This article was originally posted here.

Last Tuesday, Elizabeth Koepping gave a valedictory paper at the weekly World Christianity seminar here in the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh.¹  Prof. Brian Stanley responded to her paper by saying that it was ‘truly disturbing… in a good way’, in that it exposed the problem of spousal violence that exists amongst Christians, validated by the Bible, and often ignored or hidden by church leadership.  Her field and documentary research was conducted in multiple contexts: Taiwan, Australia, Ghana, etc. – and Scotland.  But the underlying reality was the same: domestic violence is pervasive, within and without the church.  Moreover, she suggested that theologically the church must reclaim the understanding of the Imago Dei in both man and woman in order to combat these atrocities.

With my personal interest in East Asia, one of the things I was particularly concerned with is how spousal violence is validated not only with the Bible, but with Confucianism. One of the quotes Elizabeth read which really highlighted this for me was from a Protestant woman in Taiwan, in 2006:

The church, like Chinese culture, teaches me to be gentle, sensitive: I cannot be angry if [he] hits me.

Clearly there is a hermeneutical problem if one can rationalise the Bible as legitimising spousal inequality and abuse.  But this is also very much explicitly found in the historical practices of Chinese culture, thanks to Confucianism.² Take for instance this passage from Mengzi 孟子 3B.2:

At the marrying away of a young woman, her mother admonishes her, accompanying her to the door on her leaving, and cautioning her with these words, ‘You are going to your home. You must be respectful; you must be careful. Do not disobey your husband’

In a context like Taiwan, where Confucianism is both explicitly and implicitly taught, the hermeneutical problem becomes even more exacerbated by an additional contextual legitimisation.

I guess to take this another direction, theologically, what advantage is it that men and women are created in the image of God?  I would presume that church leaders of the Presbyterian church, the Roman Catholic church, and the True Jesus Church (the three groups in her field work), would all teach from Genesis 1:27, at one point or another.

Yet a contextual theology which moves towards an integrated, hybridised Confucian-Christian faith must also reckon with this and address this head-on. Part of this may require, as Elizabeth recommended, a more careful reading of Ephesians 5 that emphasises a mutual submission to one another out of reverence to Christ (v.21).  Part of this may also require a more careful reading of Confucian texts like the writings of Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 (179-104 BC)³ who has underscored a clarification of the Mengzi’s five relations with a balance of yin-yang 阴阳 dualities:

The relationships between ruler and subject, father and son, husband and wife, are all derived from the principles of the yin and yang.

Indeed, Elizabeth’s paper is truly disturbing, in a good way, and should challenge us to constructively think, feel and act – theologically, emotively, and practically.