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Fist things first
03415
October 1, 2003

Fist things first

Churchwomen oppose domestic-violence culture in Guatemala

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - "No, I don't think churches in Guatemala are beginning to
address domestic violence," Judith Castaqeda says with a shake of her head.
"... I think we are beginning to address it."

	Castaqeda is director of Cedepca, a Protestant think-tank in
Guatemala City, the only place in the country where evangelicals can study
violence against women and related theological issues.

	It hardly seems radical to think that churches might denounce
wife-beating and date-rape, but Castaqeda says Guatemalan churches are
stubbornly silent.

	"Oh no," she says. "There are no programs. No preaching. How many
sermons have I heard about violence against women in churches over the last
10 years? None."

	In all of Guatemala, in fact, there is only one shelter for battered
women. It is in Quezaltenango, the nation's second-largest city, high in the
mountains. Although USAID has talked about building others, so far none
exists. The capital, Guatemala City, with more than three million residents
packed into sprawling shanties, doesn't have a single shelter for battered
women.

	Sandi Thompson-Royer, a U.S. Presbyterian who for three years has
been working with Cedepca to train Guatemalan women to deal with domestic
violence, agrees with Castaqeda and shares her frustration.

	The women are in Louisville for a gathering of presbyteries who are
partnering with Guatemalan presbyteries, churches and agencies.

	Thompson-Royer has devoted most of her career to working with victims
of domestic violence in the United States. In Guatemala she has helped train
Christian women to be advocates; in February, the now annual course is
designed for Guatemalan school teachers, to help them understand how domestic
violence affects children.

	When Cedepca offered a workshop for Guatemalan pastors, no one showed
up, despite the fact that it was well publicized.

	So she is too familiar with what Castaqeda is saying. She has heard
it before - and has said much of it, often addressing U.S. congregations.

	"I think denominations in the United States are way ahead (of
international churches), in terms of educating and policy," Thompson-Royer
says, citing as an example "Turning Mourning into Dancing," a policy paper
approved by the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly in 2001.

	But she points out that most U.S. churches are nearly as quiet as
their Guatemalan counterparts: Christians don't endorse assaults on wives,
kids or girlfriends, but few say so in sermons or pastoral prayers or in
public forums.

	Nor do many congregations or pastors confront abusers about their
behavior. Consequently, batterers and abusers of other kinds sit in the pews,
unaccused.

	"The obstacles here and in Guatemala are very similar,"
Thompson-Royer says. "The church continues to oppress women. We may be
further along in education  but when I was hearing the stories of women
living with violence (in Guatemala) and all over the world, they're very
similar; things that happen in homes are very similar 

	"Most everybody agrees that is not OK to batter your wife or child.
It is the other part that is more difficult, particularly if the abuser is
part of your congregation, if he is a leader in your church. That's more
difficult."

	In other words, doing something about it is where churches often
fail.

	One of the painful connections between battered Christian women in
Guatemala and in the United States is bad theology - derived from
fundamentalist readings of Bible texts that seem to advise women to stay
quiet and obey the men who hurt them physically and emotionally.

	"The Bible can be used as a resource or a block," Thompson-Royer
says. "Take the Ephesians text: 'Wives, be subject to your husbands'; that's
the big one. We try to empower women to look at the texts differently. ...
They don't have to see these texts as oppressive to them. That was not Jesus'
message at all."

	The odd part about this project, called Women Walking Together, is
how unexpectedly it unfolded. Thompson-Royer visited Guatemala with a
delegation from the Inland-Northwest Presbytery, which has a formal
partnership with the Kekche, an indigenous group that lives in Guatemala's
isolated northern mountains. It is land so rugged that there are few roads or
bridges to cross into it.

	Cedepca was looking for a way to reach the Kekche women, who wanted
to talk about their lives and their faith - and the role violence plays in
both. After an exchange of emails, Thompson-Royer began shaping an advocacy
program with Elizabeth Carrera, another Cedepca staffer.

	And it took hold.

	Women Walking Together is now a core component of Cedepca's Women's
Pastoral Program, a curriculum for women that includes classes on healthy
relationships, women's theology, sexual and reproductive health, and strong
women of the Bible.

	"This perspective is a different way of looking at the Bible, at
life, at Christianity," says Castaqeda. "We believe that is it possible to
make a change in your life, to improve your life. That's the Gospel, really.
I really do believe people can be changed by the Gospel message, if you go
deep enough into it."

	The hard part is getting a hearing.

	In Guatemala, Cedepca is partnering with women's groups who are
organizing to help women extract themselves from violent homes and marriages.
Associations of women lawyers and advocates trained by Cedepca are beginning
to work together, which Castaqeda says is no small feat.

	Castaqeda says it took time for Cedepca to earn the trust of secular
women's groups already working on the issue. "There's the perception that
there's no interest from evangelicals," she says, so Cedepca has had to work
hard to demonstrate that not all evangelicals think or behave alike.

	Castaqeda gropes for English words to describe how liberating it is
to crack through the culture's message that women are somehow less than men -
and to read the redemptive words of scripture without fundamentalist
blinders. "Those words have been there all the time," she says, "so how come
I've been to church for the last 20 years and not heard really what the Bible
says?"

	The strength of this grassroots movement reminds Thompson-Royer of
the early days of the U.S. women's movement when issues such as equal wages,
abortion rights and spouse abuse made it onto the national agenda. "Doing
grassroots work again, there is so much passion," she says. "These women are
very, very passionate. They're continuing to do education in their
communities. They're sharing their stories more. And they're going for help
more."

	Yet it remains an insidious problem.

	Castaqeda says the network mobilized recently to help the battered
wife of a judge in Coban, despite the jitters that the man's position
induced.

	Thompson-Royer says she heard noise coming from the pastor's office
while she was attending a meeting in a U.S. church, and discovered that the
minister was abusing his wife in the next room.

	"Its everywhere," Thompson-Royer says.

	Funding for Women Walking Together comes from multiple sources,
including the Presbytery of the Inland Northwest Guatemala Task Force, the
Presbytery of the Inland Northwest and Synod of Alaska Peacemaking Program,
Presbyterian Women, and individuals and congregations.

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