4,000 American soldiers died during the first 5 years of the Iraq War. That's horrific! During those same 5 years, 5,500 American women were killed, not by an enemy, but by their husbands and boyfriends, not in a faraway country, but in their own homes.

This could have happened to me. Instead, through the grace of God and the support of family and friends, through immense privilege and sheer blind luck, I was able to claw my way out of an abusive marriage.  My journey toward healing and safety was complicated by my priest. He told me to go back, to forgive and forget.  He told me that my husband had had a religious conversion and changed. He told me that if I left the marriage, I could no longer consider myself a Christian. I felt completely, utterly, and hopelessly alone. I left the marriage, and with it I left my faith.  

Years later, I worked at a battered women's shelter.  Imagine my surprise when woman after woman came to the shelter with my story on her lips.  One woman said she had told her priest 27 years earlier about the abuse.  He told her to go back home and pray harder.  "Now," she said, "I have calluses on my knees and he still beats me."  Another woman said, "I turned the other cheek, and turned the other cheek, until I ran out of faces."

It was a revelation to me how many women had "run out of faces."  Although studies show that many victims, abusers, and family members reach out to faith leaders for help, most clergy have received little or no training on how to help.  As a result, their responses often minimize and deny the problem. Sometimes they silence and blame the victim.  One pastor said, "I counsel abused wives to go back home and be more submissive.  I know that works, because they never come back to me for more help."

There are profound elements of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions that speak eloquently of God as a liberator of the oppressed, a protector of the orphan and the widow.  This is the God who raises up the most humiliated, who sets the prisoner free, who protects the vulnerable under the warmth of a sheltering wing.  This is the God who never fails to hear the cries of the oppressed.  And yet, for so many thousands of survivors, survivors just like me, faith is a barrier to safety rather than a bridge.

In 1991, in honor of all the women who have "run out of faces," I founded Safe Havens Interfaith Partnership Against Domestic Violence. At Safe Havens, we work together toward a day when all faith communities will have the training, skills, and resources to be Safe Havens for victims of domestic violence. We work together toward a day when faith communities collaborate with local domestic violence service providers not only to help victims of domestic violence, but to prevent it, now and in the future. Together, we can create a world in which no one will ever again be forced to choose between faith and safety.