Chris Brown and Rihanna: The Religious Underpinnings of Domestic Violence

Tyra Banks said she was emotionally abused while in her 20s. Even though she was one of the top ten models in the world at the time, she stayed with her abuser because her self esteem was on the floor. As she told Oprah, “I stayed because I felt like if I left and he didn’t change and didn’t treat me how I felt I deserved to be treated, I was a failure.”

Where does this crazy mixed-up set of signals come from that says women are “less than” men? Well, the Bible for one. In Genesis, Adam’s role is to be Eve’s master: “…thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” Passage after passage reaffirms the unworthiness of women and their subservient position. No different than the traditional Islamic saying that “A woman’s heaven is beneath her husband’s feet,” or Paul saying in Romans in the New Testament that the “natural use” of women is to provide men with sex.

Think that was all a long, long time ago? Here’s Reverend Pat Robertson, the noted Christian evangelist: “The Feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians.” And in 2000 the nation’s largest Protestant decision-making body — The Southern Baptist Convention — added into their core teachings that a woman must be subject to her husband in all things, which they call “headship.” The husband, no matter how much of an ignoramus he may be, must prevail.

Read the original article at: Huffington Post