Marriage is the relationship where God specifically wants to teach us who he is and how he loves us. How devastating then, to note the level of pain that can be inflicted within the marriage relationship.

So how exactly does Christ-like leadership lend itself to domestic abuse? I guess that’s the point isn’t it. Christ-like leadership will never lead to abuse. However, it would appear that there are sufficient Christian men and even sufficient church communities who have distorted God’s design for male headship into an arrangement of dominance and subservience that in no way reflects Christ’s love for his church for the claim to be made that complementarianism leads to increased rates of domestic abuse. 

A big mistake churches typically make in dealing with domestic abuse situations is treating them as if the couple has marriage problems. While the couple clearly has problems in their marriage, the abusive heart of the husband needs to be dealt with first.