Setting the Captives Free: A Christian Theology for Domestic Violence

Description: Abuse is a problem that needs to be understood addressed and challenged. The abused are humans in the image of God who need to be protected loved and empowered to stand with us and walk through life with respect and dignity. When God brings a victim to us we have a responsibility to love them as we want to be loved and be faithful to that responsibility. We must make sure that they and their children are safe protected and given the chance to live in peace and love. Abusers are also humans who are in the image of God and they need to be taught how to live and respect all others. They must be confronted and challenged to change or face prosecution by our legal system and our spiritual communities. I believe that the faith community is in a great position to address this problem. We have a God who grieves over the violence that occurs in families. Yet we have a God who grieves even more over the fact that spiritual leaders have failed to act as servants of Yahweh in this respect. The rest of this book is an appeal to you to gain an understanding of what it really means to face domestic violence and how to help bring peace and wholeness to victims and their children caught in the web of abuse. It is an appeal to you to confront those who abuse others rather than shut your eyes . . . . --from the Introduction Endorsements: Setting the Captives Free should be required reading in every seminary! Ron Clarks knowledge on the dynamics of domestic violence including the power and control issues surrounding the cycle of abuse is essential for clergy and Christian Counselors alike. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more about how they might better assist victims of domestic violence in the faith community. --Patricia Riddle Gaddis MA Director & Founder of The Family Peace Project Author of Battered But Not Broken: Help for Abused Wives and their Church Families and Dangerous Dating: Helping Young Women Say No To Abuse. Every few years a book comes along which opens the eyes of the church to a critical spiritual need in the world and the alarming gap in our theology which has closed our eyes to that need. Setting the Captives Free is one of those books. Just as Barnas books have done concerning the lost just as Siders books have done concerning poverty so Rons book does concerning domestic abuse. Ron opens the churchs eyes to the dark world of domestic abuse victims and the gap in our theology which has kept us blind to their needs. After reading the book I feel to my knees in repentance for not leading our church to minister to these victims. Ron gave me the tools and the theology to begin talking to our congregation about these needs. --Dr. Chris Altrock Minister Highland Street Church of Christ Memphis TN Author The Cross: Saved by the Shame of It All and Preaching to Pluralists This is a groundbreaking book that is well worth reading. It really grasps the issues of abuse and provides practical spiritual answers to anyone who has been impacted directly or indirectly. --Bettie Williams-Watson Founder Executive Director of Multi-Communities (M.I.C.) Seattle WA. About the Contributor(s): Ron Clark is the Minister for the Agape Church of Christ in Portland Oregon. He has led training seminars on domestic violence for pastors law enforcement groups and congregations. His articles on abuse have appeared in both religion and counseling journals.