Coercive control continues to come to the forefront while many Christ-professing people fight divorce and remain silent on the issue. In South Carolina, coercive control is not recognized as grounds for divorce and people must wait a year before they can get a no-fault divorce.
Within that time, Mica and many others like her are stalked, tracked, threatened, harassed, slandered, etc., and even killed. Some end their own lives because the reality of their oppression becomes unbearable.
In most states, coercive control is not even a crime. Most who are convicted of physical violence against a domestic partner spend little to no time in prison.
Divorce is God’s deliverance for the oppressed. No-fault divorce is the safest option as it can protect abusers’ reputations while protecting the victims. It saves lives.
Fighting consequences for abuse is showing toxic empathy to abusers and it also hinders the knowledge of sin that leads to the gospel.
A nation that remains apathetic to cruelty and subjects the vulnerable to such injustice is not following the Lord.
It’s time to change.
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. – Acts 17:30-31
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. – Psalm 103:6
When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. – Isaiah 1:15-17
Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. – Psalm 82:4
