“He leaned on the pulpit, and said in a stern fatherly voice, ‘Now ladies, there’s a case here in the news where a wife is making accusations against her husband. You need to understand this. There is no such thing as rape in marriage. There’s no such thing because the Bible says your body belongs to your husband.’”

“Your pastor said that?” my friend asked, almost dropping her coffee.
“That and a whole bunch of other things about how to be an obedient helpmate,” I told her.
“Good grief! Why did you stay?”
“I didn’t know I could leave.” I answered.

All these years later it’s my answer to her question that is the most painful memory. I didn’t know I could leave.

A person doesn’t come to accept this kind of authoritarian instruction in a day. As is the case with victims of domestic abuse, victims of spiritual abuse…