Pastors, Stop Enabling Harm Through Your Silence

Dec 12

Pastoral speech shapes the soul of a community, and when sermons on marriage, sex, or addiction avoid naming abuse and coercive control, the message received is not the message intended. Survivors in the pews hear “stay, pray, obey, and lay;” perpetrators hear validation cloaked as discipleship. The reality, supported by research and clinical practice, is that one in three relationships in any congregation will face domestic abuse or coercive control. That prevalence means a pastor’s silence is not neutral; it is formative.

Frankly, if we’re being honest, it makes the pastor complicit.

The pulpit carries a power differential most seminaries never teach well, and that weight amplifies every omission. When a leader preaches endurance without safety, forgiveness without accountability, or intimacy without consent, the church unwittingly adds locks to the victim’s cage and lends scripture to the abuser’s arsenal. The gospel announces freedom for the oppressed; if our words obscure that, we replace good news with heavy yokes and confusion that drives people from God rather than toward him.

The harm compounds when Christian culture frames sex as the “glue” of marriage. Citing admired authors while ignoring data, some sermons elevate intercourse above emotional safety, mutuality, and repair. Yet decades of observational research, including the Gottman studies, show that lasting relationships rest on friendship, attunement, conflict skills, and trust—not sexual frequency metrics. Many couples face sexual challenges across the lifespan; illness, trauma, postpartum seasons, medication, and aging all shift desire and capacity. To present sex as the binding agent inflates shame and reduces complex intimacy to a simplistic metric. Worse, it erases consent. When consent is missing, sex is not intimacy; it is coercion. That is not a marital duty; that is harm. Trauma-informed teaching restores nuance: consent must be enthusiastic and ongoing; pressure, fear, and manipulation nullify it. This language is theological, not trendy, because bodies matter to God, and love does not demand what love cannot freely receive.

The pastoral task demands naming coercive control directly: patterns of isolation, intimidation, financial domination, surveillance, spiritual abuse, sexual pressure (including marital rape), and threats. Abuse is not a mutual conflict; it is a one-sided misuse of power. Counsel that urges victims to try harder or have more sex to prevent porn use treats a person as a program, not a partner, and confuses the root drivers of compulsive behavior. Sexual addiction is not solved by obligating a spouse’s body; it is often tangled with trauma, shame, attachment wounds, and maladaptive coping. When leaders advise couples to move up weddings because they “burn with lust,” they risk baptizing coercion as “chemistry.” Asking one follow-up question, such as, “Do you feel pressured to do anything you don’t want?” can change a life. If you add three more—Are you safe? Who holds the power at home? What happens when you say no?—and you may interrupt a trajectory of harm that otherwise escalates over years. Sin does not stay stagnant.

Silence is not pastoral prudence; it is complicity. Scripture warns that teachers are judged more strictly because their words can bring life or death. The church must teach what God hates—oppression—and what God requires—protection of the weak, accountability for the strong, and truth in love that is costly, not cheap. Practically, that means embedding short, clear caveats whenever marriage, sex, submission, forgiveness, or reconciliation are taught: If your spouse uses fear, control, coercion, violence, or spiritual pressure, this text is not a call to endure harm; it is a call for us to protect you. It means refusing to mutualize abuse with language like “toxic patterns” when a power imbalance defines the relationship. It means refusing couple’s counseling when coercion is present and instead creating separate safety plans, clinical referrals, and a clear pathway of accountability for the perpetrator that includes confession, restitution, monitored change, and consequences for nonchange.

As a reminder, abuse is not a marriage problem; it causes marriage problems.

A trauma-informed church builds systems that match its sermons. It is imperative to train staff and elders with reputable programs. Partner with advocates who understand domestic abuse. Publish policies that bar mediation or conciliation in abuse cases, prohibit pressuring survivors into reconciliation, and outline what accountability for abusers involves beyond words. Curate discreet resource lists—national hotlines, local shelters, vetted therapists—and reference them out loud so people know help exists. Create a confidential intake process that does not require the victim to report through their spouse’s small group leader. Make sure your theology of submission honors its biblical shape: voluntary, mutual, and never weaponized to excuse harm. Submission is not slavery; subjugation is not holy. When you preach, model courage with specific sentences that are short enough to fit and strong enough to signal safety. Those sentences become lifelines.

Finally, listen. Survivors can tell you the things you need to know about their situation. Failing to listen to the voices of survivors not only minimizes important stories, but it keeps you from understanding the deep harm of coercive control. Church should be the safest place, those who are walking in sin (hint: that’s the oppressors) should be invited to repentance, and the oppressed should be set free. Pastors, James talks about the weight you carry as a teacher. Consider what omissions from the pulpit mean for those in harm’s way and what you may be called to answer for at the end of days.

If you’re a pastor who is willing to learn, we are willing to help you. Reach out today to start a journey to being a safer church.