It’s been nearly a week since the story broke that Josh Duggar had molested five girls, including his sisters, as a 14 year old boy – the youngest victim being only 4 years old at the time.  Many articles have been written (shared hundreds of thousands of times) in defense of Josh and his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle.  This is troubling and infuriating because these articles demonstrate the widespread lack of understanding in the U.S. Church regarding the seriousness of sexual crimes, and are examples of the typical Christian response to sex abuse  – to deal with it in-house (even when church leaders are mandatory reporters), to minimize the abuse (thereby compounding the trauma of the victim), and to cover up the “mistakes” (rather, CRIMES) for the sake of saving face and the reputation of the particular church, organization or family.  Many Christians have demanded that we focus on forgiving Josh and leaving this story…

I wanted to share these excellent posts from TrueLove Homes with you:

MYTH #1: Domestic Violence only happens to poorer, uneducated women
MYTH #2: Domestic violence doesn’t affect that many people
MYTH #3: Abuse only constitutes physical injury
MYTH #4: Substance abuse causes domestic abuse
MYTH #5: Once we (fill in the blank), he will no longer abuse me
MYTH #6: He’s saved so he must be safe
MYTH #7: If it’s that bad, a victim of domestic violence would just leave
MYTH #8: The abuse must not have been that bad or she would not have returned to him
MYTH #9: All victims of domestic violence get custody of their kids
MYTH #10: Upon leaving an abusive relationship, life gets better