenage girls, children, and each other. Teaching the equal value and worth of all humankind will also help empower female victims and survivors of teen dating violence to seek refuge and safety for themselves, realizing that no one deserves to be abused or abusive.
But I Love Him: ProtectingYourTeen Daughter from Controlling, Abusive Dating Relationships (HarperCollins, 2000); Destructive Relationships:A Guide to Changing the Unhealthy Relationships in Your Life (Jodere, 2002); and But He’s Never Hit Me:The Devastating Costs of Nonphysical Abuse to Girls and Women (Jodere, 2004). All by Jill Murray. Ending Violence in Teen Dating Relationships: A Resource Guide for Parents and Pastors (2005); Violence in Families: What Every Christian Needs to Know (2002); and Domestic Violence: What Every Pastor Needs to Know (2000). All by Al Miles and published by Augsburg Fortress Publishers. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Pipher (Ballentine Books, 1994).
Videos
Love—All That and More (faithtrustinstitute.org, 2001) is a three-video series featuring teens talking with teens about healthy relationships. Designed to inform youth about the elements that make up healthy relationships and increase their awareness and understanding about abuse, it also offers adults a window into the private world of teens and seeks to motivate all viewers to seek relationships based on equality and mutual respect.
Situations of teen dating violence are occurring in all segments of society. Clergy, youth ministers, and congregants can play a vital role in helping to prevent and end this pervasive issue. However, to be effective, we must first face the harsh reality that Christian teens are just as likely to become victims/survivors or perpetrators as are all other young adults. ■
Internet
National Teen Dating Abuse Helpline (loveisrespect. org) Liz Claiborne teen dating violence awareness initiatives (loveisnotabuse.com)
The Rev. Al Miles works for Pacific Health Ministry as the coordinator of the Hospital Ministry Department at The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is the author of multiple books about domestic and dating violence (see resources sidebar for more information).
Dating Violence Resource Center at the National Center for Victims of Crime (ncvc.org)
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